Holy Family celebrates integration of all migrants on Migrant Sunday

TELIPOK – Over a hundred migrants from the migrant communities of the parish of Holy Family Church here came together to celebrate Migrant Sunday on 23 Sept 2018, beginning with a Thanksgiving Mass. They were joined by the locals.

Fr Mitchelly Kiun, who presided the Mass, was happy to see the large crowd of migrants present at the Eucharist.

Drawing attention to Pope Francis’ message for the 104th World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2018, Fr Kiun underlined that the Pope’s message is a call for decisive action articulated in four verbs “Welcoming, Protecting, Promoting and Integrating” migrants and refugees.

Fr Kiun affirmed that the Pope has always maintained that the migrants, displaced people, refugees and victims of human trafficking are the church’s concern.

He encouraged the migrant parishioners to be more involved in the activities and the life of the Church, and stressed that regardless of race, language and culture, we are all one people of God’s family.

 After Mass, the celebration continued at the Holy Family Parish Hall. Lawrence Kimkuan, the newly elected Parish Pastoral Council chairman delivered his welcome on behalf of the parish. Various performances were presented by the migrant communities which included a traditional dance from the Timorese Community, an action song from the Children’s Liturgy and Sumazau dance from the Apostolic Family Committee together with the Women’s League. The gong beatings presentation from the youths of the parish took many by surprise.

To pique the interest of the crowd, the organizers invited the Timorese community to demonstrate the preparation of their traditional kampong chicken brown rice, and John Sipin to demonstrate the simpler way of preparing the mouth-watering bambangan pickles.

Ann Michelle, who coordinated the celebration with the Parish Human Development Committee, thanked all who participated in making this year’s Migrants’ Sunday a runaway success. – Juliana Ringgingon/Holy Family SOCCOM