"Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain" (Ps 127) Firstly, both Fr. Roger and I extend New Year greetings to all of our Parishioners and friends. We pray that 2004 will be a year of blessings and peace, one which the Christ Child has renewed your hope in this troubled time and prepared you for the challenges of discipleship in the year ahead.

1st Anniversary :- January 7th will be one year since Fr. Roger and I assumed responsibility for the Pastoral cluster of the Holy Rosary and St. Martian de Porres Parishes. This has been a huge learning curve for us as it is our first parish appointment. Our churches were in crisis financially and spiritually. We found empty bank accounts, small fragmented congregations that had lost direction and purpose. We did two main things in our first year- spiritual and financial crisis management and learning the different rhythms of the Parish communities and Ministry. We now know that an inner city parish is a challenging pastoral assignment. Yet, we believe that this is what God, in good wisdom has entrusted into our care. Thanks be to God, we were able to achieve some measure of success and we are encouraged by your support.

Year 2004 - As we begin the second year of our stewardship, we now want to change the focus from spiritual and financial crisis management to building a faith community - one that is strong on prayer filled liturgy, social ministry, evangelization, community building and discipleship. The challenges of the inner city are well known. In 2003, we brought together a focus group from our Pastoral area to discern the real needs of our people. Community fragmentation was identified as the real problem. The solution? Community building. This may sound easy as we set this goal as our new task. However, it will require a lot of prayer and work from all of us. It means all of us making a serious commitment towards listening carefully to the Lord and moving in the same direction - "His Direction".

Starting the Process - Firstly, this requires that we evaluate every aspect of our Parish; every group, ministry and liturgy. We need to know: - what works and what does not; what we need to do and what we should stop doing; where to expend our energy and where we should stop spending energy. For this we need your help. We would like you to pray, reflect and discuss two vital questions. What is the main purpose (vision) of our inner city cluster? Another approach - Where do you want to see our parish communities in five years? What would you like to see us doing to improve in each of the following five (5) areas: liturgy, social ministry, evangelization, community building and discipleship.

Prayer and Reflection - Pray and reflect on this alone, then discuss it with your family, friends and fellow parishioners; discuss further in any ministry group that you are in and then write to us, your reflections. If there are things that you have observed that we need to know, write that down also. Or, come in and see Fr. Roger or myself, or, Jerry or Pat for Gonzales; Jenny or Barbara for Rosary.

Evaluation Forms - Your prayerful reflections are important to us. Over the next week, evaluation forms for ministries and groups will be given out. We need to collect all of your comments by the end of January.