Photograph by: PIERRE OBENDRAUF, THE GAZETTE
Mosque Members Serve Christmas Eve Dinner to Mission
In a world gone crazy from Tea Party zealots incessant screaming over reasonable people to Jim De Mint’s reading problems holding up all business on the Senate floor, we don’t often get our moments of zen or, in this case, Christmas spirit. But here it is. Evincing the true spirit of Christmas in Montreal, Muslims volunteered to serve Christmas Eve Dinner to the needy at the Old Brewery Mission.
The Islamic Community Centre of the South Shore has been working to establish an institution that would serve as a cornerstone in promoting activities reflecting Islamic identity, values, education and true brotherhood among the Muslims. Part of their values include serving humanity, so around twenty members got together with the idea to serve a Christmas Eve dinner at the Mission. Members of the Islamic Community Centre of Brossard contributed $2,000 to sponsor the Christmas Eve dinner at the Mission, an amount double the usual $1,000.00 required to sponsor a dinner.
The Old Brewery Mission provides Montreal’s homeless adults essential emergency services, such as a safe refuge from the street, nourishing meals, warm showers and clothing as well as transitional services and permanent social housing services. The Mission recently won an Award of Excellence by the “Réseau de la santé et des services sociaux” for its work with vulnerable individuals and groups. Men and women from 20 to 70 year of age live in the shelter.
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The Montreal Gazette reported:
“Ismail Mohammed of Greenfield Park, a retired CBC accountant and a native of India who grew up in Pakistan, said, “We don’t celebrate Christmas, but serving humanity is serving God. That is what our teaching says. We want to work with people from all religions,” he added. “We came for peace in this country and we want to establish peace.â€
Monique Khan of Brossard said serving others is the perfect holiday activity: “I feel happy when I make other people happy. It’s a time for sharing and we give what we can” Her husband, Irfan Khan, a building technician, said feeding the needy is about immigrants contributing to their country. “When we came here, we didn’t have anything. We worked hard and we did well. This society has given us so much, and now we have to give back.” Said Suleman, who came to Canada as a refugee from Eritrea, said many fellow Muslims are successful and highly educated and “it’s time to step in and do our share.”
“We have to think of others, of feeding our neighbours, to really participate.”
Sh, you evil immigrants, lest the Wall Streeters here in the USA that we helped hear that. They might get some ideas about giving back and we all know how unAmerican that is. This here is the land of Social Darwinism!
Gee, it sounds like even though they have evil Socialism in Canada, some people still work hard and even learn to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and then miraculously, after they do, they want to give back to their communities. It seems like these immigrants took advantage of the help they got and then turned around, made good with their lives, and gave back!
I’m shocked. I thought all immigrants were lazy and all Muslims wanted to bomb us. Also, too, I note these folks came from a Islamic Community Centre (gasp!) and want to work for peace with all religions. How can it be when Americans know that Mosques need to be refudiated. That’s what I heard on Fox from the Republican’s Great White Hope, Sarah Palin, so it must be true.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that maybe I’d been lied to or maybe the world isn’t a simple as some folks make it out to be. The folks from Islamic Community Centre of Brossard are an example the higher evolution of the human species.
Otherwise known in America as hope.
*For those fluent in French, you can listen here.
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