By Father Rembert G. Rivera

The author is Chairman of the Commission on Mission in the Diocese of Kabankalan, Negros Occidental.

In 1990, in my first assignment, as parish priest of St Isidore the Farmer Parish, Moises Padilla, I had a dream of serving my people zealously in the Diocese of Kabankalan. I worked hard in building Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs), the foremost program of our diocese under Most Rev. Vicente M. Navarra, now Bishop of Bacolod.

I read an article in Misyon, when the late Fr Niall O’Brien was editor, about the ongoing tithing program in the Diocese of San Carlos, under Bishop Nicholas Mondejar. Without much ado, I wrote Bishop Mondejar and later met him at the Bishop’s House in Bacolod. He refused payment for the five copies of the handbook of theModified Training Program and Self-sufficiency Program that he gave me. But he asked me to spread the idea among my fellow priests and lay people.