Newsletter n° 2 of Rolandas : July – October 2015

Good day!

The life in SD Philippines

community is going on and I’m here

again to tell you about that. 3 months

passed since my first letter, but joy

living with Jesus seems never passing

away. The same situation is with

summer. I know that in Europe

October is the time of getting cold,

but here the summer continues.

However we have no time for

holidays, because this time is a great

chance to do good things. But about

everything from beginning!

Kuya Damien and family

At the end of July Talim island

was visited by one family. As

we had some sharing time

they told us their story. Kuya

Damien was a medical

volunteer in Manila many

years ago. During his time in

Philippines he healed many

people, learned tagalog

language and had some

activities and bounding

moments together with

founder of San Damiano

community in Philippines – Kuya Nick and other older community members. That time also was a

begining of Damien’s own family. Now they all live in France and visit Philippines only once in a

10 years. So we was lucky to welcome them in Talim and hear many stories about kuya Nick and

beginning of community in Sapang, listen to Damien’s teachings about economics, migration and

life in Europe, have some bounding time climbing to the highest point of Talim – peak of vulcanic

mountain Tagapo. Thank you, kuya Damien!

Mission in Laiban

Many years Laiban is an important place for Tiberiade Philippines community. We have

strong friendship with village members and their leader. Sometimes we visit them and

sometimes they visit us here in Sapang participating in community events. Laiban is a distant

place situated in southern Luzon and inhabited with tribal Remontado Dumagat people. Usualy

they still live without using electricity, cultivating soil with water buffalo’s and building houses

from bamboo material. Catholic religion there is one among few protestant and local beliefs.

Laiban people often are lacking of medical and educational support, so every time visit them, we

try to answer their needs. Br. Emmanuel brings his teachings and celebrate mass together, kuya

Oyet brings medical support and we, the youth, share our friendship. Last time community had a

little visitation there in August. As I heard, they had nice time praying, playing and sharing

together. Also they set up a new pump to support locals with water.

Baptism

It’s a story how I became a godfather. As I live here 7 months already, I built some nice

friendship with local people. One of them is community gardener, kuya Oman. During this time

the sister of my friend was blessed with a first newborn child and their family asked me to

participate in baptism. So now I became more connected to Philippines and became more father,

than before.

Tiberiade brothers in Talim

Time after time Br.

Emmanuel visits Philippine

community. Sometimes he

brings some gifts with him,

but this time, in the middle

of the August, he brought

something special. It was

Br. Gilles. This brother is

living in my home country

Lithuania more than 10

years and every camp never

pass without his teachings

and joy. Perhaps now Gilles

speaks Lithuanian more

fluent, than his mother

language so I was happy to

communicate again without

barriers after a long time. In his 3 weeks here he helped Br. Emmanuel in his parish duty and

visited many villages telling teachings and celebrating mass also he joined in our Saturday work –

bringing firewood from future monastery place – Tangos (a cape), but his most favorite mission

was working in vegetable garden. So we all together took shovels and picks and spilled our

sweat in the garden, sometimes even missing to take our rest time. That’s why Filipino people

will always remember br. Gilles as hard-working brother. With his help we expanded gardening

area and planted there some local plants, such as kamote (sweet potato) and calabasa

(pumpkins), which today already has many blossoms. Maybe until December we will have some

fruits. Fruits of brother’s Gilles and team work.

Mission of Waterlillies

As there is a plan of monastery to be built in Sapang, we have a lot of works of preparing a

place. We cutting trees, planting fruit trees, strenghtening a fence and so on. One of these works

was to prepare some land for monastery vegetable garden. We had to make it more flat and

more fertile, so for one whole day whole Philippine Tiberiade community, staff and scholars, was

mobilized for the same work – collecting watterlillies from the lake and setting it up on the soil.

There was really funny and joyful work and became even funnier with the rain. We collected

many sacks of waterlillies, but most of them are still in the water, so this work is still waiting for

volunteers.

Youth day of Antipolo diocese

In the beginning of

september we had diocese

youth day, which was

celebrated in Talim. It means,

that we welcommed many

groups of young people from

Talim and mainland. From

early morning there came

many boats with people I see

first time asking details about

event. At beginning we

celebrated mass in Janosa

village and after we took a

walk to Sapang, singing

praising songs on the road. In Sapang youth had some teachings and excercises to do. I joined to

some activities and built some friendship with young people from Morong city (mainland). That’s

really nice that in many cases Filipinos are friendly people.

Arrival of the new volunteer

People in Sapang there are

really lucky, because from now

on they will have not only me,

but also another new volunteer

from Belgium, physiotheraphist

ate Aline. She just came at the

end of September and now

getting familiar with life in

community. Many people

everyday call her name (because

“alin” in tagalog language means

“which” :-). It seems ate learning

to speak tagalog fast and already

helped a lot in community works

– consulting patients and applying therapy in the clinic, planting new grass together with us,

teaching scholars english language, working as photographer, singing teacher and so on. Aline is

here only few weeks, but already experienced typhoon, earthquake and 3 days blackout.

Hopefuly in the next newsletter she will write about her

life in Philippines.

Catechist celebration in Sapang

Few months ago one of our scholars, kuya Reggie,

joined a teaching program for new catechists. Now he

really became a catechist and sometimes goes to school

and teaches children about God. That’s why the

celebration of catechist at the end of September was also

important for us as community. For celebration we

learned some dancing, drama play and prepared covered

court. At the day of event there to Sapang group by group

from each village-parish came many people from all over

the Talim. The participants prepared many drama play based by the stories of The Bible. Later all

catechists led improvised catechist dance, which was followed by all the people in event. We had

really nice and interesting event with friendly sharing of Talim people. Good luck in your catechist

work, kuya Reggie!

Improving of environment

At the beginning of October here in Sapang

came a boat, which unloaded many sacks with

grass. As I realized later that was beginning of

few days grass planting marathon. At first we was

exercising our muscles with carrying sacks to our

living place and later our only work was planting,

planting and planting :-) We was really fed up with

grass and everyday washing mud from our heads,

but today it’s really nice to see results of our

work. New grass around the chapel looks

beautiful now.

Scholars growing up

Two years passed since one

scholar from neighbour village joined to

live in Bukid, scholars formation house.

Now is the time to move on. October is

the time for Jann Lester to start his

studies in Don Bosco Technical College.

We miss your jokes, energy and

sharings. Good luck!

Vegetable garden

Works in the vegetable

garden reached the middle

point. We finished making

drainage. The flooding is not a

problem anymore. Also by

expanding gardening place with

Br. Gilles pumpkins and kuya

Gerald banana plantation we

now are utilizing almost full field

area. First vegetables we

planted, already gives food and

profit for community. Kuya Nick

is selling some Kamote (sweet

potato) leaves, Patola (Luffa)

and Okra (Lady’s finger)

vegetables in the market. For second batch we continue growing same vegetables, but also

trying to add some new, like Radish, Cucumber, Tomatoes and many others. That’s a pity, that

one of the favorite foods people like in my country - the potatoes, don’t want to grow there.

They always get rotten fast because of warm and wet climate. However I still have few months

to live here in Philippines, it’s a chance and challenge to

find a way for potatoes to grow :-)

Thanks for everyone.

May God bless you! :-) +