society of st vincent de paul – president general, first asian

wkth reference to my post earlier about the flood relief operation by POHD, here is my article about it in UCAN. i hope later on, it will also appear in the herald (a more detailed one).

yeah these days i’m very busy writing articles for UCAN and herald. i love writing so i’m happy that i am doing something i love.  lately there had been a number of my articles appearing in UCAN. they are:

chuirch alone cannot makes us strong (interview with bishop of penang)

penang pipe organ sounds through the ages

after attending the freedom film fest during the past weekend, UCAN welcome me to write something about it too. i just might do it within these few days.

i notice that in this week’s herald, one of my article in UCAN about the bishop was published. well, sometimes herald will pick articles from other news agencies to publish, and UCAN is one of their source.  speaking of which, my latest article in the herald is about the tamil youth selling flowers and candles during all souls day. oh, btw, under UCAN, for my byline, i use the initial of my chinese name – C.Y, so it is C.Y. lai.

ok i’m coming to the subject heading now.

again this article of mine in UCAN refers.

i had talked about one of our church’s society, society of st vincent de paul (SSVP) before a few times in my blog. i’m a long time member of SSVP. used to be board member at state level, then at diocesan (northern) level and used to attend meetings at national level in KL.  now i had given up on those state and diocesan level and am just at conference (parish) level.

those who don’t know much about SSVP, please visit our website, of which i’m the one who maintain it.  sorry some of the details are not really updated. this is because i did not receive the updated info from the national office or members. anyway, if you know about SSVP, you’ll know that SSVP is an international society (oh we are a registered body too. SSVP in all churches are registered with the malaysia registrar of societies).  the international body is known as the international confederation of the society of st vincent de paul, and there is a ‘president general’ (international president) heading SSVP.  i’m proud to announce that for the first time ever, a non european member was elected as the president general. he is michael thio from singapore.  SSVP malaysia invited him to our recent ‘presidents day’ and i thought to take the opportunity to interview him. he was kind enough to be interviewed via email though, so it safe me a lot of work of writing out what he said. well, his interview is in UCAN.

about our ‘presidents day’ held in melaka, you can see the pictures at our website.  there is also a write up about the president general’s visit at the international confederation website.  one also appears in this week’s herald, written by another person. i will write a report for our society’s newsletter instead (and also of course to put up at our website).

i’m proud to be a SSVP member as this gives me a chance to be a servant to the poor/less fortunate – to bring christ to them.  btw, the slogan of the  SSVP international logo (which you see here) which read ‘serviens in spe’ means ‘servants of the poor’.  we, vincentians (that is what we SSVP members are known as) are glad to be of service to the poor.  we should be thankful to the poor for giving us a chance to show our christian faith in action, for in serving the poor we are serving jesus because jesus christ had said “whenever you do this to the least of the poor, you do it to me.”