Summary Report

Mindoro Island Servant Leadership School, The Philippines

April 2009

In April of 2008, The Center For Sharing was invited to put on a one month intensive SLS course at Mindoro Bible College  for staff and students of the college. Dan Ballast, new president of The Marshal Christensen Foundation (a US based NGO, although Dan lives in Philippines and has been teaching SL at various Asian institutions) and Wilson Dumelod (a Filipino, and National Theological training Minister for ABBCOP, which includes some 600 churches in the Association of Bible Believing Churches of the Philippines) also attended the course.

Two main themes surfaced from that course:

• Their realization that their churches were living in a box…NO community outreach at all.
• A new understanding of what ‘community’ could really mean for their churches and  greater communities in which they are located.

As a result, we were invited back again this year for a second course. Only this time, the staff at MBC desired to be part of the teaching team…to present as much of the course as was possible. We ended up working with 9-10 people, who we met daily with to review each agenda/theme before presenting it.

This year, the attendees included pastors and some of their wives from 6 ABBCOP church communities, including Dan Ballast and Wilson Dumelod again, representing our partners in sponsoring  this year’s SLS.  The ABBCOP national pastoral minister, Jun Castro also attended.  Jun is currently writing 2 books and curriculum for ABBCOP, and provides leadership training seminars regularly-a brilliant guy.

What we learned:

• Most of the pastors have been in the field, struggling to do their work for so long, with almost no resources. One husband and wife had had no vacation for 28 years.  Several came to the course ready to quit.  It’s like nothing ever changes around them. They preach the gospel of salvation. But too few people ever ‘grow up in the Lord’ and become disciplers/servants themselves. The gospel of kingdom building (remember the Lord’s prayer….’thy kingdom come on earth as in heaven…”) is not preached. If God has a dream,  it is for the next world….not this one. 

When we asked them what makes them weep, they were able to express their frustration and pain over hunger, lack of employment (8-10% of the population works outside the Philippines. Money sent home accounts for about 10% of GNP), domestic violence, bad housing, lack of educational opportunities….but they had not considered it the role of the church to really take on those issues. When we suggested the statement that today, the question  is not so much “What do I believe?” as…”What difference does it make that I believe?”, they were just  silent.

When we get to the part where we study about the Exodus of the Hebrew people under Moses’ leadership, the class starts to engage with the material. What would it mean, for example, for their churches to act as the Hebrew mid-wives did then, and try to save the lives of those that the empire means for death now in our cultures??? Who would those people be in our communities? Pastors as well as lay people,  need to be equipped to better understand the revolutionary thrust of the bible.

• This brings us to the methodology of our course: that of action and reflection.  When a setting is created for people to have thoughtful dialogue around a specific issue, with time for reflection, and an invitation for all to give input, a way ahead, a next step of action usually emerges.  This is a different way of arriving at a solution than that of finding someone  to tell us what to do next (whether that person is the positional leader, or the ‘experts’ from outside the community or country!)   The ‘solution’, or more often, the ‘next step’ just finally emerges, and seems like the right thing to do.

• This year, after working with this material, we sent our group on a field trip one Friday to visit another destitute community along the sea-shore, called  Aplaya. It consists of some 50+ family units. It lies only a short walking distance from MBC campus.  Our participants just walked through the village, stopping to talk with whoever was around. One family they encountered, has 7 children. The mother told them that all her children are mentally handicapped, although she and her  husband are not. Our participants  felt very badly for this family. The small kids are often kept in a room with the door shut. They scratch at the door trying to get out, while their mother tries to sell fish pieces door to door.

When the group got back together the next Monday, we talked about their experience. Eventually, the question is asked: What needs to happen? Then someone mentioned that this family lives in the church district of Ate (older sister) Remy.  Ate Remy teaches at the college, and attended our course last year. Believe it or not, when she created her mission statement last year , it was about serving the mentally handicapped! So, we asked if anyone had mentioned them to her. They had not.

But, the group did make plans to go back to visit this family, and decided to take some groceries. When they arrived, the mother was not home, although the children were. She soon appeared, and upon seeing the groceries, she cried, because she had been out trying to collect money for the fish she had advanced to others the day before, but no one was home, so she had no money to buy food for supper that evening. The mother then told the group that two of her kids are mentally normal, but that she thinks they just act handicapped because of the other kids. 

When I saw Remy at our graduation, and asked her about this family, she said she had just heard about them the day before, but she would be going to see them soon.  One of our participants, who works in the city government of Calapan,  the next city over from Pinamalayan, told us there is a school for the mentally handicapped there. But when we asked others about them moving there perhaps, they said that their work was selling fish, and that if they moved, there was no fish work in Calapan!  Just one story, from two brief encounters….so much could be done, if only the right questions could be asked, long enough, and followed up with a resulting action by a caring community.

• We learned that working with 8-10 people trying to help lead a course is not the best! Although the “second batch” of SLS participants, as they were dubbed, had a great experience, it was at times a bit confusing about who was actually leading. In servant leadership, there will still be leaders….it is all about the way they lead that is so important…how they lead, where they can best lead and serve on behalf of the common good.

The local team did their very best to present the materials…but they learned from themselves, that they must first LIVE the concepts in community, on a regular basis, over time, before presenting them to others. Glenn and I mostly sat and watched the course happen this year, coaching on the side, making sure they had what they needed, when they needed it….

When we held our debriefing session as a team, with Chito Ramos, the presiding head of ABBCOP, in Manila, the word that kept coming from our team members as they tried to describe it for Chito was “it is a mystery”. They are beginning to move from the head (gee, these are some great materials, tools, techniques, ideas to use…) to the heart (this stuff is changing me; I want to embrace everyone-especially the ones I never even seen before; but I can’t explain it yet).

• This trip also included a weekend conference in Manila with Partners Worldwide, where we spoke with business people from around Asia, as well as those who are, or are trying to become entrepreneurs. Pong and Bebot came with us from MBC, and made many connections with others about SL, as well as some possible ideas for income generating activities MBC might try.   Asia seems wide open and ready to go. Is the U.S?

Sadly, the day before graduation, Bebot’s husband was killed as he was giving a ride to three people in his tri-cycle taxi. The custom here is that the body is brought to their house, and lies in a glass encased casket, for one week, as the community comes in each night. A family member keeps vigil at the casket at all times of day and night. It was incredibly moving to watch their 4 year old son as he displayed every emotion, trying to make sense of it.

After  graduation, we accompanied Dan Ballast to his home in Baguio, a mountain town,  6 hours north of Manila. Wow…to feel cold again was great not to mention the beautiful pines competing for space with houses packed on every mountain side around. While there, we met with a group of business people who are very concerned about the need for jobs and income creation opportunities. Only about 30% of Filipinos are employed full time.  This was a great group! 

I also  met with a women’s group.  They are trying to reach out to a group of women who live in a local homeless shelter.  It is interesting that they are not familiar here with the language of the recovery movement, such as A.A/N.A /twelve step materials. Of course, one pastor explained to us that Evangelicals here expect that when a person comes to Christ, addictions go away. So their whole emphasis is on getting people saved.

Resilience is a word that comes to my mind these days. What builds the capacity in people, to stand  together through the storms of life, and bounce back without giving up? As farmers, we know that we cannot count on the next day’s weather, let alone guarantee a harvest for next fall. Anything can happen at any time. But, over time, living in that kind of environment builds patience, and the trust that if we consistently do our best, God will see that our needs are met. So the question always becomes: What does doing our best now, mean?

So many of the people we met have so little education, almost no resources, so little capacity to imagine a preferable future. Their resilience has been beaten into the tiny little box of just staying alive, as a life-style. Amazingly, in the Philippines, it can be for the simple reason of your name! One woman had been named Illuminada at birth, but her grandma changed it to “warrior”. During our course on personality, she discovered that she is a # 7 in the Enneagram, whose true name is Illuminator! She announced to the class that she wanted to be called Ilio (short for Illuminada) after that. She told us that she had lived her whole life as a warrior, and it had been terrible. Another man was rejected by his fiancé because his last name means: “to step over”…and she didn’t want to take a chance she would be stepped over!!

I am reading through Rich Stearn’s book:  The Hole In Our Gospel. Rich is president of World Vision. Rich was the CEO of Lennox China, a luxury tableware company, when he was called, kicking and screaming (and crying) to lead World Vision. He paraphrases the parable on the sheep and goats, from  Matthew 25 this way: …for I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved…

Rich’s book also sites statistics that say that American church giving averaged 2.5% in 2005. It has not increased since the great depression (3.3%) Further, only 2% of it goes to overseas missions of any kind. The other 98% stays within our churches and communities. So, the overall commitment that American Christians are making to the world is just about 2 percent of 2 percent…about five ten-thousandths of our income, or about 6 pennies per day.  (Bureau of Economic Analysis)

What about that abundant life that Jesus talked about wanting to give people? I cannot believe that Jesus meant abundance should start only after we die, or that it should affect only our souls, but should also include healthy bodies, access to decent shelter, food, water and education. Perhaps Robert Greenleaf was on to the secret when he quoted Nicolai Grundtvig, who said, “If only one can rouse the spirit of a people, they can lead themselves.” In the 21st century, we must learn how to rouse the spirit of those who suffer now, but it will take more than getting people to say the right words or believe the right things.  The old unilateral power model won’t work today. The service model will. The Bible for Dummies: Love God? Love neighbor!