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Philippines

A Life With Criminals

By Paulo Baleinakorodawa

Paulo Baleinakorodawa worked for three years in the Philippines as a Columban lay missionary. He is now coordinator of Columban Companions in Mission in his native Fiji.

People used to ask me in the Philippines why I hung around so much with criminals. It wasn’t easy to answer. Perhaps it was because of my love and compassion for them. But deep within me was a burning passion to help them know and feel that, despite their wrongdoing, God loved them in the same way He loved those in free society. Here the strength of the message of the Cross became real – God loves and accepts each one of us with no strings attached.

‘I Will Walk With Faith’

By Alma Pangsiw

Alma is from the Mountain Province. She was a strong and healthy person, determined to reach her dreams for her family. But a sudden illness got in her way. Here she shares with us how she continued to walk with faith.

I am the eldest of five and was determined to finish college and find a stable job to help my brothers and sisters through school. Then fate walked in and closed that door.

August 18, 2000. I woke up and felt a sudden pang in my hips and waist. My hands were trembling and sweating. I tried to stand but couldn’t keep my legs from shaking. Yet I managed to get dressed and went to the high school where I was having my teaching practice. I couldn’t keep standing during the flag ceremony because of the throbbing pain. I could also feel both legs getting weaker. After one class I thought the pain would subside but it got worse. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I felt I’d collapse and asked permission to go home.

The Horror Of Payatas

By: Fr Colm McKeating

The author, from Belfast, Northern Ireland, is Regional Director of the
Columbans in the Philippines. 

The name Payatas evokes a horrible image: the 22-hectare, 22-to-45-meter-tall open dumpsite used to dispose of the daily garbage of Metro Manila. Located in a low-lying part of Quezon City, it was chosen about 20 years ago as a relocation area for the notorious ‘Smokey Mountain’ in Tondo, the similar dump and embarrassing eyesore close to the center of Manila. It was hoped that being less visible on the rim of the urban sprawl, it might lessen the impact of social squalor and perhaps become forgotten.

Far Away

By Eric and Margaret Young

It is difficult for parents to let go of their children.  Here, Eric and Margaret share with us how they cope with their daughter’s absence.  Sarah left England and came to the Philippines as a missionary.  In her article, ‘Happy where I am’, she shares with us her life away from home.

Phone bills are suddenly much larger.  Kitchen scales, which have done good service for years, are repaired because accuracy is suddenly essential for the cost of the parcels.  Why?  Because our ‘child’ is thousands of miles away, and it is vital to keep in touch.  This is the age of adventure, freedom, cheap travel.  Youngsters take gap years between high school and university, leave home with a backpack and head off into the wide blue yonder.  Anxious parents meet and swap notes and worry about their absent offspring.  Parents in the United Kingdom have come to terms with the fact that they won’t see their young until the gap year is run.

Happy Where I Am

By Sarah Young

Teria Cabalog is a ‘five-weeker’ – she has completed the five-week ‘Christian Community Workshop’ facilitated by the team of the Community Formation Center (CFC), Ozamiz City.  She and her family welcomed me into their home in Barrio Estrella in January 2002.  Their home is now my home.  With Teria I attend the monthly meeting of the ‘five-weekers’ in Katipunan. I soon came to realize that the ‘five-weekers’ help sustain the small Christian communities under the wing of Katipunan Mission Station in the uplands of the Municipality of Sincacaban, Misamis Occidental.  The agenda of the meetings is wide-ranging, from agricultural matters to the spiritual well being of the communities.  The ‘five-weekers’ here are farmers and when not tending the needs of the community they are tending their crops and animals under the shadow of Mt Malindang, around which the province forms a semi-circle.

‘Bago-ong Eksperyensiya’

By Sr Leticia Bartolome ICM

This is a privileged trip!  I’ve neither passport nor visa nor do I have to pay travel tax to leave the Philippines.  I haven’t seen anyone yet as I’m sitting in a dark and crowded place.  In less than two hours we land in Hong Kong.  I can’t see anything yet, though I feel movement around me.  Finally, air and light enter.  Aaahhh!  The box is being opened. Will they let us out?

A Poem By Fr Rufus

Columban Father Rufus Halley was shot dead in Lanao del Sur on 28 August 2001.

On 19 February this year the Aurora Aragon Peace Foundation and Concerned Women of the Philippines posthumously gave Father Rufus the Aurora Aragon Peace Award ‘for Peace Advocacy and Peace Making.’

The dawn has broken through

The fears and snares of darkness
Are shattered, scattered, put to rout
Hold your head up high, oh man,
And taste the sweetness of morn.

Behold, she’ll rise far to the East
Strong and gentle in silence.
Rejoice, oh man, your freedom’s nigh
The wiles, the winter, snares and shackles are no more

My God, my God, how great you are
For He has set me free.
The lush and fragrant misty dawn
Bejewelled awaits her rising sun

Whilst the morning star retires in silence
Without fanfare, her job well done
And Mother Earth enfolds us all
And bids us drink from her abundant breasts

A venue for the youth to express themselves and to share with our readers their mind, their heart and their soul. We are inviting you – students and young professionals – to drop by Our Hideaway and let us know how you are doing.

Former Atheist

By John Marc Acut

Almost everyday a classmate or a friend would drop by and casually say, ‘You are an "atheist" right? Why the sudden change? This going to Mass and all seems so bizarre for you.’ In reply, I would give my usual smile and start my story…

Upon my entrance to the teenage world, I faced so many troubles. Aside from being so many, they were also very heavy. They included a 75 in my Integrated Algebra, a broken heart and classmates who did not accept me as one of their own. It all came so suddenly that my emotional defenses weren’t able to help much.

Linkages Of Love

By Sister Josefina Estremera DC

On April 20, 1999, a fishing boat from Mindoro was wrecked during a storm. On board were the fishermen and some family members. Pepito Mateo and his son Jimmy survived by clinging to a bamboo pole for three days and nights till rescued by a Taiwanese ship. The Singaporean skipper and Filipino crew took care of the two until they docked five days later in Pattaya, Thailand’s popular tourist resort.

Two of the Philippine Embassy staff met Pepito and Jimmy and immediately took them to the Camillian Hospital in Bangkok. They were badly sun burnt. Jimmy had small wounds caused by fish bites all over his legs and Pepito had a large wound on his right foot from being struck by a plank.

Vietnam: The Long Road To Freedom

An edited version of an article by Fr Bernardo Cervellera PIME of FIDES that appeared in
World Mission

Pope John Paul in Manila in 1995 called on all Asian Catholics to evangelize their continent, the one with the smallest percentage of Christians in the world. This invitation certainly involves the Philippines but also the 8,000,000 Catholics of Vietnam who form ten per cent of the population there, the third largest percentage in the continent.

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