Community Life
by Martha Gomez
How have you seen God at work in your ministry over the year?
For me it is very easy to feel the presence of God when entering TUC and even more so when you know that you are part of his community.
Even before being an elder of the Hospitality and Community life ministry, I felt his presence. Today I understand that life in community is finally an expression of the love of God, for God. Whether we participate by organizing coffee time, being part of the group that decorates the Church for a particular event, reaching out to people who we know are in difficulties, whether health or personal, or simply to establish friendly relationships.
I see fraternal life in common as an expression of the union we feel for the love of God.
Could you list the activities and the engagement of your ministry this past year?
I believe that Hospitality and Community Life is not the work of a single ministry. Finally, it is the job of all of us who form TUC and participate in the different activities of our Church. In general I cannot separate the activity because I see many people volunteering in one ministry and another. My recognition, for example, goes to Noriko Sakoh who has promptly taken care of the TUC members who live alone in the Rojin home.
Namely, we organize and celebrate parties and meetings, we allow ourselves personal and community moments of relaxation, we take distance from each other from time to time, we enjoy the joys of our brothers or sisters, we pay attention to the needs of those who approach us timidly. That has been my experience not only as an Elder but as a simple member of the TUC community.
Community living at TUC also has its difficulties. We are a diverse group in cultures, races and thoughts. Variety of families.
During 2024, the Ministry of Hospitality and Community Life has been a link between TUC and volunteers who make the coffee time possible, the organization of the concert to raise funds for the victims of the Noto peninsula, and participate together with other ministries in the arrangement of the church for events such as Christmas. I only hope that we continue to build community, in a luminous context in which gratitude, joy, union of hearts, support in the common difficulties of daily coexistence and reciprocal strengthening of our faith are generated. Always treating us with humility and respect.