Victory Los Banos Updates

Every year, people look forward to Christmas for different reasons: Time off from work; breaks from school; reunion; bonus; shopping; Christmas lights; anticipation of Santa; food; and more food!

As a church we made a resolve to have a different reason to look forward to “Christmas of 2008″.  Tha reason is – GIVING.

This is the very reason why we even have Christmas – because our God GAVE and when He did, He GAVE BIG!

John 3:16 ¶  “For God so loved the world that HE GAVE his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

We have decided here in Victory LB that this year’s Christmas will be filled with memories of giving instead of receiving. So we created this campaign of giving called the THE BIG GIVE which is inspired by a show by Oprah in America.  Our discipleship groups formed their own BIG GIVE project.  Contributing a maximum of 50Php each and praying hard to God how and to whom are they going to give their collected resources.  After a week, we reserved a day to present all our projects and it was the most inspiring day of giving of our year.  We were amazed by the creativity of giving and the impact it created to the beneficiaries and to us.

Some gave groceries and slippers to street children, an earlier batch paid a visit and threw a party to the terminally ill (cancer patients of Los Banos, Laguna), some visited elementary schools and gave food and a party, some blessed the senior citizens, some targeted student leaders who needed help in their finances.  They even made video presentations of their projects.  Every presentation was inspiring and provoking.  We culminated with a Christmas Party and threw away the “exchange gifts” and replaced it with the “bless one another” scheme where everyone was challenged to bring gifts to give away and not expect anything in return.  We also challenged them to give at least one more gift to someone they don’t know at the party.   The result was awesome and unexpected!  It turned out the everybody went home with so much more than they brought to give in the first place.  Unexplainable…  Jesus said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” I guess we can never truly understand this truth unless we experience it.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Let’s all continue to give BIG!
Remember, When God gave, He gave BIG!