A genuine experience of transformation

The purpose of this particular service project centred around the needs of an elementary school in Cadulawan, Minglanilla, on the island of Cebu. We spent most of our time teaching the children about nutrition, hygiene and waste management, as well as cleaning and preparing a resource room for the school teachers. For any community where poverty is a barrier to good education, giving such practical and financial support is vital for outsiders who wish to serve. Nevertheless, it was our personal interactions with the children that we lived for and longed for during our time there. These children of Cadulawan embody a profound joy and freedom of spirit that can only come from being raised in real love, an others-focused love in which sacrifices are welcomed as part of daily reality. This was evident, for example, in the way the boys would run to carry anything heavy for us, and the way the girls were so attentive to any kind of physical need or assistance we required – always with a good dose of humour, affection, ready laughter, and a smile on their faces.

No doubt there are countless anecdotes to recall when reflecting on a project marked by profound human encounters with people whose lifestyles so starkly contrast with our own. Perhaps most strikingly, nothing can quite encapsulate how it feels to be serving those in need, only to be gently shown the neediness of ourselves, ‘we stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities’ (in the words of Doris Lessing).