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Misyon Online - January-February 1990

January-February 1990

Bookstore in Taiwan

Sister Agnes Gabito FSP,
A Filipino missionary

In Taiwan for 24 years

LEAVING HOME
In the year 1963, two weeks after my final vows, I left the Philippines and went to China to spread the good news with Chinese brothers and sisters. I spent almost half of my existence in that mission as other missionaries did, and I would willingly share a few of the truths I discovered and lived during those 26 years away from my own country. Those experiences were precious and have become a part of my life.

By Fr Joseph Panabang SVD

When I arrived in Ghana, a veteran sister repeated the same advice I receive in the Philippines from other veteran missionary priest: “For the first three months, it is really hard. But do not worry; the coming months will be harder!”
* * *

Ntankoro is my oldest and the biggest village but it is plagued by the idea that the priest must support the, the laity by giving them food, clothing, money and such, like with the laity with not supporting him in return. The Church President of this village unfortunately did not have a good name. He is said to have consulted a fetish priest and killed sheep for the river gods when under pressure. He was very sick then.

During my visit, he said that he had a dream and wanted me to interpret it. This was his dream; he was holding a cup of water and he wanted to give it to me. But while offering the cup he was saying, “It is good or bad?” Now, he wanted to know the answer. “This dream is interesting, “I said. Then, like Joseph the Dreamer of old, I proceed: “The meaning of your dream is this: you must support you priest materially and spiritually. The water symbolizes the blessings the priest gets from your support and also the blessing for you in return. The question, ‘Is it good or bad? Is the voice of the devil tempting you? So then, obviously the answer is, ‘Yes, it is good.’ It is good to give the cup of water to the priest, for Christ said that he who gives a cup of cold water to one of his disciples will not go unrewarded.” Whew!

Mortgaged to Death

By Father Eugene Ryan, SSC

Bursar General of the Columban Fathers

ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. This is the amount owed by Third World countries to the richer nations I did not gradually mount up over a period of 30 or 40 years: It mushroomed in the last 15, and is still growing alarmingly.

This debt is effectively strangling the Thrird World and reducing it to a state that border on slavery. It is tearing apart the economic and social fabric of Latin America and bringing with it what Pope John Paul II recently called a ‘state of inhuman poverty.’ Even the Wall Street Journal refers to the ‘intractability’ of this debt problems and ‘its crushing human toll.’

Mysterious Macau

By Sister Ines A. Tan, FMM

OFF TO CHINA

             I was born and grow up in Luzon, in the Tagalog region of the Philippines. Soon after I became a Franciscan Missionary of Mary, I was sent to Macau, a Portuguese Colony, a peninsula attached to the mainland China. Ninety eight percent of the populations are Chinese. It only takes ten minutes walk from the border to go to the nearest market of China. Many people here go there almost everyday to buy fresh fish and vegetables.

INTIFADA: No Peace in Bethlehem

By Sister Marcelle Theresa, SPC

Sr. Marcelle Theresa a placid and unflappable Filipino Sister from Cagayan de Oro City, find herself in the midst of the INTIFADA: the prolonged Arab uprising in the occupied territories. She is bewildered but she trust in God and asks Him to lead her on quietly in faith.

            In 1967, a war between the Arabs and the Israelis resulted in the occupation by Israel of certain Arab territories: Sinai, Gaza, Golan Heights, the West Bank and a part of Jerusalem. Sinai has been returned to Egypt but the other territories remain under Israeli control.

Take My Daughter

By Sister Docilia Pizzaro, FSP
A Filipino Missionary

Pakistan is South Asian nation with over 100 million people. The land has a history of civilization at least 2,300 years old, but Pakistan as a nation is just 42 years old. Catholics comprise about one half of one percent of Pakistanis.

THE DAYS BEFORE TV

In those days when videos were not yet in circulation and film- shows were still in demand, we arranged to visit that ‘basti’ (barrio) of Quetta in Baluchistan with our film, “ Sacrifice of Isaac.