Dear Luzia,

 Greetings from St Vincent de Paul Mission Liukui Taiwan!

 Thank you so much for giving time to read my reflection on the March/April issue of Misyon.  That was my sharing on the occasion of my Silver Jubilee.

  Your letter is very interesting.  Thanks for being so open to share your thoughts and feelings regarding my reflection.  Yes, God’s movements in the lives of people is a mystery, and a mystery, sometimes will confuse you, if your thoughts and feelings are ‘focused’ in the confusion itself.  But if you are open to it, you inquire, you search, you ask, just as what you did, then you will find the answers to your questions, and you will be at peace and will feel happy about the confusing issue, isn’t it?  I don’t know if I make sense to you. What I mean is “Be happy and thankful with what God has given you.”  or “Be thankful with what you are because life itself is a free gift to us. Remind you, that God is love, he loves us despite our sinfulness. Don’t think that God punished us, because we are bad, or we are not doing well in school or at home.  What he wants us to do is to acknowledge our failures and shortcomings, be sorry for them and try to change to be a better person.

Pope Francis with Eucharistic Youth Movement

7 August 2015

By Beth Sabado

The author, from Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines, is a nurse by profession and has worked as a Columban Lay Missionary in Taiwan. She is currently based in Hong Kong as Coordinator of the Lay Missionary Central Leadership Team (LMCLT).

The Sabado Family home, Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur.

I had the chance to watch a stage play in Birmingham Repertory Theatre entitled ‘Refugee Boy’. A story about a fourteen-year-old boy born of an Ethiopian father and Eritrean mother and because of a violent civil war back home his father made a heartbreaking decision to leave him in London. The boy woke up one morning and his father was gone. As described, ‘Refugee Boy’ is a story about arriving, belonging and finding a home.

Back: Telesforo, Pacita, Felix and Gondee. Front: Beth and Patboone (died 1981).

‘A home is a place where I can unpack my luggage down to the very bottom’. This is how one of the refugees in the play defined a home. Her definition stayed with me from then on.

When Dad passed away on March of 2008 I remember consoling myself with the thought that Mum was still around. However on one gloomy afternoon of February 2013, I received that dreaded phone call from my brother telling me, ‘Beth, Mum is hooked up on ECG but the traces are a flat line’. After a few minutes, with the convenience of modern technology, I was connected to my sister in the USA and my brother in the Philippines at Mum’s bedside praying the prayer of commendation online! Virtual and posh, I thought, but Mum passed into eternal life with God in whom she believed passionately and wholeheartedly.

By Beth Sabado

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8).

Marveling at the beauty of God's creation with my cousin Marley.

I was granted a single entry visa to Canada, all we needed to fulfill the plan to drive Montreal and Quebec City. This was a post-birthday present from my sister Gondee and her family, an unexpected yet highly appreciated opportunity to be with my cousin Marley Dacanay who used to be a Columban Lay Missionary in Taiwan. Marley is now a Lay Associate of the Foreign Missions Society, formerly Prêtres Missions des Étrangères (PME), and was preparing to leave for Brazil the Tuesday afternoon we arrived. We were amazed at how our visit came just in time to give her our family support. We felt nothing but wonder at the very favorable weather, the breathtaking scenery, as it was the peak of the autumn foliage. We also became the beneficiary of a free parking pass for a day to the most coveted parking area in Old Quebec City from a stranger. Our hotel accommodation was also beyond our expectation; everything was working out for us!