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.

Last September the group suggested I attend the Five Week Seminar so that I might gain insight into the formation they’d received.  I didn’t take the suggestion seriously at first.  I babbled excuses about my skill in the language being insufficient at this stage and that I had commitments, scheduled that couldn’t be broken.  They responded in unison, ‘Sulayi lang!’ ‘Try!’

Reluctant participant

Within a week the idea became a reality and I found myself in Ozamiz introducing myself to the other 14 participants who wondered why this white, Western woman was among them.  I was asking the same question.  The five weeks stretching 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 would be living together over the coming weeks in dormitory accommodation, sharing our meals and the daily chores.  It was basic and I soon realized that any notion I had of maintaining any privacy was gone.

The days were long and full.  Mass was at 6 am.  Workshops and lectures kept us occupied until suppertime and sometimes beyond.  As the days passed my Visayan vocabulary grew longer and my dictionary was well thumbed each evening.  On some evenings it was very near 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 in my understanding with alternative words and phrases.  Without them I wouldn’t have reached week five.

Enriched

But language wasn’t the only challenge.  Within a few days I realized 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 felt incredibly uncomfortable.  The wealth and privilege of my own background was glaringly obvious.  For the first time, I was reading the Gospel from the perspective of the poor.  Its 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.

Keeping up with the pace

Vic and Perla Yap, a husband and wife and Fr Boy Ugto, our facilitators, had made it clear that I should be involved at every stage of the journey alongside 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, and communication was sometimes hard.  I remained part of the group, however, and felt a growing sense of humility and privilege at being allowed to do so.

Personal sharing

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 wondered time and time again what I would say when my turn came.  When it did I simply spoke about my own family and about what it had been like to leave them to come to the Philippines.  Since I came here 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 the sharing a young farmer said that when he saw me on the first day he questioned why I was there.  He admitted that he had prejudged me. He had simply seen a rich, white person, ‘But now,” he said to the group, ‘I’ve heard Sarah’s feelings and thoughts about her family and they’re just like mine.  She is now one of us.’  I was very moved by his words and knew that I couldn’t give up despite my own discomfort.

Getting to know one another

The group grew closer and I witnessed different characters come to the fore.  The shyness began to fade and each of us grew in confidence as our contribution was valued.  The wealth of talent within the group was a joy to see and it was exciting to think that this energy might be channeled into the small Christian communities in some of the remote areas of Mindanao.  It was evident by week five that deep friendships and, for 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 a greater intensity in such a small group and 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, Agustin, Toto, Vince and Nards.  I am sure that, like me, they are still working out the implications of having attended the seminar now that they have returned home.

Within a few weeks of our graduation Fr Boy Ugto collapsed while celebrating Mass and died later that day.  I attended his funeral in Dipolog Cathedral with the ‘five-weekers’ from Katipunan.  In her testimony, Perla bore witness to Fr Boy’s service to building small Christian communities through the development of leaders who were yano, simple, humble people.  She asked the ‘five-weekers’ present to stand up and make themselves known.  I was proud at that moment to stand up as a ‘five-weeker’ and felt I had some understanding of the journey that those who were also standing had made in order to serve their communities.