Traveling around the Philippines and living the life... my way

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

 
Fifteen brave Jesuit Volunteers went off their mission areas during that last week of March, even with the torrential rain. For many of these volunteers, leaving wasn't easy. Some left their homes with resentful parents who can not understand why their children have to go away just to serve. Others were fresh graduates from good schools who have all the opportunity in the world to earn a formidable income. While some others left their secure jobs and positions for work that could only be able to provide allowance instead of a salary. All of them uncertain of what the future holds, of what their fate will be and even of what they have to do where they will be sent. These are precisely the things that make them brave.

There could be a lot of reasons why the number of Jesuit Volunteers dipped to an all-time low in about twenty years. The US-Iraq war, the Mindanao crisis, the Davao bombings... these are just some of them. We can not blame them or their parents for being hesitant. Times, indeed, have become more uncertain.

But then these are precisely the times more volunteers are needed. Our country is in a dismal state. People in power are calloused to the cries of the hungry nation. Filipinos are destroying the culture and the lives of other Filipinos for fear of being destroyed themselves. Faith and families are shaken because people are not so sure what to value anymore.

JVPs are not sent to change their country or even the people in it. They are placeced wherever they are to sow the seeds of hope. To let the forgotten people know that there are still people who remember and care. We are not sending JVPs to war, to face the Abu Sayaff or to detonate bombs from exploding. Jesuit Volunteers are sent to teach students (whether elementary, high school or college) that fighting is not the answer to have freedom, but education. They are sent to organize communities to share that toil is more lucrative than disension. JVPs are sent to learn and to share that faith, whether in Jesus, Buddha, Allah or the self, will get one through hard times.

Fifteen volunteers this year. The numbers dipped not because there are less people needing help. There are less JVPs because there are more people fearful of sharing themselves, more people unsure that they can do something at all.

But NOW is the time to help. The time where there is precisely more fear and less hope. If you find it in yourself the heart that has the desire to bring hope them maybe you belong with us.