By Fr. Brendan Kelly, SSC

Our Columban presence in Our Lady of Lourdes Mission Station, Don Victoriano, Misamis Occidental, is ending.

It has been a blessing in the lives of the faith community. A once peripheral, marginalized, and often neglected community has been regularly served, strengthening the catechetical, Eucharistic and youth ministries.

Over  the past thirteen years, six solid churches/chapels have been built with an eye to the future. They have brought joy and pride to the poor hinterland communities with significant Subanen population. A welcoming space has been created involving the use of the Subanen language and musical instruments that attracted the Subanen and encouraged a previously unseen level of participation in the life of the church.

A once barren and degraded piece of land has been restored to a thriving forested space with 55 exotic and indigenous species, and a delightful cacophany of birds along with spiders, butterflies, moths and snakes.  It is a testament to what care and patience can bring forth.

The atmosphere of fear, trepidation and violence in the area is largely gone now. But another kind of threat  lurks menacingly. The loss of ancestral land and environmental integrity continue, driven by  tourism and infrastructure development roads that crisscross this vital protected watershed area, the source of 55 rivers.

Speaking out of heartfelt love and concern has not been without challenges, and it has brought things to a decisive point.

As I leave Don Victoriano,  I do so with a grateful heart. Yet I am also sad to leave a place and a people I have come to love and always will hold close in my heart.

Featured Image above:  One of the six chapels built in the past 13 years.