Today, the first day in the first month of the year 2022 has dawned. A new year and a new opportunity have come our way.
We look back on the year 2021 that has just ended with deep gratitude and thanksgiving. The Almighty has done great things for us, and indeed we are glad. We would be unable to count all the blessings with which the good Master has endowed us in the year that has rolled to its end. As a result we are filled with great optimism and hope, that the new year would be even better.
Yes, the New Year would be better, remains our prayers and our wishes. It is also our dream. But we know, that we are not the architect of all that happens to us. We would only do our best and leave the rest to that great hand that knows how best to shape our course of history and direct our purposes to their rightful ends.
We are well aware that the year that just ended was not a bed of roses without some thorns. Perhaps we know also that we did not realize all our entire dreams for the year 2021 neither did we achieve all that were outlined in our various workplans. A good planning for the future ,would therefore, require a cursory look at the events and processes of the year that has come to an end and see how and where possible adjustments would be needed. A life without critical self-re-examination would lack some essential ingredients of renewal and constant growth.
As an Organization with the mandate of service among the poor and the vulnerable of society, among persons of concern and living at the fringe of society, people with little or no voices of their own, usually excluded and often forgotten, driven out of their homelands and abandoned on the high ways, we are constantly burdened by the harsh experiences of these our Beneficiaries. Because they are involved, we are also without respite and peace. We are being constantly challenged to find new ways and means of reaching out to them to ensure their own fullness of life.
In the year that just ended 2021,Caritas Nigeria has done so well in so many areas. Evidences abound to showcase our contributions and impacts. Yet we would not like to blow our own trumpet. However, the truth does not need to be painted. It is to the credit of our Proprietors and Funders that we were able to meet up with the little services we were able to render to our numerous Beneficiaries, living at the fringe of the North East Nigeria, including the FCT, down to Calabar/ Ogoja axis, across Benin City through Benue, Asaba, Enugu, Abia, Jos, Rivers, Lagos, and Imo States of Nigeria. We are largely grateful to them, for such volume of trust and confidence in our collective abilities. We would be most willing in the New Year, to go through the rough roads of sacrifices and pains to serve our brothers and sisters in their desperations and need; God giving us the strength and the resilience not to give up in the face of daunting challenges.
In the end, it is wisdom to learn from the mistakes of the past. It is also good will to plan not to repeat the gaps of the past. And that is the new opportunity of the New Year. The New Year itself affords us infinite grace to do our things differently. And we are prepared to turn in new pages. Let every one of us take advantage of the new dispensation and do our things more correctly. That is the way to arrive at the social behavior change of our dreams.
