Sandakan St Mary’s Cathedral Parish responded to the call by Bishop Julius Dusin Gitom through his pastoral letter issued  early last year to work out the process in formulating the vision and mission statement for the diocese. The prelate said that the task be given due attention for ‘without a vision, the people die’ (Proverbs 29 : 18).

The Task Force for the Delegates’ Assembly had worked out a schedule to cover all sub-parishes, involving as many people as possible. There will be 12 assemblies spread over a period of two months, beginning 5th November 2011 till 8th January 2012.
The Church ~ our concern

The first mini Parish Delegates’ Assembly (PDA) on Saturday 5th November 2011 was held simultaneously at St Mary’s Cathedral with some 50 participants and at the sub-parish of St Mark with 30 participants, involving all CCR groups and  BECs. The Chinese community also conducted their mini assembly the following day, 6th November 2011 with some 60 participants attending.

Presenting ‘the realities of the Church’

The purpose is to get feed back from the participants regarding their views on their understanding of being Church, the realities of the local Church, their desired image of the Church and the way forward to achieving their intended goal. The opinions, views and feedback collected from them will be evaluated and documented to be presented at the main Parish Delegate Assembly, expected to be conducted in March 2011.

Facilitators : (Top-down) : Pilis, Terrence and Michael

The mini assemblies at St Mary and St Mark were facilitated by Michael Lai, Pilis Malim (PPC) and Terrence Ngui of the Diocesan Soccom whereas the mini assembly for the Chinese community was facilitated by Monica Loh and Paul Chin. 

Our dream Church

The PPC Chairman, Patrick Seah was present at the assemblies lending support to the groups.

DaliusLL