Beginnings: Flashback, four months agoI wave goodbye with tears freely flowing from my eyes as I enter the departure area of the Davao international airport. It felt like I was leaving a very large part of me behind and not knowing when I would be able to go back was heart wrenching.
Chapter Endings: Fast forward, September 11
I cry buckets of tears as Carla, a very dear friend, the younger sister I never had, gives her testimony during the church's prayer gathering. She shares what going to Davao did to her and she bids farewell to us who have been her family in the seven years that she was away from home.
Somewhere in Between
I think majority, if not all, of us have been tempted to skip to the end of a book we are reading. There is that anticipation and desire to know how things end that make skipping to the final pages very tempting.
But reading just the beginnings and the endings never make sense and it somehow robs one of the joy of experiencing the opportunity to completely involve and engage one's self in a story. This testimony is what is "in-between" my beginnings and chapter endings of my Davao saga.
In the time between April 14 and August 18, I got to convince three of my closest church friends to go back to Davao and walk the mountains that showed me what my heart was made of.
It was very easy to convince one. Cookie, being the very supportive friend that she is, readily ran with my heart. I had to use the "travel the Philippines" card on Bobbie. And on Carla, I had to get down on my knees to pray that she would decide to go as she was going through difficult times in her life and was prone to "change plans" out of the blue.
Why was I so bent on having my sisters in church go back to Davao with me? I wanted them to see what I saw last summer as I walked the majestic mountains of Davao. I wanted them to feel what I felt last summer as I lived with the Matigsalugs. I wanted them to see the God of tribes and nations who was so real in the life and worship of this people.
Why was I so bent on going back to Davao? Because it was in Davao that I found my heart. And in any story of a journey to self discovery one always wants to go back to the mirror that showed a person his reflection. I wanted to look closely into the mirror to see what else was in me.
God did not disappoint; He showed me His heart and I heard my heartbeat.
We were participants in the trial run of the Osmosis Project. There couldn't have been a better opportunity for me to look closely at my reflection than this. The Osmosis Project's goal is "to draw out from the participants their own desires and vision for holistic transformation of indigenous communities and to engage the participants' imagination so they might see what is possible for themselves as individuals, for the team as a whole, as well as for the community and social contexts from which they come and to which they will return."
We were to do what the Matigsalugs did, listen to their stories and dreams, and share ours as well. Listening to and sharing of stories or what we call "pakikipagkwentuhan" might sound unproductive to many. Admittedly, there is no tangible output after an hour of "pakikipagkwentuhan" but it is in the "pakikipagkwentuhan" that people's hearts get to connect.
It is in "pakikipagkwentuhan" that a mutuality of relationships is established, hence the prefix "pakiki". It is in "pakikipagkwentuhan" that another person's dreams also become your own, another person's struggles yours, and another person's heartbeat the rhythm of your heartbeat as well.
God showed me His heart through "pakikipagkwentuhan". I heard of stories that made my teacher heart bleed.
These are stories of children having only two school days because the teachers are not able to spend the whole week up in the mountains. I heard of stories of mass promotion and no clear measurement of a student's readiness to be promoted to the next grade level. I heard of stories of school children trekking under the heat of the sun everyday just so they can go to school. I saw classrooms badly in need of repairs. I saw torn textbooks and textbooks left to rot at the jeepney drop off point at the foot of the mountain.
After hearing these stories and seeing these things, I heard my heartbeat. God birthed dreams in my teacher heart. Tribal Mission Foundation is starting to develop a curriculum for pre-school indigenous children. They call it Foundational Learning for Indigenous Children or FLIC. I saw the opportunity to help and be part of something as grand as shaping the minds of young indigenous children, to help them be proud of their identity, and to spur them to claim their own destiny. FLIC is something I would really like to work on and be a part of. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to become a teacher and why Cookie and I want to put up our own school in the future. This is shaping the mind of a whole generation for national transformation.
Chapter Endings and New Beginnings: Love and My Heartbeat
It is funny how going to Davao always amazes me. It is easy to go on missions trips and say you are helping and giving because you happen to have the financial capacity to do so. But in the two occasions that I walked these mountains, it was always I who went back to Manila with so much more.
The first time I went up, the Matigslugs taught me to open my heart and risk it in order to build relationships. That was why I was crying four months ago. I opened my heart and it fed on the love that easily flowed in the Matigsalug community. I did not know if I would ever be able to experience such openness and love in the busyness of Manila. Today, it is something that I experience with old and new friends, with students and co-teachers, with current and future family members.
This second trip showed me that the heart doesn't just have to be open but that it must beat in synchrony with other hearts. To reach that point wherein you no longer keep count as to who is giving and who is receiving but the focus is on whether or not you have the same heartbeat. And that is why I was crying last Friday. The idea of missing the cadence of Carla's heartbeat was painful.
But that is the way of the heart, I guess. You risk, you love, and you feel pain when there is loss. Because pain shows you that what was lost was of value. But it doesn't mean that you will lose that rhythm, for "the heart in its purity knows no other thing but to connect and beat in synchrony with other hearts" (graffiti in a train seat as cited by de Guia, 2005).
Until I walk the mountains of Davao again and be reunited with the Matigsalugs, I shall be content with listening to the cadence of my heartbeat. Right now, I like the way it sounds. It has the rhythm of dreams that have just been birthed and visions that are waiting to come to pass.
I would like to take this time to say "thank you" in behalf of the whole team that went to Davao last August 19-26. I thank you, Church of the Risen Lord for supporting me, Cookie, Carla, and Bobbie in this missions trip. Thank you, Pastor VJ for sending us with your blessings and your covering. Thank you to the missions board for your willingness to support and send us out into the missions field. May God bless our church as we partner with Him in fulfilling the Great Commission. And may we have even more opportunities to sow seeds and harvest souls in the vast mission field. Amen.
