By Sr. Virginia Mozo, SSC
When I returned to the Philippines after working with refugees in Mexico, I had a month at the foot of Sierra Madre (the longest mountain range in the Philippines) to reflect and discern my future ministry.
I felt so blessed to be surrounded by such a majestic and beautiful environment. This place opened my mind and spirit to finding meaning and responding truthfully to today’s mission, given the uncertainties of the recent pandemic.
During those days, I found the scripture reading in St Matthews Gospel, “Put your complete trust in God”, resonating with me. That trust was rewarded when a couple in Laguna offered to give us a vacant family house at the back of their property and a piece of farmland so that Sr Eufrasia and I could sow some hope in our common home by pooling our efforts to put Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ into practice. Our plan was to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, and wastefulness with a spirit of sharing and an asceticism that would entail learning to give and not simply to give up.
As we kept in mind the introduction of our Columban Sisters General Chapter of 2017, “We are grateful to God for the gift and constant cycle of dying and rising of all creation. We rejoice in the communion of all, being aware that we are a small and vulnerable but conscious part of this relational universe”, we set out to emphasize the fundamental connection that exists between the environmental crisis and the social crisis that we are currently experiencing. Sr Eufrasia and I felt called to work with the people living at the foot of the Sierra Madre.
To facilitate this, our pastor, Fr Christian, invited us to work with the small basic community of Pinak, Laguna. Our hope was to enhance, empower and encourage these people so they could live in a more sustainable way in their community following the pandemic when people had no work and experienced increased hunger and poverty. When we arrived in the town of Balian, we immediately sensed a life-giving energy in the Sierra Madre. Here, the mountains protect the people from fierce typhoons and offer them the possibility of food production.
We were warmly welcomed by the families, both parents and children, during our house visitations. In getting to know them, creating a sacred space of trust, and establishing relationships, we discovered that they were living in the mountains because of the work being done to widen the nearby national road.
We discovered that the people were not originally from this area but had migrated here in the hope of a better life. Some of them had lost their jobs and were displaced because of the pandemic.
In dialogue and consultation with the people, mostly mothers and their children, we realized that the people wanted to work but there were no jobs available. The children were also interested in basic catechism lessons.

To improve nourishment, a group of mothers were willing to cook and provide a feeding program for the children. We started a community vegetable garden to meet the basic needs of the families. Once a month, we also shared basic information about health, nutrition, and hygiene with the mothers, which proved a big help in preventing sickness.
Each family was also given a pig to raise. If, after a few months, five piglets were born, two of these would be given to another two families to ensure the sustainability of the project. Imagine the joy and excitement when seven piglets were born!
Sr Minerva also joined us to share her wisdom and talent in the preparation and making of a local indigenous fertiliser IMO (Indigenous Micro Organism) that does no harm to the environment.
All those interested in backyard farming came to listen and learn from Sr Minerva’s wisdom and practical experience.
In our living and working with the people at the foot of the Sierra Madre, we have experienced the deep concern of Pope Francis: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and, at the same time, protecting nature.” Laudato Si’ (#139)
Our hope is that the people, through these planting and pig projects, will be more self-sufficient and life-giving to one another.