SULADS STORIES

WITHOUT YOU I CAN’T BE LIKE

By: Cristita Bandalan Garnado

Missionary to Balangbangan Mission School

            My father was the most feared of in our tribe.  A chief in his own right nobody would dare break his word.  He was a headhunter and the fiercest among his brothers.  His brothers join him in headhunting causing bloody tribal conflicts.  By this our village Dao was always attacked by other villages.  I can still remember, when one night when we were attacked,  we groped in the dark as we ran for our lives taking cover in the bush.

            I can’t forget also the time when I was still a small girl, my father  would hide by our window with his bow and arrows.  Aiming at passersby, shot the arrow, and whenever somebody is hit especially on the leg, he would enjoy laughing especially when the victim, crawls in pain.  He seems to be just enjoying this as a game.

            He was known as notorious killer.  Because whenever he goes, wild animal or human  he killed it.  He divides the corpse in pieces, the head in another village the  left hand in a forest, the other hand in other place, and so with the rest of the pieces of the body scattered everywhere.  This leaves the bereaved crazy and furious searching for the pieces to assemble them.

            In our home, he roars like a lion and we his children tremble before him.  Mother can’t do anything either.  There seems to be no way to change my father.

            Then one day student missionaries from Mountain View College came to our village.  They said, “we came to teach  your children how to read and write  and many more things.  This seems strange to my father and he showed little interest.  He was cold in welcoming the missionaries.   We his children and the rest of the people in the village were happy for the good news that a school will be built and the two teachers will stay in the village.

            I can hardly wait for the school to start.  The villagers except my father helped the student missionaries build the school.  Children and women helped gather cogon grass for roofing,   while men gathered sticks and lumber.  It just took us a week to finish our school.

            Our new teachers’ ways were strange.  They don’t smoke like the lowlanders we knew.   They sing a lot to the tune of the guitar they brought.  At the sound of the bell we gather every morning and evening to listen to our teachers tell stories from big roll of pictures.

            School was fun.  We learned many things  in school.  What I love most were the stories from the Bible, read write, draw and sing.

            The teachers hardly knew me because, shyly I would hide in a corner but would listen attentively to the stories.  The teachers never knew that secretly I have learned to admire them because of their being kind and good examples as missionaries.  This led me to dream to be a missionary teacher someday.  I did the best I can in my studies.  I took the government’s placement test and I passed it.  I got a privilege to study at MVC.  With this opportunity, I worked hard to fulfill my dream.  Finally I achieved it with a major in Elementary Education.

            I have promised to my Lord and myself, because the missionaries gave their lives for me and my manobo brothers and sisters, I will also give my life to go back to my own people who have not been reached yet by the gospel.

            Today, my father is already a baptized Seventh-day Adventist.  The last to be baptized in our family.  I, too, am now a current missionary back to my own people in another village together with my husband and child.