Step-up :)

(Warning: A very long post. I’m writing it chronologically so realizations may pop up in the middle of the paragraphs.)

This entry is an attempt to capture what I experienced in the 16th CFC- YFC International Leaders’ Conference in Cebu City from April 3-6, 2009. I say attempt because the richness of experience you get from these events of such scale (9000 delegates from different parts of the world, 44 from Ateneo and a lot of other familiar faces in a region ___ kilometers away from home) can never really be expressed satisfactorily in words. It is both faith enriching and community building and so the only reservoir fitting for the experience would be the heart. The task to articulate the experience was so daunting that last year, I utterly failed. But the impetus to do it was so strong that I started this blog on the premise of recording these very memorable annual events and sharing God’s messages to the world.

I begin this sharing by talking about what ILC has always meant to me. The first ILC I went to, the 14th in Naga City, solidified God’s call for me to be part of YFC. The second ILC I went to, the 15th in Tagaytay City, affirmed God’s promise of helping me in the long and arduous task of actually growing up. The ILC has become a bookmark in my spiritual journey that began since birth but I recognized the way I do now in 3rd year high school. My ILC experience is a continuing story, a saga of my life that has yet to end. At the same time, it’s also a kind of retreat as you leave everything to go to an unfamiliar place with people whether friends or strangers, reminiscent of Jesus’ frequent travels to the top of the mountains and hills or middle of the deserts and seas usually to find Himself and God before He engages in His ministry. It’s a different kind because you are rarely silent but called to always be prayerful. Usually for me, God’s call is clearest in these events where you can step back and look at the entirety of the picture. It’s so easy to have a conversation with God when you have nothing to think about but just the small things: food, lodging and where to sit to get the best view. It’s a spiritual pilgrimage, but a truly exciting one in the modern sense of the term – with everything that will engage all your senses.

This year’s ILC, in retrospect, was in a way one of God’s responses for my request to “grow up”. Unlike Naga and Tagaytay, I would have to travel by plane to a place that would not be easily accessible by my parents. But I didn’t have as much difficulty asking permission to attend the event as I did in Naga. I guess and I hope they see how YFC is transforming my life and it is a subtle affirmation that I continue to live out my faith the way I do. The more difficult task was to actually acquire the resources for the trip. I will be frank about the expenses – Php 8,000.00 for just the basics (transpo, lodging, registration). I probably spent about Php 10,000.00. Again in retrospect, perhaps it was God’s challenge for me to actually be a grown-up, to use what talents and resources I have to get what I want and what He wants for me. I set-up a small loading business and with a lot of saving up, I managed to cover 80% of my expenses. Truly, a lot of growing up was needed to keep yourself from eating that extra cake or buying that book or spending an extra hour playing in a computer shop. But by God’s grace of discipline and direction, I was able to achieve it. As you may have noticed, the logistics and finances, no matter how secular they may seem, can easily and clearly be rooted in the faith we all strive to live out and it makes so much more sense if there is that steady direction to the things that we do.

I was bringing plenty of “experiential baggage” that I hoped God would make sense of in the ILC. I guess in responding to my yearning for opportunities to grow up, God just unleashed a multitude of new experiences in my life, breaking me where I needed to be broken and fashioning a different me, transforming my life to the point of non-recognition. But it was a process between just me and God. He wasn’t giving me liposuction or a facelift. For a whole year, I was undergoing internal pruning from both internal and external sources. I experienced a lot of deaths, got into a dorm and experienced a slightly higher modicum of freedom, met a lot of new people, and became intimate with a lot more – each and every experience building up to another. Second year was marked by a lot of crossroads and intersections, and I had to give up a lot of things and stand up for a lot of decisions I had to make. It was a confusing time for me. I was broken in to a million pieces, but God was steadily molding me into a new and better person, more open to His promptings and more ready than ever to respond to what He wants for me. It’s not over, but I have recognized this much. The ending highlight of the year perhaps is my exploration of two of three possible paths to my life-long vocation – priesthood and marriage. I was bringing that question to the ILC and I was hoping He would give me an answer there as well. So I traveled with that question in mind, hoping to find clues to what God wants for my life but expecting to be surprised again.

The travel to Cebu was pretty interesting. It was my first domestic flight, and it was comfortable. Though some of our other delegates got better deals with PAL, I was just glad to be on that plane on the way to Cebu. I’ve been on a plane once in my life before, on the way to Hong Kong, but I could barely remember the experience. It was just like riding a roller coaster, and yet you can see the world fall below you. We were flying at around 30,000 feet and I can only marvel at the beauty of God’s creation. I’ve always been a fan of clouds, so I found it awesome to see them from the top. As we were descending, I was thinking of how small we actually are in the bigger cosmic schemes. It has always been said but I was seeing it first hand, we were literally specks in the grandeur of the world and yet we seem to have the uncanny ability to build our own worlds and forget how we are but a mere part of it. As we arrived, and went down the plane, I realized why we are able to do it – our ingenuity and creativity seems so limitless that we can build planes to conquer the skies. One of God’s most enduring gifts to us is our intellect and we have used it to extend ourselves to master the world. The question that popped was are we using that gift well?

We landed on Mactan so there was the matter of traveling to Cebu. We were expecting to get cabs but fortunately, the organizers rented a bus for a free ride to the staging area, Sacred Heart School. Throughout the trip, I was on the look out as to how different Cebu was from Manila. For one thing, there was a lot less traffic and a whole lot less noise. It was a Thursday and for someone so used to the hustle and bustle of Cubao, North Avenue and Recto, Mactan and downtown Cebu was like Binondo during Pacquiao matches. So for all the touting of Cebu being the “Queen City of the South”, it was still a far cry from “Imperialistic Manila”. But the thing that caught my attention was it seems there weren’t a lot of shanties – they probably had them relocated before the last ASEAN summit in Cebu. It wasn’t able to hide however that poverty was very much present in Cebu as well. I have one photo in my album and I was thinking, “May taong grasa din pala sa Cebu, parang Katipunan lang e.”

After we dropped our bags at the Center for Education, Development and Training (CENDET) of the United Churches of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) along Osmena Boulevard, we went on to some of the historical sites of Cebu. We rode jeeps (or multicabs as they seem to call it there) that bore the amazing route numbers. I’d like to think they were a product of more progressive planning – something Manila sorely lacks. We passed by downtown Cebu and it was really just like Binondo only smaller. As we reached Magellan’s Cross, the first thing that caught my attention was how small the Cross actually was (hehe). The next was that City Hall was directly in front of it which affirms that Cebu was really built by the Spaniards following the “pueblo” model of city planning – putting all the government and religious buildings at the center. The final thing that moved me was that there were candle vendors much like in Antipolo, but they actually wore costumes, with IDs. They were middle aged to senior women asking us to buy candles and dance something as a sign of tribute to the cross. Moving on to the other side of the Basilica, there were also old women selling candles, only they probably weren’t registered so they wore their normal clothes and sold candles on the street. Who would possibly buy in such an inconspicuous area? I was filled with a strange feeling. I was worried for them, asking myself how they could keep surviving that kind of life and that they seem to be the neglected part of society. The interesting thing was inside the Basilica, there was actually a candle lighting area and they actually had candles there (they are theoretically free but you are invited to donate for their use). Basic economics: why would I buy candles from ambulant vendors when there was a solid institution that could satisfy my needs. This was a lot different from Antipolo because you knew people would actually be buying candles from these vendors. It was a puzzling experience to think about how these old women, nearing the end of their lives, with their backs bent and possibly hurting, could still continue such as livelihood that promises so little in return. Are these not the kind of people that should be taken care of already by the government or the Church? I could only speculate how they manage to survive but I know they do as we all do, by God’s grace.

We explored the Basilica of Sto. Nino de Cebu and it was again smaller than I expected, although they had this huge plaza where I presume they would have their open air masses. It was a lot smaller church than the seats of archdioceses in Manila (I’ve been to two: Kalookan and Manila Cathedrals) and yet like in Antipolo, there were a lot of people lining up to touch the Sto. Nino. It was as much a tourist destination as it was a place of worship. I found nothing wrong with it except its still beyond my faith to have this intense devotion on images of reverence, such as the Sto. Nino, presumably the first gift of the Spaniards to the people of Cebu.

We moved on to Fort San Pedro and it was a smaller version of Fort Santiago. It was a triangular fort with cannons but they transformed the inner grounds into something similar to a garden you could use for receptions. This place was memorable not for its historicity (although I do enjoy it), but because this was my first opportunity to do something about that strange feeling I had at the Basilica. I realized God was turning my attention to these things for a reason and I realized perhaps it was Him telling me to give what I can to people I meet, probably for the last time. I had nothing to give but the warmth of a conversation and actually remembering who they were. I’ve heard this once before, that asking a person’s name gives a face to an otherwise faceless person who was simply to us a vendor, or a driver, or a stranger in the crowd. So it was in this place that I met Mang Adonis, a vendor at the souvenir shop. He’s been selling these things for years already but he seems to be happy about his life. He had this ingenious way of writing stuff on the souvenir items – a syringe with paint. That’s what he used to write on the decorative souvenir we bought as a token for the Villa family who later fed us. We said goodbye to Fort San Pedro and went on to the Villa residence along Mabini Street. Their house was pretty big and you’d see how they can afford to send Nile to the Ateneo. They hosted a dinner for all 44 of us and it was great. The taxi driver who brought us to Mabini (I forgot his name ☹) was talking to us about life in Cebu, how it was cheaper to get food here and yet every bit more sumptuous than food in Manila. He used to drive in Manila but transferred back in Cebu. Gasoline was a lot more expensive in Cebu because of freight costs (Php 36.00 per liter compared to our Php 23.00) but food was really cheap. He talked to us about pusu, rice wrapped around leaves and cooked that way and how cheap but tasty it was. It was the same pusu that we ate at the Villa residence together with lechon that didn’t have sarsa but didn’t need to have to because it was so filled with flavor already. For desert, we had mangoes, some of the sweetest I’ve ever tasted. ☺ The house wasn’t much different from the ones you’ll probably see in La Vista or Xavierville. Nile’s Lola was actually even watching “May Bukas Pa”, the same show my mom was probably watching the same time. It kind of reinforces how similar life in Cebu and Manila were and how technology can help bridge the cultural gaps these two places may have by uniting them into a singular Filipino culture continually built, transformed and perpetuated by mass media. It was also the first time we saw our beloved graduates who came from an earlier island hopping trip between Cebu and Bohol.

(I hope you’re still with me, this is really a long post)

So our day two begins with some GDs, processing etc. I was chosen to be a team leader again this year, but it wasn’t such a new experience for me because I got to do it last year. What I am glad about day two was that I got to meet more new people – Roi, Jolo, Mara, Teddy, Lalaine and Topher. I made it a point to really remove my “mahiyain” self and make them feel more welcome in our community that was known really for cliquishness (hehe). Hence, I teased Roi and Mara which a lot of people enjoyed and because Teddy was part of my team, I tried to make sure he was comfortable and not bored. It was a tiring thing to be thinking about others, especially a whole team of people, but it made sense later on.

We went to Ayala Center-Cebu and discovered how similar it was to the Ayala Malls in Manila. We ate at Giligan’s because we were looking for seafood because we were abstaining but the highlight of the trip was Dessert Factory. Think Banapple + Five Cows. Their cakes were amazing especially Achocolypse! and that amazing Carrot Cake. Thank you Mara and Nile for bringing us there! An interesting thing happened as we were heading back to the ILC proper. I was wearing my Ateneo jacket and suddenly a group of YFC guys came up to me and started talking to me. They were telling me that they were the only Ateneo team to join the Bayani Challenge in Cebu a week before ILC. We were talking about Xavier University and said what I knew about it, from Fr. Jett to Chuckie. We ended the conversation as we were about to leave by getting their names but I only remembered Chito. It was a funny thing because I wore the Ateneo Jacket to attract some kind of attention and that hopefully another delegation will come up to us and talk to us. It actually worked! hahaha

So we went on to our real first day for ILC which started with the praise parade, a colorful march of different regions showcasing the richness of their culture. This was followed by a mass which had a terrible choir (!!!) but I guess the main highlight, as it has always been, was communion time. It was reminiscent of the feeding of the five thousand and this time, it was nine thousand! It was such a sight to see, a sea of humanity lining up to receive the Bread of Life and sharing a common purpose and common understanding for why they were there and what was about to happen. After the mass was the opening worship and it was simply amazing. This was markedly different from the kinds of worship we have in Ateneo in recent times, because it was a pure praising of God, no inputs, no realizations, just a lifting up of praise to Him with all the energy we could muster. It was prayer as it is supposed to be – an attempt of His creatures to give glory to Him.

I missed the first session because I had to do something for Kimui but I knew it was an affirmation that God was going to speak to me not just through the sessions but the entire experience of being in Cebu. So I did try to help my friend as much as I could and traveled back for what was left of the session. It was talking about basically the different sectors of YFC, how much we’ve accomplished so that we could look more clearly into our future as a community. I guess it was empowering for a lot of people, but I was still disconnected from the theme.

The second day was for workshops and the main sessions of the ILC. It was the morning worship that I liked best of all the worships because it was simple but I knew I was really speaking to my God at that point. We were basking in the heat of the sun but it didn’t matter to us because we were also basking in God’s prescence.

We had to cut up the delegation to three for the three available workshops. I would have wanted to go to the vocation discernment workshop but I knew I had to give up my slot for the graduates who probably needed it more so I went with the rest of the boys to the exhortation workshop. It was an amazing workshop because it quantified for us one of the most important components of worship leading. Exhortation is about preparing the entire community to worship God. It was amazing not only for the input but also for the opportunity to try it out. I guess this was God preparing me for the other thing He has asked me to do soon. We also met here some friends from Negros especially Jayson who was part of our group. He just graduated this March and was going to take a test to get into Ateneo but opted to go to ILC instead. To a lot of people, it was probably a stupid decision, but seeing him share it to us with much conviction, I could understand how important YFC and this event was to him so I respect him for that certainty of where his heart is.

We went back to the venue for the sessions. It wasn’t very memorable except the message Forget and Focus which many of us felt should have to be characterized further. For me, you can’t really forget anything because that’s how you actually learn – through memory. It’s more of dissecting an experience, removing the negative things that can prove so cumbersome to move on and focus on the positive things that could help you move forward better prepared for the next challenges. It seemed to me a big sharing of what full-time work was about, or what stepping up in YFC is but I just couldn’t connect anymore because my stepping-up time for the moment had passed and the bigger question of vocation wasn’t being answered by the input given. What I did appreciate about day two was the final worship wherein the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was put at the core of the worship. It was an amazing thing to not just put it as a separate event or an exclamation point to everything but to put it at the very heart of what we see as our identity as YFC. It was answered prayer for my part and a lot of others I’ve shared this too. I wasn’t sure everyone was prepared for it because I noticed some people didn’t understand what was happening, but for me, the mere actualized intention of returning to the core of our faith is a good sign that I’m still in the right community. ☺

In the second day mass, I asked a brother from Bulacan, Jasper, to sit with us because they simply didn’t have enough seats. We talked a little after mass talking to me about how big their delegation were, where they stayed and how he was liking it so far. It was unfortunate that they had to move because of the bounty parade. But it was an interesting surprise for him to text me the morning after we went back to Manila to thank me for the kindness. It was such an amazing thing for a stranger you opened up to for just a while to go out of his way and tell you he say God in you in that small act of kindness. Galing talaga!

As we were going home, I met Mang Nelson Pareja who used to be a jeepney driver in Manila taking the route of Navotas-Divisoria. He was there a long time ago because he was sharing to me landmarks that had long been replaced. But it was an interesting experience to have someone a thousand kilometers away know about my hometown.

Everything only made sense in the third day. I can’t recall exactly how I got to it but I think for all the stepping up the sessions were talking about, God was directing me to a different place. The past year, I’ve been immersed in questions of things larger than my life – vocation, or even the big decisions of which leadership position to assume. I heard God telling me to look into the smaller details of my life and to step up in them – He called me to be a “kuya” somehow to my group because He was preparing me to be a better “kuya” if I’m given a household or simply to people who look up to me and my own brothers at home. He was calling me to be a better student, as I now realize I’ve neglected so much. He was calling me to step up more in the leadership position I had assumed, to bear the cross I’ve chosen with much vigor. He was calling me to step up in the friendships I had especially with the graduates who would no longer be as present physically. He was calling me to step up as a son, to relearn humility in obedience and love. These were “smaller” things, but daunting at the same time. This was God’s call for me for the year, and as always, He gave me the promise of company in the journey He was calling me to take. God speaks to me through opportunities and it’s a funny thing that right after ILC, He’s been giving it to me.

Before the final worship, we went to speak with the La Salle delegation. There was a time our two schools were a lot closer that we shared a camp once four years ago. So we talked for a while, and we’re expecting Miguel to join us next year. He’s incoming LM.

The final worship was truly an empowering one. To be praising God in the heat of the sun was one thing, but to do it with the community you’ve grown with and you’ll grow it is another. To pray over each other and to ask God to bless each one was for me the most empowering thing YFC has always given to me. When you pray for each other, it wasn’t simply calling God’s grace to fall into that person, it was a promise of you becoming that grace to him. It’s the sacramental principle: grace builds on nature. God’s grace is not some magical aura that enters you, it’s concretized in things of this world, and for that special moment, I knew we were to each other God’s grace. There was a rare meteorological occurrence during the worship – a rainbow appeared on top of us, horizontal so it means the cirrus clouds above us were actually precipitating but it wasn’t reaching us. That way, there was a prism being formed above us and it looked like a circle was covering us.

ILC might be over but our trip to Cebu wasn’t. We headed to Portofino Beach Resort and along the way we met Mang Florie, a taxi driver. He also used to drive a taxi in Manila but he found his wife in Cebu so they decided to settle here. It was interesting how you can make such big decisions for the people you love – leaving your previous life in Manila just to start a new one with your one true love. And I wondered if I could do the same or if God actually cut me out to experience it.

I had to sleep for a while because I was terribly exhausted and Ed was also sick. But when I woke up and went to the beach I was in for a surprise. Our delegation was in a competition with La Salle – Dasma building sand castles and we won (hehe). So the La Salle delegation danced the YFC Step-up chant. Later on, while we were gearing up to join them, you could here them singing and having fun along the beach as far off as our cottage. It was such fun to find other YFCs who were practical strangers but had been through the same experience you went through as well. Solidarity the way Christ envisioned it ☺ Another surprise was that UST was also there and the three got together and decided we should worship together in the middle of the beach. So amidst the many onlookers there at the beach, we formed a circle and just worshipped God. Extra amazing was Roi who stepped up and led us into worship. ☺ Amazing lang talaga.

We also went to Su Tu Kil for dinner and it was amazing to see the market so clean. Talked with Ate Sally there who was sharing that they had a shellfish business and the empty shells they collect to make souvenir items. Sustainable business framework, walang waste in fairness ☺

We left the beach, stayed for a while at SM Cebu where we bought plenty of pasalubong, went back to Mactan Airport and finally home.

Haaaay. Haba haha. I’m bringing home a lot of things from Cebu but I think the most powerful is that I still have a family in YFC no matter what – one of the clearest signs of God’s faithfulness in my life. ☺ I’m excited for the year ahead and where God will lead all of us next ☺ Next ILC sa Baguio wahoo!