NAVAL, Biliran-In its effort to address malnutrition and focus on the identified underweight children in the province, the Department of Health (DOH) – Health Promotion Bureau through the Biliran Provincial Health Office (PHO) and the Provincial Nutrition Council (PNC) simultaneously launched this August the ‘Karinderya para sa Healthy Pilipinas’ program in the eight municipalities of the province of Biliran.
The 120 days or four months supplemental feeding program under the Karinderya para sa Healthy Pilipinas aims at responding to the nutritional needs of the key target groups like the malnourished children below 5 years old, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
The hired Karinderya operators provide a daily meal based on the recommended menu for the 261 identified malnourished children from the municipalities of Almeria with 20 children, Biliran (35), Cabucgayan (57), Caibiran (52), Culaba (20), Kawayan (15), Maripipi (17), and Naval (45).
Meals are prepared right at the venue of the feeding activity where the Karinderya operators demonstrate the cooking methods for the parents and guardians to also prepare at home.
Juna Cordero, hired karinderya operator for the municipality of Almeria, demonstrated the preparation of affordable but nutritious foods during the launching of the Karinderya Para sa Healthy Pilipinas. (MLT, PIA Biliran)
Lectures and information dissemination on nutrition activities and programs are shared among the parents and guardians of the beneficiaries to influence their attitudes and behaviors for them to practice in their respective homes.
To ensure smooth, orderly, and successful implementation of the supplemental feeding program from August to December, concerned barangay officials were also tapped to coordinate with the target beneficiaries to religiously take their daily meal allocation.
Rio Rosales, nutrition program coordinator, said the four-month supplemental feeding through the Karinderya para sa Healthy Pilipinas in Biliran, which will end in December this year, is a DOH-funded program with P2.2 million allocation for the province of Biliran.
(MLT, PIA Biliran)
We should always be guided by faith
THAT is how we should be. Our life does not contend only with the things of nature. It has to contend with spiritual and supernatural realities that often are shrouded in so deep and thick mysteries that no matter how much we try, we can never understand them fully. We should just rely on the faith God, the Creator and Author of everything, shares with us.
We are reminded of this condition of our life in that gospel episode where Christ, after telling his disciples that they have to eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood to be with Christ, left them completely astonished. “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” was their reaction. (Jn 6,60)
Faith is our way of tackling with the infinite, the spiritual and supernatural mysteries in our life. And since this is a life-long condition of ours, we have to understand that our life is a life of faith. We are not ruled only by reason and will, much less by feelings and instincts alone.
We are designed for faith. In spite of the mysteries in our life, sooner or later, we end up just believing in something. Even if one were to say that he does not believe in anything, that position alone is already an act of faith.
While there can be an endless variety of beliefs, the distinctive mark of the Christian faith is that it comes from outside and above us. It’s supernatural. It’s not completely subjective nor merely human. It’s based on a revelation that has Christ at its center and as its fullness. It is God sharing his knowledge with us.
Our reasoning and intelligence should always be guided by faith. Otherwise, it has no other way but to fall into making its own world, its own narrative, that can contain a lot of facts and reasonable arguments and points, but will definitely miss the most important and original truth—everything related to God.
We should just imitate the faith, for example, of Our Lady who at the Annunciation asked at first how she could conceive the Son of God. When she was told that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will then conceive the son of God in her womb, definitely she could understand how that was to be, and yet she just said in great faith, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1,38) And she conceived the very son of God.
Another example is that of St. Peter who, when told by Christ to go into the deep water and lay out the net for a catch, at first responded, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have not caught anything,” but later, because of his faith, said: “But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” And a big haul of fish was caught. (cfr. Lk 5,5)
When we are guided by faith, we can start to share the very life, nature and power of God. We can manage to have hope of things taught to us by Christ even if at the moment they look impossible to take place. More importantly, we can manage to have more or less the same love Christ has shown us and has commanded us to have. It’s a love that goes beyond human standards since it includes loving even our enemies.
We should try our best to live by faith always that would enrich and enable our human reasoning to enter into the world of God, and not just trapped in the things of the natural world.