I have to admit, right now, I have a very high level of frustration towards the ministry. All of a sudden, I felt like i've just wasted the mst productive years of my life trying to make a difference in the life of people for nothing.
I am a minister who doesn't pride herself in the number of church membership nor high financial status of the church as a sign of succees. The only thing that would make me feel like I have accomplished anything as a minister is when I know I have affected a life and encouraged or influenced that person into a better life.
I don't brag about what a beautiful church edifice I have constructed while in the pastorate; I'm no architect or engineer;
I cannot brag about the financial succees of the fiscal year: I'm no financial manager. I can only add up to 10 (that's especially when I am giving warning to my children: Hindi kayo makikinig? Isa...)
I wouldn't even dare brag that I have this and that ministry; this or that outreach. I can't! Most of the time, I am only able to focus on one ministry at a time.
What gives me a sense of accomplishment is when I witness a person have a change of life. I wouldn't even take credit on it. I'm just happy that once upon a time, that person was under my care if even for a little while.
One day, I received a text from a former member of my church in Sambulawan. "Ma'am," the text started, "si Ate mukhang bumabalik sa bisyo nya. Huag mong sabihing nagsumbong ako."
These people where under my care in Sambulawan. They were in my Sunday School, in the Feeding Program...they even slept with me in the parsonage and took care of me. They left me when they entered puberty to work as maids in Manila.
For a long time, I haven't kept in touch with me. When I returned to Cavite, I made it my goal to look for them and to find out how they were; do they still keep with them the things they learned in church? Have they kept their faith?
And so when I received a gift, I went out to look for them. I was disheartened when I found them in the narrow eskinitas somewhere in Sta. Mesa. The place is crowded. You have to stoop down to enter into their unit. It isn't a house for me. The nipa hut in Leyte has more dignity than the house that these young girls are.
The eldest of the girls have gone back to peddling prohibited substances.
The other one has two children with a man she's isn't married to. At least the man is man enough to stick with her.
The youngest of the girls, she's the one who stayed with me the longest, causes my heart to break. She spends all her hard earned money in drinking, disco-ing and in other vices.
What have these girls turned into? After all the years that I have spent with them, ito lang ba ang mahihita ko?
Then I realized, I don't cease to be their pastor simply because they moved residence and I am no longer their pastor. I am still their pastor, no matter what.
But at the moment, I am deeply in pain as I watch them waste away their life.
