Living My Dream
By Febie M. Gonzales
Febie is from Alamada, Cotabato, and graduated with a BS in Accounting and Financial Management from Notre Dame University, Cotabato City. She is currently studying Mandarin Chinese full-time in Hsinchu City, Taiwan, and discerning a placement for ministry to start in July.
Febie with Judy Chu, her Mandarin teacher<
It all started with a dream. I came to Taiwan in June 2016 for my three-year term as a Columban Lay Missionary. This was my first experience of cross-cultural living. I was so excited. At the beginning life was great. Then I began to study Mandarin Chinese. My class was on a one-to-one basis two hours daily. My program of study was divided into four parts: listening, speaking, character reading and writing. As I write, I am in the listening and speaking parts.
Known by her Christian friends as Monica, Xia Jingxian had belonged to the Handmaids of Our Lady, a diocesan group of religious sisters set up in Hanyang by Bishop Edward Galvin in the 1930s.
My village of 800 residents is one hundred percent Catholic. It is in Shaanxi Province, 16 hours by train southwest of Beijing. My Christian name was chosen by our parish priest when he baptized me. As a young boy I always went to church with my grandmother even though I did not really like to. I preferred to be playing with my friends. On one occasion, during my primary school years, I went to see an open-air movie at Mass time.