Laum. In Waray Waray it means hope. As I look back on my life, I have really had a life full of hope. As a child, during the winter I would hope for a snow day with no school, and as Christmas neared I would hope for a certain gift from Santa. I can remember hoping that I would do well on tests...and that my teacher wouldn't call on me!! As I grew older, my hopes changed from being focused on me to focused on the world around me and the people in it. I hoped my grandmother would survive breast cancer...twice (!), and she did! I hoped my sister Margaret would be able to smile again after she lost her baby...she did too, a different but always beautiful smile! I've hoped for peace in our country and in our world. There is no end to the hopes I have had. I have seen a lot of hope in the Philippines, particularly in the eyes of those whom the Oikos Sisters help. But I have learned the harsh reality of life in the barrios...not all of it, but regarding hope...it seems there is none.
When we were coming home from the re-immersion in Conception, Sister Minerva, Sister Clarissa, Sister Aileen and I had a frank discussion about life in the barrios. It started because I was mentioning how many children there are in Conception and in the surrounding barrios. It seems that because of the high price of fares to leave the barrio, few people travel from the barrio to the city and back for work, so they stay where they are. Many are not educated past grade 6, some have no education beyond grade 2. And as they grow up, they have no hope for a different future...there is no money to provide for something different, so they just live.
Many people are "married" by the age of 15 and begin having children right away. But because they need a "live birth record" or birth certificate to get married, (civilly or in the Church) many don't bother with a ceremony as to get the record, they must pay a fee and travel to a far city to get it. Another hindrance to a marriage ceremony is the shortage of priests in the barrios. Many only have mass said in their barrio once or twice a year! There have been times when a priest will go into a barrio and marry a group of people all together. He has a marriage preparation seminar for the people, and then marries them in one ceremony...it could be 10 or 12 couples or more. So, people just forgo the ceremony and begin their lives together. But they have no hope for a better life.
There are only so many jobs for people in the barrio, and even if they are lucky enough to own land to plant on, getting food to the city market is so expensive, sometimes no profit can be made. And the others? It is a devastating thought that these capable people do not work, cannot provide for their growing families, have no hope for something better. I cannot even imagine a world without hope...I don't want to even try.
So what is the answer? The government's answer is to do nothing. They say that if you give them help for nothing, the people will begin to feel entitled and will just take and take and not move forward. The government frowns on organizations like the Oikos Sisters, but they are slow to do things that would improve the chances of people finding work like build a road to the far flung barrios, create programs that help people pay for the travel fares, create jobs or encourage businesses to enter the barrios. Some might say give the people birth control, but first of all, all life from God is a gift and each life has a purpose and the possibility of making this world a better place. Secondly, these people have no access to doctors to help them deal with the medical issues that come with using birth control, not to mention the money to pay the doctors for care. It is a grim and dark life, a very hard and painful one.
I don't even want to think about living in a world without hope. It seems to me to be the saddest existence ever. And yet, day in and day out, the people in the barrios wake up, go through their days without enough food, without help, without hope for anything that transforms their bitter existence.
You must know me well enough by now to know that I cannot leave this blog on this dour note. The thing I love about the Oikos Sisters is that they don't just hand stuff out to people...well, they do, but they do so much more! They give the people hope. They teach them how to grow vegetables and fruits organically, on risers so they are not digging into land that isn't theirs, they teach them how to raise piglets for breeding and fattening, they send their children to school and bring doctors and dentists right to them. They provide medications for them so they can hope to be healed. They listen to these people...like Jennifer and her son John Mark that I wrote about a few blogs ago... the Sisters paid for the fare for Jennifer and her son to return to her family in Manila. They are amazing!
Even now, they are planning a Christmas Giving in several barrios...we made a giving tree and received names of children from several barrios. We have 200 names of children!! Some of the gifts will be bought by the Oikos kids, some by Oikos co-workers and some by people in our parish. A few days before Christmas, we will bring Christmas to the barrios. Every year they do something like this for the poor. Last year we fed over 300 people on Christmas day, a few years ago the Sisters made Christmas food packs of rice, sugar, coffee, noodles, ingredients for pancet and some fruit. They traveled toward the south and stopped at every small house they drove by, knocked on the door, sang a few Christmas carols and gave the family a food pack. This year we will bring gifts for the children, games for a Christmas party and food for the families for Christmas to a few barrios. They are always finding new ways to help the poor, to bring them hope.
But they are only 5 Sisters. This Advent, please pray for vocations to the Oikos Sisters' Mission. They need more workers in the field... not only sisters, but missionaries and co-workers too. And if you would like to help the Oikos Sisters bring hope to the poor here in the Philippines, you can make a donation at http://www.PoorHouseholdofGod.org. Unbelievably, 100% of your donation goes directly to the poor here in the Philippines...and I am witness to the careful usage of your donations here. Lastly, please pray for the Oikos Sisters. They carry the burden of the hopelessness here.
Laum...Hope...It is something that is often taken for granted, and it shouldn't be! Hope is what gets us up and out and on our way. Hope is what drives us and what encourages us on when the situation we are in seems full of devastation and despair. I remember in the great movie Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman's character was without hope, and he was pressing his fellow inmates to let go of hope. But in the last scene he began to hope, in fact, I think the last line of the movie is "I hope..."
I hope for so much for the poor here...I hope they no longer feel the bitter pangs of hopelessness and can feel the love of God through all of us. I hope... xxoo
