Last night, I was searching for information when a grainy video from 1997 suddenly caught my eye.  The video described a government offensive that drove thousands of ethnic villagers from their homes. Within a single week, 15,000 fled. By that time, over 80,000 were already in refugee camps across the Thai border.  According to the UNHCR , decades of conflict in Myanmar have displaced hundreds of thousands internally and across borders, with Thailand hosting one of the large

The last time I saw it clearly was not during a great act of service.  It was a quiet moment.  A Gebirah missioner knelt beside an elderly woman. There was no common language. No programme to run. No checklist to complete. Just presence.   A gentle smile. A hand held a little longer than necessary. The room felt different after that—lighter somehow. Warmer.  That moment reminded me of what Jesus said would mark His disciples forever:  Not by efficiency. Not by results. Not by

Social Mission Mass at Church of St Michael. At the Social Mission Mass organised by Caritas Si ngapor e and CHARIS on 17 January, celebrated by Cardinal William Goh, one message rang out with clarity and conviction: mission is not about appearances, titles, efficiency, or visible success — but about the condition of our hearts.   Many people quietly disqualify themselves from mission. I’m too old. Too young. Too busy. Not skilled enough. Too comfortable.   Cardinal Goh addr

GEBIRAH's Women's Health Workshop in Thai Nguyen We just returned from our mission to Thai Nguyen , and as I read Pope Leo XIV’s recent address to the Neocatechumenal Way, it felt almost as if he were describing what we had just lived. The Holy Father reminds us that authentic evangelisation is never separated from the Church, never detached from love, and never imposed. It is lived quietly, patiently, and faithfully—through charity, communion, and presence. That truth came

Sacks of rice for about 1,000 people in ethnic minority village in Thai Nguyen. Last evening, the message finally came in: “ The rice has arrived in Thai Nguyen.”   To my own surprise, I felt something I hadn’t experienced in a long time —a sudden rush of excitement and relief—almost a childlike joy.   The kind I used to feel when my favourite toy arrived as a kid. The kind that makes your heart leap.  I found myself smiling. Deeply, quietly happy.  Because this joy wasn’t ab

It was still dark when the village began to stir. A mother wrapped her shawl tighter around her child. An elderly couple sat quietly outside their wooden hut, waiting for the day to warm their bones. In the distance, the mountains of northern Thailand stood silent—beautiful, remote, and unforgiving.  No clinic.  No paved road.  No one coming—at least not usually.  And yet, this is precisely where the Church belongs.  There is something deeply Gospel-shaped about going to plac

It begins with fear.  A poor village. The kind of place most people pass over without a second thought. Empty granaries. No walls strong enough to protect them. The bandits will return after harvest—it’s only a matter of time. The villagers know they cannot fight back. All they can do is wait… and hope.   Hope that someone, somewhere, will come to their aid .  When I last watched Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai , I didn’t expect it to linger with me the way it did. It’s often

The new year rarely begins with fireworks in the soul.  More often, it arrives quietly—carrying the fatigue of the year just ended. We step into January still holding unanswered prayers, lingering worries, and the uneasy sense that life somehow keeps moving faster than our hearts can keep up.  And so, we make resolutions. Not just to be more productive or disciplined, but to be calmer . Happier. Less anxious. More present—to our families, our work, and ourselves.   We long fo

Happy New Year, friends. Yesterday, as the world welcomed a new year with fireworks and celebrations, the Church invited us into something quieter — the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God . It is a feast that draws our gaze not to spectacle, but to mystery. Not to acclaim, but to faithfulness. Mary, the Theotokos — the God-bearer — brought the Son of God into the world not in a palace, but in a cave. And she did not do so alone. Joseph was there — steady, silent, protective —

Carravagio’s famous painting of St. Jerome at his desk with books and a human skull. It seems ghoulish to our modern sensibilities, but it is a memento mori, Latin for “remember death.” Like the sand trickling through an hour glass or the wax burning down on a candle, the days of your life are passing by. Soon, death will come knocking on your door. Memento mori.  Remember that you must die.  Those words have never been too distant to me. As a funeral minister, death is not a

I still remember the first time I met Maria* when bringing supplies to a barangay in a coastal community devastated by a typhoon a few weeks earlier.   It was mid-morning; the sun was just beginning to warm up the sandy beach. I approached with a camera in hand — ready to “capture impact” — and immediately she laughed at me.   Not unkindly, but with the sort of frankness children have when they meet adults who don’t quite know how to speak their language.   “Why you take phot

Every Christmas, we return to a familiar story. A young couple. A long journey. Closed doors. A Child laid not in comfort, but in a manger—because there was no room .  In many cultures, this story is not merely read; it is reenacted . One such tradition is Las Posadas , a nine-night journey rooted in Mexican Catholic life, where communities walk from door to door singing the plea of Mary and Joseph:  “In the name of Heaven, I beg you for lodging,   for she cannot walk, my bel

Advent is never meant to be comfortable. It is a season that gently — and sometimes uncomfortably — invites us to look inward, to examine our hearts, and to ask difficult questions about how we live, what we value, and whom we love. In this sense, A Christmas Carol is far more than a festive tale. It is, as many have observed, a profoundly Catholic Advent story — one of conscience, conversion, and concrete acts of charity.  Ebenezer Scrooge’s journey mirrors what Advent asks

Whenever I bring a mission group to visit a charity like Thien Phuoc Home for the Disabled , I noticed something that never makes it into discussions. Behind every bathed resident, every fed child, every clean bed, there stood a caregiver quietly straining under the weight—literally—of love.   Some of the residents have grown into adults. Some weigh more than the caregivers attending to them. Some cannot hold up their heads or control their limbs.   And yet, every morning, th

Advent is often described as a time of waiting—a quiet, expectant season in the Church’s life. But the deeper truth is this: Advent is not passive.  It is an active preparation, a spiritual awakening, a call to make room for Christ by making room for those who need help. In the Gospels, the coming of Jesus always prompts movement: Mary sets out in haste to help Elizabeth, Joseph rises from sleep to protect his family, the shepherds leave their fields, the Magi journey across

After returning from a 3-week mission in Hong Kong working with refugees and the marginalised, I had a ton of emails to clear from my inbox. Scanning through the headers for urgent ones, something caught my eye. It was a notification that carried significance for a small Catholic humanitarian organisation like ours.  Gebirah had been invited from a global search to join the 2025 QBE AcceliCITY Humanitarian Challenge — and selected as a semi-finalist .  There was no sense of

I still remember the moment I first read about the tragedy — a small wooden boat, overloaded, drifting in dangerous waters between Thailand and Malaysia. Dozens of frightened families, carrying nothing but hope, had clung to one another as the waves rose. They had set out because staying behind meant persecution or death. But the sea, indifferent and merciless, claimed them. And for many, the world barely noticed.  A Tragedy Unnoticed  In early November 2025, a boat carrying

Masked Israeli settlers hurl rocks at Palestinians from a hilltop in the village of Sinjil, in the West Bank on July 4, 2025. (John...

Siriporn sits quietly in her bamboo hut nestled deep in the hills of Fang District, Northern Chiang Mai. At 83, her legs no longer carry...

Refugee children under training in futsal in Bogor The Court Where Hope Was Rekindled  In the early morning haze of Jakarta, a small...