PHILIPPINES - On October 31, Young Brothers (YBs) from communities in the Philippines, and even Filipino Brothers assigned in Singapore and the United States, gathered to pray and to dialogue about the needs of the YBs at this time. It was a meaningful and fruitful way of listening and sharing their unique experiences in the mission.

PHILIPPINES - As a student of La Salle Academy for 12 years, it has always been a mystery to me who those men dressed in black and white are. Like most of us, we have come across these men once or twice, or maybe a few times in our school life. They were maybe our teachers, advisers, or just people we pass by at school. These men go by different names depending on who you ask but most of us call and address them as “Ber,” a nickname short for Brother.

HONG KONG - As part of their Life Education Program, twenty-six Form 4 students visited St. Michael’s Catholic Cemetery in Happy Valley on the 9th of November 2021 together with Br. Mikey Cua, Ms. Ivy Choy and Mr. KY Kiang. Three volunteer cemetery receptionists for the day - Joseph, Thomas, and Teresa – shared with the boys the history of the Cemetery, the life stories of some notable people buried there, and some personal experiences. The students were impressed when they visited the graves of the late De La Salle Brothers.

JAPAN - On October 16-17, the Hakodate La Salle Mission Club held a two-day agricultural volunteer program at Lola Farm, an organic farm, to deepen their interest in "food" through food loss. Every year, the theme of the training session remains the same: "What is the purpose of human life?” We think about it through food in this time. Rather than throwing away the vegetables harvested here at Lola Farm because they were out of specification and could not be sold, we thought that we could change something by cooking them.

SINGAPORE - “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve" are the words our Junior Josephians see when they enter through the main gates of SJI Junior every morning when they enter school each day.

PHILIPPINES - To continue the Lasallian formation of the aspirants of the Brothers in the Philippines, the Vocations Ministry Office launched Çerve, an online apostolate that would be facilitated primarily by the aspirants for a chosen beneficiary. This online apostolate will remain to be educational in nature. The different aspirancy communities are grouped into two clusters for more efficient operations of the program, with each cluster having its own beneficiary of the apostolate.

HONG KONG - A special Mass of thanksgiving commemorating the centenary of the establishment of the legal entity of the De La Salle Brothers in Hong Kong was held on the 6th November 2021 in the school chapel of St. Joseph’s College. A large gathering of the Hong Kong Lasallian Family attended.

Although the Brothers arrived in 1875, it took 46 years for them to become a separate legal entity. Up to that time, we were a Catholic Mission school, under the auspices of the Bishop.

The International Symposium of Young Lasallians (ISYL) had its first phase from the 18th to the 22nd of October 2021. The first phase of ISYL was done throughout the third quarter of the year (July-October), with different online (via ZOOM Conference) and offline activities. Sixty (60) delegates coming from PARC, RELAF, RELAN, RELEM, RELAL, and IALU attended the symposium. For LEAD, the participants were Mr. Louis Kyaw KoKo, Youth Coordinator of Myanmar and I, Neil Juntado, Youth Coordinator of the Philippines.

SINGAPORE - Thirteen Brothers gathered for the Brothers Assembly on 2021 November 6 at 3pm till 4.45pm. Brother Visitor opened the assembly with the question, “Where do I go from here?” and the invitation to engage and collaborate in a deeper manner with our lay partners. One way of doing this is to energize our Lasallian formation programmes for all Lasallians in Singapore, Brothers and partners.

We are happy that the organising team has representatives from all 7 sectors to plan out the 3rd mission assembly for the district of LEAD.

The team has been meeting virtually over the last few months and are looking forward to starting off with their respective country conversations, which will mark the start of the journey towards the mission assembly in 2022.

Look out for updates in our district social media pages. (Text & Photo: Ms. Coreen Paul)