Children Initiate Share

With Local Homeless Children
 

Report From USA

[Ohio] Many fellow initiates in the USA were excited about attending the Long Beach International 5-Day Retreat during the Christmas holidays. They were happy and busy preparing for the retreat. While other people crowded airports trying to go home to see their families for the biggest celebration of the year, fellow initiates from all over the States went to the airports to go to see their Supreme Mother.

The local Ohio meditation Center temporarily turned into a creche so that parents could attend the retreat. One sister initiate, who could not attend the retreat because she has an infant, volunteered to stay at the Center to take care of the other children. This enabled the children initiates to live and meditate together, and learn from each other.

When the sister initiate asked the children if they wanted to do something meaningful for the Christmas holiday, the children decided immediately to help homeless children. They truly understood how other children would feel if they did not have any gifts at this time of year. So they decided to donate their own Christmas gift money to help homeless children.

With the help of the sister initiate, the children put the money into traditional Oriental New Year style envelopes and sealed them with gold labels that read "Supreme Master Ching Hai This ensured the homeless children would read these words before they opened the envelopes. The young initiates also filled a big basket with candy and healthy snacks, as well as some new blankets.

As soon as the gifts were ready the children went to a homeless shelter. The person in charge of the shelter was very surprised. He told the sister initiate that he was touched to see that the children were so thoughtful. He said that it was very good for children to learn how to share while still young.

On the way home the sister initiate was afraid that the children might become proud about what they had done, so she told them, "Master has reminded us that helping other people is helping ourselves. She was greatly surprised when she heard the children say that what they did was not much and that they wished they could do more to help homeless children, such as buying them a big new home with lots of toys!

Whole Life Expo

[Georgia] The Whole Life Expo is a natural health, personal growth and spiritual conference that was held in Georgia for the first time. The Expo consisted of display booths, workshops and free lectures. The Georgia Center leased a booth at the three-day Expo to promote the teachings of Supreme Master Ching Hai.

The response from the public towards Master's message was delightfully warm and positive, and the love of God seemed to envelop people as they chatted with fellow practitioners. Thousands of people went to this Expo so hopefully this conference will return to Atlanta, Georgia in 1997.