Mangalore: CFCI Holds Grand Family Day Celebration
News & Pics: Vivek Cornelio
Mangalore, Sep 12: The Couples for Christ India, Mangalore’s seventh Family Day was celebrated at Urva Parish Hall here on Saturday September 11. The family day celebrations were based on the CFCI theme for the year “The joy of the Lord is our strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
The programme began at 9.00 am with the Praise Parade, for which each chapter represented a certain section of the community keeping in mind the theme of the celebration. CFCI Derebail and Bejai represented educationalists, CFCI Bantwal as social workers, CFCI Ashoknagar and Urva as armed forces, CFCI Kinnigoli and Mulki as lawyers, CFCI Bondel as religious, CFC Bendore, Cascia, Kulshekar and Angelore as medical professionals and SFC as business people. The colourful praise parade was then made vibrant with the YFC following behind with ribbons in their hands, clearly expressing their joy.
CFCI, Karnataka, area servants, Alex and Lynette Serrao welcomed the huge gathering of about 350 people and event head, Simon and Prescilla Pinto declared the celebration open. Fr Victor D’Mello, the spiritual director of CFCI, Karnataka, released colorful balloons in the air as a symbolic gesture of the theme.
After the praise parade, the gathering was led into praise and worship by Melvin Fernandes. All the CFCI, Mangalore, family then celebrated the Holy eucharist. Fr Joseph Martis, the rector of St Joseph’s seminary was the main celebrant.
In his sermon, he stressed the need to build strong families with Jesus Christ as the foundation of our families. He said that good, value based families are needed in today’s society.
After the Holy eucharist, the CFCI, Mangalore members gathered as one family and enjoyed the cultural programme presented by the Kids for Christ (KFC), Youth for Christ (YFC) and Singles for Christ (SFC). The cultural programme comprised skits, dance and songs which kept the young and the old on their toes.
The one-hour comedy skit named “Kepyache Kesthavn” directed by Simon Pinto had the gathering in splits. The family day was compered by Valerine Sequeira from Bejai and Pauline from Bondel. The celebrations concluded with the Praise Fest led by SFC and YFC and thus the Joy of the Lord was celebrated and shared.