24hour FAST: Call to Conversion

The Season for Lent has arrived.
Some young people may see this season as a time of suffering! to abstain, to fast, to go for more confessions, more penance and so on. Even for adults, Lent may be more of a season of Gloom. to enter 40days in the desert! what??? the desert???

Lent actually means spring and Spring is a beautiful season for new life. Maybe for those of us living in South-East Asia Spring is something we can only imagine as that season does not exist in our climate.

People think that we at acts29 are going crazy. We're gathering youths in Singapore to fast for 24hours. On top of that we're inviting our brothers and sisters from around Asia to fast with us too! Fasting only means more gloom? right? WRONG.

My 1st FAST experience occured in Brunei and the youths there were far from gloomy. They were filled with joy overflowing. Last year's FAST in Singapore saw 50 young people surrender all their comforts and treasures to step into the lives of the poor. Strange as it may sound, those youths had a great time experiencing hunger, building cardboard shelters and visiting the poor. Our joyful FAST experience is easy to explain yet hard to grasp. Those of you who have lived in Payatas dumpsite or in places where the people are poor would probably have recieved great joy from the poor. I've never been without joy in Payatas. At times tired, at times overwhelmed. At times there's sadness and I cry but still the joy cannot be taken away. because Payatas, like so many other places, is where the poor is present and that is where Paraiso (paradise) exists.

I invite you to read Isaiah 58. In Isaiah 58, God says he has chosen fasts that 1) loosen the bonds of wickedness, 2)undo heavy burdens, 3)let the oppressed go free, 4)break every yoke, 5)give bread to the hungry and provide the poor with housing, 6) allow people's light to break forth like the morning, 7)cause their health to spring forth speedily, 8)cause their righteousness to go before them and 9)cause the glory of God to be their reward.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/isaiah/isaiah58.htm

During this 24hour FAST we want to re-look at our relationship with one another: relationship within the family, relationship within the community and relationship with our brothers and sisters from the region. And we do so through the eyes of the poor. The poor never fail to remind us of what joy truly is. The poor point out to us the humanity of Jesus, the Son of God. Just as Christ was blessed, broken and given away, we too ask to be blessed, broken and given away so that we may share and rejoice in the Paraiso of our risen Lord.