Remembering The Columban Fathers
By Ma. Nimfa Penaco-Sitaca
Judge Ma. Nimfa Penaco-Sitaca of the Regional Trial Court of Misamis Occidental was last year named Most Outstanding Judge in the Gender Justice Awards project launched in December 2003 by the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies (UP-CWS), the UP Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc, and the National Commission on the role of Filipino Women (NCRFW). She lives in Ozamiz City.
The light on the lampstand – today, that is how I think of the Columban Fathers who crossed oceans and seas from Australia, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA to labor in distant mission fields - the vineyards of the Lord, in undeveloped Mindanao.
We arrived in Korea in April 1997, springtime. I can still remember how bulky we looked because of our three or four layers of clothing to battle the cold Siberian wind. We spent nine months learning the language. During that period I went once a week after class to a kind of day care center in a poor area in Seoul. Children with both parents working are sent there for the day. I taught them English nursery songs. I remember the first time we met, they stared at me with amazement, telling me how big my eyes were. They often looked confused when I struggled to speak Korean. The fun the children shared with me made the stress of learning the language more bearable.
Adelaida A. Cantona, now living in Toronto, Canada, tells us how Columbans formed her as a child and as a professional, and how their influence guides her in a new country.
