Peter's Pickles #5: Understanding the Theme - KTH: Go in Peace!

Hello friends,

And, welcome to the latest installment of this blog.

For this particular segment, I would like to discuss the purpose and theme of this year’s Khoa Tinh Huan.

Khoa Tinh Huan (KTH) is a spiritual retreat held every year by Lien Doan TNF, typically on the weekend after Thanksgiving. Many have come to associate KTH with the initiation of new HTs, but the main focus of this retreat is to develop the spirituality of our organization’s current and future leaders. It’s a time to rediscover and strengthen our commitments to God. It’s a time to understand why we are Thieu Nhi Fatima.

So, let’s dive straight into it.

This year’s theme was — “Go in Peace”.

Although I do not remember it being explicitly mentioned throughout the retreat, this theme was actually chosen in commemoration of the Angel of Peace’s appearance at Fatima 100 years ago.

The phrase seems pretty straightforward in itself, but at the same time, it might be difficult to explain in words what it means to do so.   

The word “peace” is often used in many secular (nonreligious) contexts, yet we do encounter it regularly throughout our faith. Here are a couple places you might have heard it mentioned:

1) In the Beatitudes, Jesus underlines peace as an important virtue that all Christians should strive towards.  

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God” (Mark 5:9)

2) In the tale of the sinful woman, a weeping villager falls before Jesus as he eats at the table of a Pharisee. She allows her weeping tears to fall upon his feet, wiping them with her hair, and anointing them with precious perfume.

“And Jesus told the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace’ “ (Luke 7:50)

3) Peace is one of the major themes of Advent, the period in which we anticipate the coming of Christ, our Savior. We progressively light the candles on the Advent Wreath to signify our efforts. We bring positivity in the form of hope, love, peace, and joy iso that we might be worthy of God’s love.

4) We greet each other in Mass with “Peace be with you”, a reference to Jesus’s greeting to his disciples following his resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

5) The concluding rites of Mass each week call us to “Go in Peace, glorifying the Lord by your life!”

Peace is all around us and is an important part of our relationship with God. It reminds us of good, tranquility, comfort, contention, silence, positivity, happiness, and love. The feelings ascribed to peace are the very same ones we use to describe our God. They are everything that we strive to complete ourselves with. They are all the things we try to pursue in our lives.

Yet, peace is not always easy to acquire, much less retain for long periods of time. As we move through our daily lives, chaos and evil are all around us. They are the ugly, the problematic, the drama, the sadness, the anger, the inconvenience— the conflicts. They are what stand between us and our peace.

Peace and conflict are both internal and external. Both describe how we feel about ourselves and our standing with others.

They both play a large part in our lives, but our need for both are not the same. There is no one that truly desires the negativity of conflict in their life. Although it might serve as temporary motivation at times, nobody ever wishes to swim in it.

When we cannot find peace, we cannot find God.

Over the course of this weekend, I asked everyone to think of ways in which they might bring peace to their life and the lives of others.

While there are many things out of our control that we leave to God, we do have a significant influence over the way we live our lives. We are by no means powerless beings! We must learn to pursue peace with all that we have.

One hundred years ago, the Three Children of Fatima were met by the Angel of Peace and Our Lady, because even those that are so young and small can effect change in the hearts of humanity. She asked them to pray, and sacrifice their livelihoods so that peace throughout the world might become a reality.

We are Thieu Nhi Fatima, because that too is our calling.

We do big things in small ways.

We are ready to give everything for our kids, so that they might live their lives close to God.

I became a Huynh Truong because I wanted to give our kids the love that I constantly yearned for as a child. Peace is not something that we can always find on our own. We need the affection and guidance of our mentors to help us!!

Someday, you will all be that person to our kids. Until then, I will never abandon you.

Go in Peace, and glorify the Lord by your life.

Anh Peter

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SCL 2016 FIESTA!

Last week on Friday October 7 to Sunday the 9th St. Catherine had its annual Fiesta to raise money for the church. Our youth group joined in again and sold boba: strawberry, mango, peach, thai tea, and ice coffeeeeeeeeee! Our boba booth alone raised over $7,000, combined with the whole Vietnamese community we raised over $15,000! All of your hard work whether it was buying, selling, making, or advertising our boba was well worth it. Your positivity and enthusiasm definitely made the whole experience that much better.  See you all again at our boba stand next year!

Check out our facebook for more fiesta photos!

Chị VeronicaHuynh Trưởng Đoàn Thiếu Nhi FatimaĐức Mẹ Truyền Tin Torrance

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TNF Torrance Khai Giang (First Day) 2016-2017

Welcome back to TNF everybody! On September 10th we officially began TNF and TTGLVN for this school year! There were many new faces and many familiar faces, but despite which face you were, we hope you all enjoyed the first day just like we did! 

Blessed with nice weather, cotton candy, and free play, that is how we began ngay khai giang. After lining up, we spilt up. Thieu/ Nghia went to a session with Thay Long and the Au went to play games and make name tags.

We are very happy and excited for this new school year! The school year began with a bang, and we are all looking forward to what will happen throughout this school year!

Chị Veronica

Huynh Trưởng 

Đoàn Thiếu Nhi Fatima

Đức Mẹ Truyền Tin Torrance

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Peter's Pickles #4: Understanding the Theme - What is your Net Worth?

Dear friends,

This past weekend, Torrance hosted its 3rd annual One Day Spiritual Retreat, an event aimed at developing the spirituality of our older youth (16+). As Chi Pauline explains, “in preparation for the coming school year, we want to remind ourselves about what is important in our service and renew our faith”-- why we are here.

So, the focus of my post will be to explain the theme that was explored at this retreat, and why it matters to us as leaders of our youth.

For those of you that could not attend, the theme this year was “What is your Net Worth?”

“Net Worth” is a term often used to distinguish a person’s assets in a monetary way.

For instance, a quick google search tells us that Bill Gates net worth (counting his property, investments, savings, etc.) is somewhere between 78 and 90 billion US Dollars. On the other hand, if one were to calculate Anh Peter’s net worth, it would probably be a lot lower, counting 4 years of college tuition.

It would not take a genius mathematician to conclude that Bill Gates is probably worth alot more than me. He drives a nicer car, lives in a bigger house, and has a way fancier education. These are all things that money can assure.

Moreover, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, are known to be one of the BIGGEST philanthropists in the world. A philanthropist is a person who promotes the welfare of others for nothing in return. They use their enormous fortune to help millions of poor, sick and starving people around the world everyday. Money allows them to benefit the world in so many ways.  

Bill Gates makes more and does more in one day, than I could ever do in my entire life. That is a very likely a fact. So, knowing that, why should I continue living? Why should I keep learning, and working, and loving? These are among the biggest questions that we explored throughout our 10 hour retreat.

So, let’s move past money for a second. Because, aren’t there other ways that our society determines value? Of course.

Here are a couple:

• Education: Knowing more means that we are able to do more. Even 10 lifetimes is not enough to learn everything there is to learn about our world. But, at least it makes us more qualified than someone that never received an education.
• Athleticism: Not everyone can be a cop, or a firefighter, or Michael Phelps, or even a construction worker. Strength has always been valued and adorned in every society for thousands of years.
• Social Skills: Progress cannot be achieved by one person alone. Many of the great innovations of our time were built by thousands, even millions, of people working together. Being able to communicate effectively, and maintain relationships is a crucial part of that.

Anyways, my point is that the list goes on. A person’s net worth is not just about money. There are so many ways in which the world values its people. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Think about your immediate families, like our parents and siblings. If you didn’t have any of the above qualities— if you weren’t rich, or smart, or strong, or outgoing— would your parents still value you? If today they were given the chance to sell you for Bill Gates entire fortune, would they accept it? Easy answer: No.

Through the eyes of a parent, their children are worth far more than anything else in this world. There is no amount of money that comes even close. Why? Because of love.

Love is one of those things that throw all logic and reason out the window. It is not something that can be measured by the gifts we give, or the things we do for each other. It is something that drives us, that sustains every fiber of our being. We can live without money, without materialism, even without food for awhile. But, we cannot last without love.

That prepares us for the biggest question. If our net worth depends on the person assessing it, how does God value us? How does God see us in comparison to his other works?

The short answer: God does not value us at all.

Okay, hold on, I know that sounds a little bit weird, but let me explain. We call God our father, because our connection is not limited only to that of a creator and their creation. There is affection. We aren’t stone statues built from clay or plaster. We are living, breathing people capable of marvelous things. We cannot be recreated or replicated. Not even identical twins are the same. We do not refer to ourselves as mere offspring, because it fails to capture the whole picture.

God loves us, in the same way that our parents do, perhaps even more. He did not make us, and leave us to our own devices. He watches everything we do. He sees our anger, our delight, our pain, our excitement, our grief, our enjoyment… He is there to commend us in our achievement, and hold us in our failures. God does not stamp a price tag on any of us. We cannot compare ourselves with others, because that is like comparing staplers and rulers, apples and oranges. None of us are similar in God’s eyes, except for the fact that we are priceless and irreplaceable to him. Although we may disappoint him, often, his love for us does not change.

"God does not make junk, only masterpieces". So, go out there and live knowing you are loved. There are times where we forget that, but we are not alone. We have God, and we have each other.

Remember, that God made us all with purpose. Move forward knowing that you will someday realize it. You have something to offer us all. Let’s make this a great year. We got your back.

Anh Peter

Additional Resources: Here is a beautiful video shown at our retreat by Sister Thanh that I highly encourage all of you watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhfUzodLRvk

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August 27, 2016 - One Day Spiritual Retreat for Leaders - "What is Your Net Worth?"

Today, TNF Torrance held our annual One Day Spiritual Retreat for Leaders. 

This event was for our members age 16+ and the theme this year was "What is Your Net Worth?" In preparation for the coming school year, we want to remind ourselves about what is important in our service and renew our faith. We welcomed our current and future leaders to experience a day of self-reflection and discussion to talk about our gifts as children of God. 

We had several presenters including So Thanh (DMTG), Cha Long, Cha Hoai Chuong, Thay Pho Te Long, and our own HTs Anh Peter and Chi Diana. The day was spent exploring society's definition of net worth compared to God's definition of net worth. As Catholics, what ideas of net worth should we hold most important? We talked about what our God-given talents are and how to use them in our work as fishers of men. As young people, there are often no easy answers to these ideas but we want to continually recognize that we are all different and have many things to offer to God and our world.

One the short and simple ideas of the day: love yourself!

We hope that our participants were able to bond and have a great time throughout this retreat. More importantly, we hope that you were able to learn, be challenged, and grow from this experience.

Keep an eye out for Peter's Pickles for more on the discussion of "What is Your Net Worth?"!

- Chi Pauline

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Peter's Pickles #3: Love Thy Neighbor

Welcome friends,

For those of you that follow the news (or don’t live under a rock), it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t really the best year for humanity. In the past few months alone: Nice, Orlando, Turkey, Baghdad, Dallas… The list goes on, and on— another event being added with every couple of days. It’s bleak and certainly not easy to accept, but this seems to be the direction that the world is moving.

But, anyway, why bring up such a depressing topic? What does any of that have to do with us, as high schoolers, as college students, as human beings, as future HT, as current HT? How do these moments change the way we see ourselves, and the world around us?

Well, the truth is… it sometimes doesn’t.

For most of us, we turn on the TV or browse Facebook in wake of these tragedies, and our natural responses range between fear, anger, and sadness. Typically, our hearts reach out to the families of those affected; we might think of saying a few prayers; some of us actually end up saying them...  Then we talk about it for a few days:

• “Did you hear about the 49 dead and 53 wounded at that gay nightclub in Orlando?”
• “Did you hear about that guy shot dead by the police? Another unarmed black man.”

However, our grief is short-lived. It’s difficult to admit, sure. But, we eventually move on with our lives, whether that be a conscious choice or by chance, and forget that these things ever happened in the first place.

I find the words of Jon Stewart, former host of the Daily Show, to be especially insightful. He says:

“By acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jackshit. Yeah, that’s us. That’s the part that blows my mind.”

All the news coverage in the world can’t change the fact that we, as human beings, are becoming increasingly apathetic, we care less and less. Social injustice occurs even in our own country, the first world— injustice that preys upon the poor, the gays, the minorities— but we won’t do a thing to stop it. What does that say about who we are as Christians?

The Bible teaches that all human beings have the potential to do good, but at the same time we are not necessarily born righteous. Listening to Jesus’ vision for us doesn’t come naturally, it’s hard, I know. Think back to the Gospel from a few weeks ago. Jesus says:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:30-35).

We all have the capacity for love, but we are selective with who we love. We find difficulty loving the homeless man that asks us for money outside the 7-11 in the same way that we love our families. Although we might not see the presence of God in his eyes, He is there. They are all our  neighbors.

Jesus did not tell us to “love thy neighbor...unless they’re black, gay, or disgusting”. He uses the absolute statement without exception, with faults included. Prejudice, racism and homophobia are what we have created out of hate for each other, not love.

Love must be unconditional.

If we were able to live by that instruction, would these tragic moments still occur? If we were able to love each other as neighbors, as shared inhabitants of this beautiful world that God gave us?

Would we intentionally hurt the man/woman we love?

Would we kill a child, if they were our own?

Would we steal money from the poor, if they were our parents?

Love every human being like they are you(rs).

I’m not saying that all of us have to go travel the world, preaching love and kumbaya...

Instead, we should learn and teach this love by our good work. Let tragedy remind you of this.

When you find one of the kids annoying or weird, love them anyway.

When your colleagues don’t appreciate you, love them anyway.

Someday, they will return that love to others, if not to you.

And, with this I will leave you with a beautiful quote from Kurt Vonnegut:

"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” –God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Sincerely, Anh Peter

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Peter's Pickles #2: A Faith We Did Not Choose

There’s this question that I love asking my Giao Ly students on the first day of class every year. It goes something like: “Why are you here? What’s your motivation for being in this class? Why do you go to Mass?”

Since it’s the first day, and they’re all trying to make a good impression, it’s not uncommon to hear answers like, “I’m excited to learn more about God”, or “I want to learn how to be a better Catholic”.

These are good answers, but they’re not the ones I’m looking for, so I keep fishing. I’m patiently waiting for that one really honest kid in the class to raise their hand, and answer plainly:

“My parents made me!” Bingo.

It’s hard to admit, but most of the kids that go to TNF can sympathize with that answer. It’s important to realize that few of us chose to be Catholic in the first place. We were barely able to talk, much less make the conscious decision to pledge our entire existence to God.

We are Catholics by chance and attend church to satisfy the people we love. Just because we have become Catholics by the rite of Baptism, that does not necessarily make us believers. Perhaps that comes later in life. Perhaps not at all, which is why our current generation is not as attuned with the faith.

I was not a believer when I was Baptized as a child. Or, when I received First Communion as an adolescent. Or, when I was Confirmed as a teenager.

I don’t even know if I can call myself a believer today because, like many others, I am constantly in search of God everyday.

But, I do find it significant that I am still looking.

It is easy to distract ourselves when people are talking about something we don’t want to hear. We probably all do that quite often to the people in our lives. But, out of love, they will never give up hoping that we will eventually listen. God is always speaking to us, we just have to decide if we are willing to hear him. It’s an important choice that others cannot make for us.

If you have ever been to Tinh Huan, our November spiritual retreat with Lien Doan, then you have probably heard before that becoming an HT is like answering a call from God, which I find fitting. Not all of us are meant to be priests or nuns, but that doesn’t mean that God has nothing planned for us.

TNF will die out when its leaders no longer have a spiritual connection or goal. We teach about Mary and the Three Children because that is our way of bringing God to the people. Becoming an HT is not saying “Yes, I will believe”, but rather "I want to believe". You cannot teach what you do not believe in yourself, and you will never get there without trying.

Our kids have plenty of people in their lives that can teach them how to be Catholic, how to go to Mass, how to kneel and stand at the right times. That’s the easy part.

They depend on their role models to help them believe.

If you choose to be here as leader, it needs to be for the right reasons.

And, if you need help finding your way there, I will do my best to guide the way :)

Anh Peter

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Peter's Pickles #1: Spirituality and Beginnings

Hello friends,

So, since this is my first article, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself and briefly explain my intentions in writing this series.

My name is Anh Peter and I am a youth leader of Doan Torrance. The intended audience of this blog series is primarily Nganh Nghia and HT. I am here because I am deeply committed to educating young minds. I find no other vocation as important or enjoyable!

When most people hear “education”, they immediately think of things like Algebra or Chemistry. They’re not wrong. However, in the context of TNF, this isn’t the type of education we’re talking about. At TNF, we are in the business of teaching affection— reminding our kids that life is about loving others and being loved in return. I know this sounds a little cheesy, but hopefully someday you will understand.

Like my colleagues, I interact with children of all ages. From eating lunch with the Au boys to playing jump rope with the Au girls... But, my work is mostly focused on the development of Nganh Nghia— our high school/college age group. From a planning perspective, I love working with Nghia because we are able to get creative and challenging with our content.

This year, our curriculum was far more focused on leadership than in the past. We began to devote more time towards personal and professional development, and away from Hoc Hoi and spirituality. These were things that we found lacking in our current leaders and we wanted to develop these skills early in the next generation. The Nghia were more engaged and we were happy with the results. It wasn’t perfect, but it was progress. Or, at least that’s what we thought at first.

Recently, Chi Brenda and I have been working on the plans for HT camp— a retreat meant to develop the skillset of current and future HTs. I don’t want to go too much into detail, but, the long list of skills fall under three major categories: Spiritual, Relational, and Leadership. An ideal HT should maintain a balance between the three categories as a Catholic, a friend, and a leader.

When we began teaching more leadership, we also began teaching less spirituality. This wasn’t because our students were already strongly connected to the faith and God, but by accident. I actually sense that the opposite is true. Even though we are brought together for a religious purpose, the spirituality is beginning to fade away from our work.

This feeling motivates my writing of these blogs. I want to do my best to teach our kids to be strong leaders, but also how to be strong Catholics at the same time. Each entry will discuss a spiritual topic that pertains to the HT experience.

So, please stop by from time to time, and perhaps we can learn something beautiful about ourselves and God, together.

Anh Peter

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Ponder with Pauline #1 - New Blog Content Coming Soon

Hi everyone!

We're starting new segments on the website this summer. If you look at the top menu bar, there is a new tab called "Blog". You can click it to go to the main page for the blog. It also has a drop down menu where you can choose the name of the author whose posts you would like to read. We'll be updating with more content and each author will have their own tag.

New posts will be coming up very soon so please stop by once in a while for some great reads.
Hope you're enjoying your summer, have fun and stay safe!

Chi Pauline

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Hooray it's TNF Torrance's 26th Bday!

Happy 26th bday TNF Torrance!! We hope you all enjoyed yourselves at our past birthday and cheers to many more memories to come with the help of our Mother Mary!

On March 19th, the biggest duel happened in Torrance. The ultimate Pokemon gym badge collecting adventure began with teams such as "Team Gary" or "Team Misty" running from station to station collecting gym badges by accomplishing Pokemon themed tasks! Our HT's ran each of these stations and whether it came to creating a Jiggly Puff themed song to Mary to get a badge from C. Veronica or unfolding a special code to earn a badge from A. Peter, all of our teams did amazing! 

Watching each of these teams cooperating with one another and making sure they did their best to become the ultimate gym leaders, made me feel so inspired! With the amount of team spirit and good leadership in all of our kids shows how amazing Doan Torrance is!

Later that night we enjoyed delicious pho and watched special performances with many singing songs and even some of our TNF members singing the national anthem and Cuoc Ca! We would like to thank everyone who came out to make this night memorable and everyone who helped us make this day as fun as it was!

To check out a recap of this epic day, check out of vlog below! (And maybe subscribe while you're at it!)

Chị Diana

Huynh Trưởng 

Đoàn Thiếu Nhi Fatima

Đức Mẹ Truyền Tin Torrance

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Friendly Reminder

Greetings,

We would like to remind you that next Saturday (3/19) is our birthday! There will be no Viet Ngu/Giao Ly classes, but we WILL be having Sinh Hoat from 2pm until Mass. We have a lot of fun activities planned, so please have your children come!

The following Saturday (3/26), we will not have Sinh Hoat or Classes because of Easter.

Thank you for your continued support!

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Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! A lot has happened over the past couple weeks in preparation for Tet. Keep on reading to check out how this special day went down.

On February 14th, TNF spent the day celebrating both Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year. In the morning all Van nghe dance groups practiced hard whether it came to Mua Lan, Thieu/Nghia, and Nganh Au. While everyone was practicing, we all rooted each other on to get hyped for the big night. After some delicious tuna sandwiches and cookies, our Van nghe performers got ready to get into sinh hoat. Watching everyone dedicating every minute of practice to perfect their performances made my day. The amount of  devotion and hard work put into each performance proves how our TNF family is in it to win it!

During sinh hoat both nganh Au and nganh Thieu spent time making Valentine's cards for their loved ones. Many surprised each other with multiple cards with cheesy love puns. The amount of love and adoration in the air truly showed how loving TNF Torrance is. We surely are a tight knit family!

Later that night our groups looked absolutely stunning in their costumes. For instance, nganh Thieu were adorably dressed in yellow and pink ao ba ba with braids to match to top of their Vietnamese traditional look. When it came to nganh Au were dressed in colorful ao dai's. With our performers looking more than perfect, the crowd were pumped to see our Tet performers. After a fun time watching Mua Lan, nganh Au finally got to debit their cool dance. Our little dancers looked adorable dancing to the song "Tet Den Roi." Afterwards nganh Thieu came out working their glamorous fans to the song "Xuan Que Ta."  In all all of our performers did an amazing job and working the crowd on stage.

Big thank you to all of those who contributed to making this night super special. TNF Torrance continues to do amazing things and especially this Tet is something to remember! Thanks for reading. If you're interested to seeing this special day yourself, come check out our vlog below.

Chị Diana

Huynh Trưởng 

Đoàn Thiếu Nhi Fatima

Đức Mẹ Truyền Tin Torrance

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