Because You Can

Because You Can

Ramadan Mubarak. Alhamdulillah, by the Mercy of Allah we are once again blessed to be visited by the Holy Month of Ramadan. Ramadan is a time of spiritual renewal as we are enjoined to reflect, contemplate and increase our spiritual devotions through prayers, Qur'an reading and good deeds. Ramadan is also a time of giving, as Prophet Muhammad once said, "It is the month of charity, and a month in which a believer's sustenance is increased."

In the spirit of this holy month, SimplyIslam is pleased to adopt the Muslim Kidney Action Association (MKAC) for our Ramadan Charity Basket project. The MKAC has been in the forefront of providing care and support to our Muslim brothers and sisters who are suffering from kidney failure and chronic ailments & providing financial assistance to their families.

Insha'Allah SimplyIslam & MKAC is organising the Ramadan Charity Basket program on Saturday 20 September 2008. Essentially, we will be giving food provisions to some of MKAC's welfare recipients. The food provisions include rice, milk, sugar, dry foods and other basic amenities including Eid novelties. The food provisions will help them in their needs for Ramadan and Eidul Fitr Insha'Allah.

In the spirit of Ramadan, we hope to raise $5,000 to provide the Ramadan Charity Basket for the sick, poor and needy. The MKAC welfare recipients truly deserve our compassion and we seek your contribution and support for this project. Your donations would bring much needed cheer and relief for the kidney patients and their families.

You can donate by cash, cheque, bank transfer, credit card, charge card and Paypal. For details, visit our website [click here] or call 65474407.

For those who wish to volunteer and distribute the food provisions, call 65474407 to register your interest and keep yourself free on 20 September 2008, from 1.30 to 6 pm.

For all enquiries, feel free to call Sis Saira Elley at Tel 65474407 or Bro Mohamed Nassir at 90703200 or email info@simplyislam.sg. Looking forward to your participation in the Ramadan Charity Basket program.

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reward you for your kind contributions with His Blessings and Bounties in perpetuity, Ameen.

Well It's About Time!

Well It's About Time!

"watch you smiling while you are sleeping...wondering if it's me you're seeing..." aerosmith

the 4G thumbdrive that i got for $25 is apparently corrupted and i lost all the pictures of india in there. what a bother.

i was in india for 6 days earlier this month...and it was a real eye opener for me. i learnt so many things from so many aspects - it was my first working trip representing an employer and it was the first time i had to leave hamza for more than 24 hours.

as apprehensive as i was about going, i put all doubts aside as i left hamza with his nenek aby and steeled myself - "ok no need to be so emo about it. being emo's not gonna put food on the table, duh" so i left. and suprise suprise, although he was on my mind incessantly, i was able to relax and enjoy myself! pumping didn't turned out to be as leceh as i thought - each time i arrived in the hotel, i'd ask to leave the freezer bag with the hotel's deep freezer and once i have three packets of milk, they'd bring up the bag to my room to pack the milk in and then it goes straight back to the freezer. they even labelled my freezer bag "MEDICINE - DON'T TOUCH!" and drew an skull on it, y'know the ones you find on the warning lables for poison? funny right?

india seriously grows on you. the people, the culture and even the smells become very familiar and comforting after a while. not to mention it's really easy to get halal food there - namely coz they are very big on vegetarianism and all poultry, beef and mutton are from halal sources. the only issue is the water - you even have to brush your teeth with bottled water. but all good hotels provide guests with 1.5l of bottled mineral water daily. i requested for more coz i needed to sterilize the pumps and bottles after every use. the whole lost handphone thing also turned out to be a blessing - at $4 per minute and 90 cents per sms? oh tak per...can claim a new handphone : )

i'm going off again soon...another six days in perth on the 10th and for two days in melbourne on hari raya ketiga and keempat. sigh...what to do? mother says hamza will have many more hari rayas insya Allah but an opportunity like this for me may not come a'knocking any time again.

never mind i'll just bask with him now.

oh you may wonder what that's red file he's hugging? that's all of the insurance policies that aby and me have taken out for hamza. we have to watch the budget, so for a start, we've managed to cover him for the basic things:

life policy: very very important. this covers him in the event of death and critical illnesses. it matures when he turns 65 and he'll have a nice sum of moolah for his retirement.

education fund: pun very very important. this policy will mature when he's 21 but the great thing about this plan is that i will only need to pay the monthly premiums until he's 12! after that, the value of the fund is large enough to work by itself. how cool is that? it might not be enough to cover all his education costs but at least it will help.

personal accident plan: pun very very important. in the event of an accident or even an injury, it'll give him income if he's hospitalised and will cover all medical costs. i really like this policy coz they define dengue as accident. aper...orang langgar nyamuk? ha, boleh claim? claim lah. : )

in all, aby and me are forking out about $200 monthly for all of hamza's policies. when we buy insurance young, it's much cheaper and he's covered for everything coz there's no exclusions or pre-existing condition. we see it as an investment for his future, insya Allah and if anything happens, we'll just leave it to God.

as usual, this blog will shut down temporarily from 1 to 30 sept for my annual spiritual maintenance and upgrading, so have a good Ramadan peeps!

ps: i just re-read my whole post and it seems like i'm endorsing insurance. let me clarify: i do not sell insurance, i just think that it's really important. an i don't support any particular company. instead i have a very trustworthy consultant who carries out her duty as she sees it to be fardhu kifayah for the muslim community. so i don't recommend the company but i recommend her as a agent if you're looking for one.