Humanity is bowed down with troubles, sorrows and griefs. No one can escape, the world is wet with tears, but, thank God, the remedy is at our doors.

We have the church to go to, when everything seems to be hopeless. There, we find solitude and comfort. We can turn our hearts away from the world of matter and live in the spiritual world. The church can give us freedom. If we are hemmed in by difficulties, we have only to call upon God, and by His great mercy we shall be helped.

If sorrow and adversity visit us, we can turn our face to the Lord and heavenly consolation will be outpoured. If we are sick and in distress, we can implore God’s healing and He will answer our prayers. When our hearts are filled with the bitterness of the world, we can turn our eyes to the sweetness of God’s compassion and He will send us heavenly calm. If we are imprisoned in the material world, our spirit can soar into the Heavens and we shall be free indeed. When our days are drawing to a close, we can think of the eternal world and we shall be full of joy!

That’s the miracle and comforts one can experience inside the house of God. But sad to say, our old church is in the face of its final brink of existence and very soon it shall be razed to the ground. Thus, the desire to build a new edifice is inevitable. The Kamifukuoka community has shown rare unity more than ever, to construct a new church in spite of the pending difficulties. But be not in despair, but rather, smile by the mercy of the Lord, and be not sorrowful when meeting with worldly difficulties and depressions, for they will just pass away.

This is a little memorabilia of the old Kamifukuoka church and very soon a new Kamifukuoka church will rise!

(Continue reading below. More awesome pictures are also available.)

"If there's a will there's a way"... so goes the saying that amply inspired and boosted the morale of some ardent parishioners of the Filipino community in a small Catholic parish located somewhere in Saitama, Japan.

It's really interesting to note that the Kamifukuoka Church has to be reconstructed due to prevailing circumstances, thereby causing temporary inconvenience and havoc among the devouted parishioners mostly Filipinos. Thus, the spirit of "bayanihan" started to knock at the heart of every KCICnian inspired by such a saying everybody got involved in their desire to remedy the situation. There are several issues and concerns to be considered. We have to settle temporarily to the Kawagoe Church to give us time to worship our God, while executing the plan to build a new edifice for the church.

Everybody knows how important a church is for our life and salvation. Just for the sake of emphasis, the church is the place we go for worship, reading and listening to the words of God, for singing to God's glory, for serving each other, and for helping one another to grow spiritually. To sum it all, it's a place of love, forgiveness and encouragement.

Another problem is how to raise and generate funds for such a gigantic task. The unity of purpose should buoy and elevate each one to work through without creating divisions and repercussions. There are many members, all too willing to work for oneness.

There is a goal and timetable aimed at accomplishing the project to build a new church within a span of eight months. That's quite a tall order to reckon with. Thus, we have to put up strategies to generate more funds so that the construction may gain headway. As another saying puts it -- " It's not the sugar that makes the coffee sweet, but the stirring"... The reason is too obvious. It's the effort. In other words, everybody has to move and something has got to be done in order to produce results. (Read more below. Some more pictures are available also.)