Zyra is a third year student in the high school department of Columban College, Olongapo City.

I often wondered why things have to be the way they are; why there are those people born with a silver spoon while others endure their downtrodden lives.  Why?  And so I continued upon my search until I came upon with this word that could offer an answer: Mission.

True enough, each one of us has our aim or goal in life.  Furthermore, I believe that even before we are born, God has already delegated a mission.  This mission does not only inscribe itself in serving God and Jesus Christ but the human race as well.

There are those soldiers who would defend and fight for their country as their end zone, doctors who would cure, care for, and continue to serve the ill, mothers who take care of their family, fathers who work assiduously to support their loved ones and children who bring smiles and laughter to each other.

Evidently, everybody has his mission but I personally believe that the greatest mission is serving God as we call upon only Him.  That is why we have people who join Christian organizations such as the Children of Mary, church choirs, youth ministry and even the altar ministry.  Some choose to be missionaries, becoming nuns and priests.  But only a few choose to serve God.  Most people perceive serving God as faking the priesthood, but it’s not. The truth is even we, kids, can serve Him.  Reading the Bible and sharing its inspiring stories: how Christ lived His life, how His disciples served the ordinary people by curing and bringing them closer to the Almighty, those stories that could trigger even the toughest heart and get them working their way to help the underprivileged.

With all these, I remember a story from my aunt.  Let me share it with you.

Some years back, back when she was still very young, she had a very kind neighbor named Lisa.  Lisa grew up in a very affluent family.  They owned numerous businesses and even a hacienda.  She was an only child that left her much taken care of.  She got everything she wanted but even so, she felt lonely.  Her parents were too aloof.  They did not treat their employees well and she didn’t want to be like them.  So, she prayed hard everyday that God with His omnipotence would make her parents good.

When she was little, she would go to school and no one would speak to her.  She had no friends. That was how even her classmates reacted to her parents’ attitude towards others.  At night before she could even go to sleep, she’d remember all this and cry.  But still her little heart wouldn’t lose hope.  Her faith in God told her that everything would be better soon.

As time passed by, Lisa’s intelligence emerged and she decided to put this great gift into use by helping her classmates understand their lessons.  Moreover, when Lisa saw that her classmates didn’t have food during recess for lack of money, she shared hers.  With all her nice doings, the time came when people finally saw her difference and they liked her.  And so, she gained friends.  Happy and enthusiastic she became!

One day, she invited some of her friends to her house.  Everyone was having fun.  Until her parents arrived.  Her friends politely greeted the house owners but the two just gave them an eye. 

When Lisa’s friends went home, her parents talked to her that they didn’t want her seeing those ‘peasants’ again.  She said yes but never meant to follow.  She remained friends with these ‘peasants’ and grew up each day as a good being.

 Time just flew and now the little girl was a teenager.  She refused to be like her parents, treating people kindly and with respect.  She even tried talking to her mom and dad that they should be good to their maids and workers but they didn’t listen.

A few more years and now she’s a college student.  The day was filled with much celebration and that was the last celebration they had as a family.  Two months quickly went by and her parents got into a car accident.  The car crashed into a tree and both died instantly.

She was completely distraught but still she stood steadfastly pulling strength from her unfailing faith. She learned that everything from the land to the business was to be named to her after her parents’ death.  This did not make her any happier but if it was of any consolation, this opened her eyes to the mission she was to take part in in this life:  to help the oppressed and impart what she had to the needy.

She increased the compensation of their workers and treated them well.  Being a doctor, she decided to volunteer with the Red Cross and gave free consultations and check-ups to those folks who couldn’t afford professionals.  She spearheaded feeding programs and sent less fortunate children to school.  With all these she didn’t find herself a husband and was living her life helping the poor and serving God.

Clearly, mission is an aim in life arising from a conviction or sense of calling.  And life has so much to offer that you just get a hold on and find your purpose.  Finally, God has every reason for your existence in this magnificent world.  You just have to believe that you are His beautiful creation and you have the power to change and inscribe your name in this great realm.

Shanti is a fourth year high school student in Divine Word of San Jose College, San Jose, Occidental Mindoro.

I only heard of him from my mother.  Whenever I was faced with challenges in school, my mother always mentioned his name.  But I had not yet seen him in my life.

According to my mother, his and my family had been long-time neighbors in our town in the old days when there were still deer and flowers in the wild, and birds and butterflies to habitat the plants.

His name is known in our community and he is known in the school where I am presently studying. He belonged to the first year high school class when the school, then only an academy, opened in 1963.  In his time, the school had only one building compared to the many buildings now when I started my Grade I in 1996.

He is much older than me, even some years older than my mother.  In our school, he was active in academics, in extra curricular activities and in campus politics.  He was into reading, music and arts. In sports, he was into ping-pong, basketball, swimming and judo–karate.  And he was one of those activists before the martial law years.

After college my mother’s friend – they even treated each other as relatives – went to university and studied law.  When he returned to our hometown one summer time, he was already employed in the country’s premier investigative police agency – the NBI.

At the NBI, he met and moved with important people.  He saw the powerful and the influential who shaped the nation’s destiny.  Indeed, the city was full of wine, women and song.

But in a split second, an accident completely changed his life.  The result of the CT scan on his broken spinal column, as announced by the doctors, devastated him: ‘paralysis, in all probability, permanent.’  He was then 34, with two children aged two and three.

Back in our hometown, changes began to appear in his body.  His renal and rectal functions ceased to function.  All his right fingers stiffened.  His legs became thin and lost their sensation.  He could not even turn on his side without assistance.  At nights, rats, ants and cockroaches feasted on his feet and toes.  And massive bedsores appeared to eat his flesh.

What aggravated his sad condition was when he and his wife separated.  Because the couple parted with animosity, his wife denied him his children.  In his mother’s home later, he also felt the indifference of the other members of his family.  He sensed he was being considered a burden worth being dumped.  And my mother’s friend, who felt he was all alone in this cruel world, began to hate God.  He often asked at night, ‘God, why did you give me this wretched life?’ 

There was one option left for him to end it all – to take his life.

But the images of his children kept appearing in his sleep.  The images of the suffering Christ nailed on the cross and His weeping mother at the foot of the cross refused to leave him.  The scene at the crucifixion pestered him that one should remember God more when one is suffering.

And one night, when everything was still and everybody was asleep, my mother’s friend raised a simple prayer to heaven to ask God’s forgiveness. Tears flowing, he repented and accepted his fate – that long before he was born, his name was already written, he was already chosen by the Lord to help Him carry His cross.

He pledged to God that, in his condition now – physical body destroyed but with brains intact – he had to spend the remaining years of his life in the service of others, just as he had done when he was still in the government service.  That night, he asked God to give him the sign.

And God answered his prayers when one December day his two children stood by the door of his room.  They approached and climbed onto his bed, one on the left and the other on the right.

He embraced them, and smelled the sweet scent of innocence.  And when his children embraced him back, he whispered: ‘Ang ligaya ko po ngayong Pako.  Thank you Lord.’

This reunion with his children made my mother’s friend want to live again.  Since then, he changed his outlook in life.  If severe tests caused some men to break, my mother’s friend resolved to strengthen his moral courage and not to doubt again his faith in God.

For starters, he taught his left hand to write the ABC.  He also taught his left to hold the brush to paint – painting being his first love even when he was still a boy.

When a telephone was installed in his room, my mother’s friend went into radio reporting and aired to the public the people’s problems.  He fought for the people’s welfare, especially the poor, the voiceless, the oppressed.

To help the people more, he renewed his ties with the NBI; thus the NBI provided assistance in his hometown in investigating cases.  He helped the poor in filing cases.  By word of mouth, what he was doing spread and reached the neighboring towns.  And more people came to him for assistance.

I saw my mother’s friend for the first time on TV when Ms Korina Sanchez featured him in Balitang K. It was at this point that I asked my mother to bring me to him.

There he was, lying in bed.  His room was small and its ceiling low.  This was his world for the past 16 years.  It was true, his wasted body was permanently nailed to his bed.  Pity was the first feeling I felt toward him.

But when he smiled at me, I noticed his eyes sparked with certainty.  And when he spoke and let me into his mind, I saw his thoughts to be deep and his understanding of what life is far and wide.

I learned that he resolved to give more of his time to be of service to others.  I likewise learned that whenever people left his room with hope renewed and courage born, he realized the value of his life because people were affected by the way he lived a full life despite his limitations.  To him, this was the imposing meaning why God gave him what he, at first, thought was ‘a wretched life’ – to inspire others.

I would never forget when he quoted a line from a little book titled The Little Prince :  ‘And now here’s my secret, a very simple secret:  It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes.’

When I left his room, I felt humbled.  This man, my family’s long-time friend and neighbor, even relative, as they proudly announced, who once so hated God that he thought of taking his own life, found the power to renew his faith, and the power to keep it alive with the passion to live under that unshaken faith that God is always on his side.

My mother’s friend has come to worship Him.