SULADS STORIES

PATIENCE

by Marlon Manlapao

Dao Mission School

December 1996

To be a missionary or a leader of people is not an easy task if you are not fully dedicated to the Lord.  In the mountain, you can experience so many things that you would not expect to happen.  You need to understand others and especially yourself.  You need the ability to accept and remain calm in difficult situations.

It happened like this.  Sir Jun Cardante and I together with Merlyn Gapas, the midwife assigned by the government here in Barangay Dao conducted an evaluation.  We started gathering people in an assembly meeting.  We tell them what was the purpose and what they will get by cooperating with us.  We told them we would visit their houses and to be sure that their houses were clean.  We wanted to see their herbal garden, beautification of the house, and of course, the toilet.  They responded, “Uya”, which means “yes”.  We scheduled to visit them one month later.

After three weeks, no preparations had been made.  Even the Barangay Plaza was not ready to be evaluated.  We called the Barangay Captain and the Datus and requested that they help us with the problem.  We observed that they were not willing to help.  We felt embarrassed to tell the midwife and the sanitary inspector about this failure.

We called another assembly meeting.  We asked them one by one why there seemed to be problems between them and us, the student missionaries.  Why was it that they would not cooperate in this program which was designed for their own good?  If they did not cooperate, this mission school might be closed.  Some of them promised to cooperate next time because they did not want their school to be closed.  We did not want to close the school either because we had learned to love the children and parents of Dao.  We love them in spite of their unseemly behavior or how hard headed they might be at times. 

This experience taught us to be more patient with the Manobos.  We need to understand their weaknesses and to educate and guide them.

We do not know what is the plan of God for each one of us.  We take it to the Lord in prayer.  I will go where He wants me to go.  I am not afraid of the NPA’s (a rebel group) and their program here in Dao.  I am willing to be like Dodong Bardon (who was killed by the rebels some years ago while working as a student missionary) if it is God’s will.