By Virgenia Oral Vidad

The Beneficiaries

Virgie’s involvement with the Columbans started when she was in college. She used to go with Fr Don Kill in selling and promoting Misyon on Sundays. She joined the Columban Familia Misyon under Columban Sister Tammy Saberon. It was an organization of college students who volunteered to visit children with disabilities in Ozamiz City in their homes. She now works with the Pedaling to Live community set up by Columban Fr Oliver McCrossan.

Father Oli with children in the community.

I come from a very poor family in Ramon Magsaysay, Zamboanga del Sur, my father being a farmer. He worked very hard to provide us with food. He usually woke up at 4am to work. My mother took care of us while we were studying. Sometimes she would help my father on the farm. At weekends my brothers and I would help him, especially during the planting and harvesting seasons. I can’t imagine how I survived the heat of the sun during the planting season.

When I was eleven I left home and went to Buug, Zamboanga del Sur, with my brother and was in Grade Six in Buug Elementary School. That was my first time to sleep without my mother beside me, a very painful year that helped me to grow more mature. I finished high school as a working student in Sominot National High School. I stayed in the house of one of my teachers so I didn’t have to spend for daily transportation. In spite of these difficulties in my elementary and high school years, I was determined to pursue college.

In June 1993 I enrolled for a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at Immaculate Conception College, Ozamiz City (now La Salle University). I graduated as a working scholar in October 1997 and the following month started as a secretary of the President of the school.

By Jayson B. Arcamo

The author, who is based in Bacolod City, works full-time with the Columban Mission Office.

Victoria Malacapay Andas was born on 30 September 1929 in Binalbagan, Negros Occidental, and died on 11 August 2012. She was eighth among the ten children of Justina Rojas Malacapay and Remegio Libo-on Andas who were both public school teachers during the time of Maestro Emong (Geronimo Abada Sr.), the first district supervisor of Kabankalan.

Victoria, while still in high school, started helping her sister Milagros to teach catechism in the Flores de Mayo after World War II. Padre Juan Garcia was the parish priest at that time. She wanted to become a religious sister and joined the Sisters of Charity. After a year as a novice she had to leave for health reasons.

Through the help of the late Columban Fr Thomas Cronin, Victoria enrolled at the University of Negros Occidental and took the two-year Junior Normal General Course leading to the title of Elementary Teacher’s Certificate (ETC) and graduated in March 1962. (The Order of Augustinian Recollects bought UNO in 1962 and changed its name to ‘University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos’ or ‘UNO-R’.) In 1963 Victoria became a Kindergarten teacher and later a Grade One teacher at Kabankalan College (now Kabankalan Catholic College). Three years later she decided to be a full-time catechist in St Francis Xavier Parish.

When her sister Milagros died giving birth, Victoria, together with Flora, their youngest sister, took good care of her orphaned nieces, Ana Mae, Aileen, and Milagros Aurea, and of their sister’s stepson Edmundo. Despite the financial difficulties that she and Flora had to face, she never saw looking for ‘greener pastures’ to have a better income for the family as an option. Instead, she took more people in need under her care. Her nieces would often describe their home as the extension house of the parish convent. They recalled that every month, she would offer her home to the ‘novios y novias’ from far flung areas of the parish who had no place to stay the night before the pre-marriage seminar they were required to attend the following day. Her nieces recalled that they had to share their bedrooms on the second floor with the ‘novias’ while all the ‘novios’ slept on the ground floor. Her family remembered that there were even parishioners from Hinoba-an in the far south of the province, victims of land-grabbing, who stayed with them the night before their hearing at the Municipal Trial Court.

A ‘Pilgrimage of Life’

A reaction paper by Mitch Owen Gil G. Ledesma

The author is studying Medical Technology at Colegio San Agustin, Bacolod City (CSA-B).

This year we celebrate the Year of Faith. Because of this we had a ‘Pilgrimage of Life’ on Saturday 1 December 2012. A pilgrimage is a journey of grace, it a spiritual journey of faith towards God. Pope Benedict XVI began his apostolic letter Porta Fidei, announcing the Year of Faith, with these words: The ‘door of faith’ (Acts 14:27) is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church . . . To enter through that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime’. The ‘Pilgrimage of Life’ made me ask how strong my faith in God is and what I must do in order to serve Him.

During the pilgrimage we visited many churches here in Negros Occidental and I learned a lot about their history. One example is San Isidro Labrador Church in Binalbagan. I learned that that was where the Augustinian missionaries first planted the seed of Christianity and that San Isidro is the Patron of Laborers, a true model of hard work.

After that we continued travelling and had the chance to share our experiences, opinions and views on how we relate our work to our faith and trust in God. Through that, I realized that in everything we do, we should know why we are doing it. We must always bear in mind that God is the source of all our knowledge, wisdom, skill and talents, so we must work through his grace and for his glory.

By Maira San Juan

Maira San Juan is from Taytay, Rizal, near Manila, and worked as a Columban Lay Missionary in Korea from 2007 till the end of 2012.

It’s been five years since I arrived in Korea as a Columban Lay Missionary from the Philippines. Since my nine months of language study I have been immersed in ministry with a community of persons with AIDS. On my first day there I felt a mixture of excitement and fear: excitement because it was my first time meeting people living with HIV and I was curious to know how they were coping after learning that they were HIV-positive; fear because at the back of my mind I was thinking I might get the HIV virus through them since we ate at the same table, used the same toilet, talked to each other and so on. But through the years I have been with them, my thinking and feelings have changed, not only about them but also about life, about people, about me and about God. Being a missionary involved in AIDS ministry has helped me to grow not only as a person but also as a woman called by God to be a part of his mission. Throughout my journey, the prayer that has helped me and acquired a new personal meaning is the Lord’s Prayer.