Living with the People

by Sarah Young, Lay Missionary in the Philippines

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Sarah Young, a Lay Missionary from Britain, writes about the stress and the joys of participating
in an intensive five week seminar in community building skills.

Teria Cabalog is a ‘five weeker', i.e. a person who has completed the five-week seminar entitled ‘Christian Community Workshop' facilitated by the Community Formation Centre in Ozamiz City, Mindanao.

Teria and her family welcomed me to the barrio of Estrella in January 2002 and this has become my home here in Mindanao. In my early days here, I attended the monthly meetings of the ‘five weekers' in Katipunan in Teria's company. I soon came to realise that the graduates of this seminar play a considerable role in sustaining the small Christian communities of Katipunan Mission Station. Their agenda is wide-ranging: from agricultural matters to the spiritual well-being of their communities. They are farmers. When they are not tending the needs of the community they are tending their crops and animals under the shadow of Mount Malindang.

When I had been in the community some time, the group suggested that I also should attend the Five-Week Seminar so that I might gain insight into the formation that they had received. At first I did not take the suggestion seriously. I babbled excuses: that my skill in the language was insufficient at that stage; that I had commitments scheduled which could not be broken. They responded in unison, ‘Sulayi lang!', ‘Just try anyway!'

Within the same week the idea became reality. I found myself in Ozamiz introducing myself to the other fourteen participants who must have wondered why this white, western woman was amongst them. I was asking the same question. The five weeks, which stretched out before me, seemed like a huge expanse of time. I resolved to take one day at a time and just see how far along the road I could go. Not only would we be sharing the content of the course each day but also we would be living together over the coming weeks in dormitory accommodation, sharing our meals and the daily chores. It was basic and I soon realised that any notion I had of maintaining any privacy was unrealistic.

The days were long and full. Mass was at 6am. Workshops and lectures kept us occupied until suppertime and sometimes beyond. As the days passed my Visayan vocabulary list grew longer and my dictionary was well thumbed each evening after the close of the sessions. On some evenings the dictionary nearly became my pillow as the tiredness began to set in. My four companions from Katipunan took pity on me and tried their best to fill in the gaps of my understanding with alternative words and phrases. Without them I would never have reached week five.

But language was not the only challenge. Within a few days I realised that there were other dynamics at work. Through personal sharing of life experience, exploring the option for the poor in Scripture, and being enlightened about the history of the Philippines and the cycle of dominance from outside its boundaries, I began to feel extremely uncomfortable. The wealth and privilege of my own background was glaringly obvious. For the first time, I was reading the Gospels from the perspective of the poor. It's power and relevance hit me in a way that it had failed to do in all the years I had received it from the perspective of the ‘first world'. I wondered whether I should really be present at all. All I could do in response to this feeling was to stay and listen.

Perla and Vic Yap and Fr Boy Ugto, our facilitators, had made it clear that they expected me to be involved at every stage of the journey along with the other members of the group. The journey became more uncomfortable but, like the roads up to Estrella, I knew I just had to get through the mud and over the rocks and keep going. The group could have left me behind within a few days. There was a huge gulf between their experience and mine. Communication was sometimes hard. However, I remained part of the group and I felt a growing sense of humility and privilege at being allowed to do so.

In the ‘deepening groups' where personal life experiences were shared I listened for two days to the most powerful stories. My companions told of their struggle to support their families and many related disturbing scenes of violent encounters in the home. I was expected to contribute my own story and time and again I wondered what I would say when my turn came. When it did arrive I simply spoke about my own family. I spoke about what it had been like to leave them to come to the Philippines. Since leaving home my father has been quite sick and I expressed my feelings about this and how my parents continued to support my decision to be here. At the end of my sharing, one of the group, a young farmer, said that when he saw me on the first day he had questioned why I was there. He admitted that he had pre-judged me. He had simply seen a rich, white person. ‘But now', he said, ‘I have heard that she has feelings and thoughts about her family as I do about mine. She is one of us now.' I was very moved by his words and knew that I could not give up despite my own discomfort.

The group grew closer and I witnessed different characters come to the fore. The shyness began to fade and the participants grew in confidence as their contribution was valued. The wealth of talent within the group was a joy to see and it was exciting to think that this energy would be channelled into the small Christian communities in some of the most remote areas of Mindanao. By week five deep friendships and even some romantic liaisons were forming and we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into the creative drama workshops thoroughly appreciating the presence of each other. We enjoyed relaxation and healing as we explored alternative health remedies. I was very glad of the massage to take the strain and tiredness away. For me, the five weeks had been a microcosm of my time in the Philippines to date. I had revisited every emotion and it seemed to have had greater intensity in such a small group and over such a confined space of time. I will never forget the trust and companionship that was formed during those five weeks with An-an, Bhoboy, Luz, Lorie, Mila, Rita, Mayeth, Doydoy, Enan, Jojo, Augustin, Toto, Vince and Nards.

Within a few weeks of our graduation, Fr Boy Ugto collapsed whilst celebrating Mass and died later that day. In her testimony at the funeral, Perla bore witness to Fr Boy's service to building the small Christian communities through training leaders. She asked the ‘five-weekers' who were present to stand up and make themselves known. I was proud at that moment to stand and be identified with my companions called to serve as leaders in their communities