By: Neil Collins

On Visit to Pakistan
The feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, I was appointed as Lay Mission Coordinator for the Columbans in Mindanao. After ten good years in various parishes in Zamboanga del Sur I found it difficult to move into a new, unknown assignment. Then, in September, I was able to spent A week in Pakistan and to witness the work of three Filipina lay missionaries Pilar Tilos and Emma Pabera from Negros Occidental, and Gloria Canama from Misamis Occidental. The experience has colored all I’ve said and done since.

Cricket Everywhere
The lay missionaries had prepared a Filipino meal to welcome us to Lahore, so it was like coming home when I sat down with in their house. But in the morning I felt I was far from the Philippines. I awake puzzled by the thump, thump, thump and the sound of children’s voices coming from downstairs, nothing stranger, it turned out, than a game a game of cricket being played against our front door. That was another of the constants, cricket in the streets, on every patch of dusty, waste ground, everywhere. Pakistan are the World Champions and every male seems to see himself as a possible Test player.

Shoes Off
We went to Mass- it was Sunday-and stood around outside the school in Shadbagh parish where Mass was said. The young people seemed interested in meeting me. Emma and Pilar went off to speak to friends and organize some meetings. I took off my shoes and went inside. The hall was almost full, but I found a space on the floor near the back.  Something was bothering me, but it was only when Pilar came to rescue me that I realized that I was sitting on the Women’s side. Then I saw that fully half the congregation were men and boys. I was impressed.

Free Women
After Mass I spent the day meeting people, friends of Emma for lunch, families in Pilar’s area of the parish, and drinking endless cup of tea. Emma told me how she gets letters from home, some of which ask, “What are you doing there? Why aren’t you here where the action is?” I think she is tempted at times to agree with the writer. “We’re still only crawling,” she confessed. But I was struck by the reaction of various people to each of the lay missionaries. One young girl in the family who came to lunch was obviously deeply taken by Emma and her way of acting. Fr. Finbar Maxwell summed it up by saying that the main contribution of the Filipina missionaries may be “presence, as women confident in their Christianity leaders in their community, free.”

Get it Yourself
Evening, brought Pilar and me to other Christian family for a meal, hot and spicy – she drank three glasses of water. Like many of the Christian fathers was a street sweeper, working in the middle of the night. He had second job too, I don’t know what, and his wife cleaned a house. But they managed to have a comfortable home, and where putting their son through technical school, half of his fees paid by the government. Pilar told me one neat little story about her friendships with them. One evening when she was eating with them the boy ordered his older sister to get him a glass of water. Reacting the male dominant culture Pilar snapped, “Get it yourself.” For a second all froze, then the boy got up and poured his own glass saying, “Alright.” The girl looked at Pilar as if to say, “If I’d tried that my parents would have punished me.” It’s a small example of how a foreign missionary can sometimes do what the local could not.

Walking like a Buffalo
But when Pilar and I shared a horse- drawn buggy with a Moslem family Pilar had to sit in the middle, with the mother on one side and me safely on the other. “We have to walk like a buffalo,” she complained, meaning that a woman could look neither right nor left, in case she taught the eye of a man.

How about you?
Since I’ve come back to Mindanao I have met many possible lay missionaries, women and men, married and single, who wish to go a s partners in mission with the Columbans. I carry a packet of photographs from my visit to Pakistan, and I find that they explain what lay mission is about much more eloquently than I can. Difficult. Still crawling. Effective. All of these. And Emma would add, very enriching.