SULADS STORIES

CASILAYAN MISSION SCHOOL IS OPENED

by Datu Matata-U (Danilo Bada, MPH)

January 1997

Casilayan Mission School is located four kilometers west of Mahaba Mission School that is located nineteen kilometers west of the municipality of San Luis, Agusan del Sur.  One must pass over an old logging road of the Industrial Timber Corporation.

As in the Mahaba Mission School, the people living along the Casilayan River are Manobos.  These people live in a small community of fifteen small households shared by two to three families each.  The total population of the village is about two hundred including children.  Some of the families are isolated upstream or downstream of the Casilayan River.  The language of these Manobos is Minanubo.  Most of them are relatives of the writer, Datu Matata-U or Danilo Bada who is the only Seventh-day Adventist living among the tribes of San Luis, Agusan del Sur.

Datu Matata-U has been doing God’s mission to his tribal land since 1991 after he graduated with a Master’s degree in Public Health from the International Institute of Health of Philippine Union College in Silang Cavite.  Philippine Union College has subsequently become Adventist University of the Philippines.

He thanks God that the SULADS organization of Mountain View College has accepted him and is giving him a monthly stipend to provide for his daily needs in the mission school since January 1997.

It is the goal to open another mission school in Tagpangi by June, 1997, but this will depend on the financial capability of the SULADS.  This would be three mission schools in the area of San Luis—Mahaba Mission School, Casilayan Mission School and Tagpangi Mission School.

Only God knows the way to reach these tribal lands.  To us it appears that it takes the commitment on the part of the student missionaries coupled with the willingness of the donors to support this outreach work.  These people are hungering for a better life in this world and we can also show them the joys of the life to come in the place that God has prepared for us.