November 19th, 2007 by Tony Palis
(I wrote this blog on November 19th, 2007 on another blog site. Some recent events urged me to re-publish this on this new blog site that I have just started to use.)
Sometimes, I feel that the cross that I am carrying is just too heavy for me! Not that I am complaining to God about the tasks that He has given me but…it’s just that there are times when I feel like my back is about to break, my knees about to fold and my feet no longer to take a step further.
I serve in a church right smack in the middle of a “slum area”… a “squatters’ area”. The poorest of the poor all thrown together into a hell-hole of a place. I take care of around 300 souls, a lot of them are former prostitutes, guns-for-hire, robbers, etc.
Yesterday, there was another crisis in my church… I was told that an 18-year old girl had been “possessed” by the devil. People said that she had been acting strange for the past few days. I went to her “barung-barong” (shanty) and quickly recognized the symptoms of rabies in her. Well, her mouth was already frothing and she did look like she was being taken over by the devil!!! It was horrid!!! I immediately rushed her to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (R.I.T.M.), a hospital specializing in these kinds of cases. But it was too late. The rabies virus had already destroyed her nervous system… Her brain was already devastated and stopped functioning after I brought her to the medical facility. Her heart stopped beating after a few more hours.
The girl’s name was Monica, 18 years old, a former prostituted woman and a single mother… a bite from a rat killed her. (Doctors may argue about rats giving "dry bites"- meaning that rats do not spread rabies. But the case was a clear-cut example of rabies infection.)
There are times when I get the impression that there are more rats than people where Monica lived. Well, rats were already teeming in that place even before people started settling there. One would ask, “Why would people move to a place where pests abound?” They would answer, “Why not? We have no other place to go to!”
This is not the first time that a church mate of mine was killed by rabies. There was Totoy (An 8-year old boy), Nanay Crising (60 years old) and a lot more!!!
There were also victims of food poisoning… Popong, Michael and Steven who only wanted to have a taste of fried chicken. They pooled in their money to buy “Tirtir” or “Tira-tira” which were sold on the streets. “Tirtir” or “Tira-tira” are left-over fried chicken from Jollibee or McDonald’s which are collected by scavengers from garbage bins, re-fried and sold to people who can not afford to buy from those fastfood restaurants. Those three children exhibited severe symptoms of food poisoning after a few hours but were not rushed to the hospital by their parents that night because… They did not have money. By the time I was alerted and was able to rush those kids to the hospital, it was also too late. Brain damage had already set-in due to severe dehydration and high-grade fever.
Steven and Michael were 8 years old while Popong was merely 5 years old. They did not want to eat rice and SALT that night. Their desire to eat something "special" killed them.
There are times when I do not want to go there anymore!!!! My heart keeps on getting shattered into a million pieces whenever things like these happen. There are times when I just pray that God would send me to serve in another church… a less heart-breaking one!!!… a church where people don’t die because of empty pockets… a place where already shattered hopes and dreams are not being pulverized again and again by helplessness. I always ask the question: "Why is this happening to those poor people???"… Then I would always open the Holy Bible and read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. Indeed! There is a time for everything. God’s plans are revealed slowly and, I guess, all we’d need to understand those plans is faith in Him.
I have learned to trust in God’s plans and in His infinite wisdom! The Holy Spirit is always there to comfort, guide and encourage me, along with the people whom I serve! Yes! I will bear this cross and serve wherever He wants to send me. I will bear this cross with strength in my soul and a smile on my face because I know that this
is nothing, compared to Christ’s sufferings.
Yes! I will bear this cross because it is MINE!
Peace and love to all! God be with you!
(Additional note, as to why I re-published this article... Last January 29, two more kids from my church succumbed to Rabies. I was attending the First Philippine International Guitar Festival 2010 at that time and found it very difficult to think about music while the people whom I love are dying. Before the Festival was over, I was able to transform my grief into inspiration and was able to write songs, Classical Guitar pieces and do some arrangements. I was wondering as to how those kids who died would be if they had the chance to grow up, fall in love and have a family... grow old... I was able to come up with an arrangement for three Classical Guitars for Rey Valera's "Kahit Maputi na ang Buhok Ko".)
