Speech by Superintendent Jill Rogers, District Commander of Counties Manukau in 2021 Buddha’s Birthday Multicultural Festival for World Peace

Good morning everyone

Venerable Abbess Manshin, our very good friend, I wish you the warmest greetings today and to all our distinguished guests, it is so nice to be a part of the gathering today. This morning I reflected on the words that I wrote for a speech that was never given because this time last year we weren’t able to celebrate like this and I think of the words that I wrote and was going to deliver about what was important in our lives. I’d written about a safe home and loving family and friends and sufficient foods to nourish us. I think back as we were forced into lockdown and meant more time at home, more time with those family and friends and in some cases, lots of food, too much cooking. But if I think of the teachings of the Venerable Master and I think of how we rise to adversity, Abbess and her team here taught us a lot about how to accept and rise to the challenge. And that’s something we must reflect is how brave we are going to be in accepting challenges. So we know there is hardship in our community and today we think of the teachings and reflect on those things. You may wonder why there is so many police officers involved in this but it’s the relationships we make in peace time that are so valuable to us when adversity hits. We thank you all for your friendship, the care and the sense of community that you include us in. So Abbess thank you for including us in as you always do to everybody. We wish you a safe  and prosperous year and we look forward to seeing you again next year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBb6Fu-mjDs