Feeding God’s Little Ones as Community Empowerment

 

Every Sunday, 50 or so kids gather after the 7:30 am Mass in our rickety bamboo-and-tarpaulin chapel named the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Sub-Urban Gitna, Montalban Rizal. The place is home to some 500 families of relocated informal settlers from the Intramuros and Tondo areas.  For about an hour the little children dance, sing, draw pictures, listen to stories, pray, and learn about the faith.  They are catechism kids eager to know about our God who, we always tell them, is a kind, gentle, and provident Father.  

 

After the catechism, some volunteer mothers provide snacks to the kids.  They sometimes cook pansit, sopas or lugaw or prepare sandwiches for the kids.  We notice that some kids ask for a second or third helping of the merienda.  Two or three children approach the mothers sheepishly asking if they can bring their food home to their little brothers or sisters.  One of the kids who regularly attends the catechism class stays away from the rest of the group not because she is shy but because she is too weak to line up and get herself a portion of  the meal.  

 

Here we are confronted with a situation both inspiring and challenging: how to make true and alive the rumor that God truly takes care of his little ones.  

 

After months of observation, consultations, and meetings, we sat down with Fr. Jack Carroll, SJ and his trustworthy staff member Manay Llanas and talked about how to extend the JJCICSI Church and Family Desk program Sagip Bata to the kids in Montalban.  We discussed about resource sharing, technology transfer, and the identification of roles and responsibilities between the Jesuit scholastic assigned to monitor the program, the volunteer mothers, and the Church and Family Desk staff in charge of the Supplemental Feeding Program of JJCICSI.  

 

Last June 21, not fully prepared and lacking in confidence, we started the program armed only with hope and trust that God would provide what was lacking in us.  We have 20 kids classified below normal weight (two at least were way below their normal weights) who are under the program.  With the menu schedule, some vitamins, and milk provided by the Family and Life Desk of JJCICSI, we prepare a nutritious lunch for the kids from Monday to Friday.  While waiting for their meal, the kids undergo basic catechism and reading and writing.  They are also taught how to pray and to sing some nursery rhymes. So we not only give the kids sustenance for their bodies—we feed their minds and spirits as well.

  

Before the Sunday Mass ends, we announce to the church-goers what we still need for the feeding program.  True to the spirit of a grateful and generous community, members of the congregation volunteer various services for the kids under our care.  One donates P500, another P200.  Others promise to supply the kids with clean mineral water.  A volunteer mother gives some kitchen utensils and another promises to give the mothers in charge of the marketing a free ride to and from the market.

  

In small little ways, in some process that we did not plan nor anticipate, what started as a simple feeding program for the kids has become a community enterprise, a true building of the Kingdom of God here on earth.  

 

- Noel Y. Bava, SJ