This is a journey we take as a people, as Filipinos and as Christians

We are in a process of evolution

The first world took centuries to be where they are at

New York also had gangs --- the immigrants of Europe

They progressed through mission, industry then culture

We are too harsh on ourselves, too critical

Judging ourselves based on the standards of an old culture

The Philippines is still in its infancy

GK is our starting point

Each of us in our own personal journey

GK drives us to the next phase of our journey

As we all strive towards one common goal

Driven by a common need

Inspired by a common vision

Let us take this exciting journey together.

II. Bayan. For Love of God and Country.

Strong love of God. Strong faith in God.

Love of country - an essential expression of Love of God

It is his design that we were born Filipino. He made us stewards of this country.

(Genesis) To have dominion over the rest of creation. To be our brother’s keeper.

The Philippines is 80% Catholic

But we are a divided nation

Divided - the rich and the poor, one religious group against another, in politics

Where has all our religion gone?

We have been listening to sermons for 400 years

We have paid lip service to God’s teachings

We have religion but we no longer have faith in God as a people –

We no longer have a sense of country

We no longer have a belief system as a people of God.

We have forgotten what God said to his people, the Israelites

“Love God and your nation”

Love God above all and love your brethren… the poor.

III. This is God’s Plan for His People

GK as a Ministry

As a ministry GK embodies the life and mission of CFC

To build the church of the poor. To grow families of the Holy Spirit.

To renew the face of the earth.

But what we need to remember is that the ministry exists to do the mission of God.

To follow the mission of Jesus.

And it was the mission of Jesus to love the poor, to be in solidarity with the poor.

Jesus was born poor. He died poor.

GK as a Mission

GK is Faith in Action. GK is authentic evangelization.

GK is faith development - transforming a whole nation

Community after community, town after town, province after province.

This is Christ’s mission -- bring glad tidings to the poor.

1. A mission to build communities… just like the first Christian community.

We are building communities patterned after the early Christians where no one was in need -- because people consciously decide to have less for themselves so that there may be more for others to have enough for all.

2. A mission to disciple a whole nation

Generations ahead have destroyed our life, our country, our generation

We have succeeded to raise a country of beggars

NOW we have a chance to change the nation… to disciple a whole nation

Now we have Gawad Kalinga and Gawad Kalinga is a purging fire

It is a radical concept

GK tells us to serve in order to lead (servant leadership)

GK tells us we give of ourselves until we bleed (padugo)

GK tells us to see the hero in everyone (bawat Pilipino bayani)

So that all together we rise as a strong nation

GK as a Movement

Everyone empowered to be part of a potent force of change

The first step is to build strength locally.

Master the template here in the Philippines to present a global model.

Uniting a divided nation. Healing a divided nation. Rising as ONE people.

• Kalinga Luzon : LGU, corporate partners, government partners
• Kalinga Pilipinas : Uniting congress for the poor
• GK1MB 1 Milyong Bayani : Mobilizing different sectors
• Different religious groups, Muslims and Christians, brothers and sisters

And now, GK is a movement that has crossed over oceans

Bringing home the Filipinos abroad who have seen the hope in the Philippines

And who have found the hope within themselves to be heroes for their country

A testament of the potential to becoming a global model

• Papua New Guinea
• Indonesia
• Cambodia
• India (Goa)
• Eventually in Africa and South America

IV. The GK Path :The Passion of Christ

Burn with a passion… of Jesus. A passion of love, not anger.

Nowadays, people have the mission to change this country but their own passion is fueled by anger and hatred, building a culture of conflict, a culture of violence. It just somehow succeeds in not just changing but destroying the environment for all of us.

Take the path of peace, of solidarity, of bayanihan

Where there is division and conflict we will unite and bring peace

We’ll heal a broken nation. We’ll heal a broken world.

V. Conclusion

Let us start a new generation of heroes…

Heroes who will LIVE for their country

Let us build a culture of patriotism

Let us start a lifestyle of nation building

Let us heed God’s call to be stewards of his creation, to be shepherds of his flock, to shepherd an entire nation

This is a start of an exciting journey

GK is a beacon, and they will come towards the light

Need for continuing commitment – keep the passion burning

Take everyone with us

Sharing

(Call in sharers of varying experiences)

How does love of God and country manifest in your life, in the impt areas of your life?

How has your journey as being part of a people been?

How has the mission taken you closer to God’s plan for your country?

Japanese students Yoko Sakaguchi and Nana Ota's year of study at Ateneo University brought them face to face with many facets of the Philippines, including the poverty they had studied from abroad in Japan through their Development Studies university major. And it also brought them face-to-face and hand-in-hand with charming children, loving families, and changing lives of GK communities, something that was to have a lasting impact.

Yoko and Nana found their way to Gawad Kalinga through the recommendation of the Ateneo de Manila University's Office of International Students, and to the occasional consternation of their professors, found the allure of GK communities a powerful draw even outside of officially scheduled visits.

Coming from Japan, the girls had already heard the worst cautions. Nana described her thoughts before arriving in the Philippines, saying, "For me, not a safe country here, a poor country – it's always bad news on TV. All my friends asked me if it's ok to go there, if it's safe. They told me to be careful always."

But visits to the community of GK Pinagsama, Taguig, showed the girls a different side of the Philippines' poor. The girls found a community eager to provide care and love.

"I went there and started building the houses," Nana describes. "When I went there, everyone's smiling, and dancing. They're still happy." Not only happy, the villagers also welcomed the pair with open arms and homes.

"They treat us like their own children," Yoko says, "Always welcoming."

Nana agrees, smiling, "They're always asking if we're going to stay the night. We often stay the night with them."

Sometimes present to build, the girls would also visit often simply to spend time with the families. On one occasion, a two-day old baby allowed them the chance to give the mother a gift to preserve memories.

"Her name was Angel. So we took pictures, then the next time we went back next week I gave a picture to the mother. She was like 'Oh thank you so much'" Nana says,
The pair's experiences of Gawad Kalinga led them to change their plans of returning to Japan in favor of volunteering for the GK Bayani Challenge, in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.

Scheduled to fly back in time to start university, Yoko and Nana instead postponed their flights, going to build houses for the poor rather than attending their university classes on time.

"I heard the Bayani Challenge is one of the biggest events in GK, so I thought I couldn't miss it!" Yoko laughs.

Being students of development, the girls have valued their time involved with the people affected most by development strategies. Both plan to share their experiences with their friends studying development upon returning to Japan.

And as citizens of one of Asia's richest nations, the girls are eager to play a part in helping their neighbors progress.

"In Asia there are so many developing countries," Nana says, "I'm Japanese, and we are part of Asia, so I think we should help."

For the community of GK Pinagsama and for the girls themselves, their presence in GK has been one of friendship and encouragement.

"It was very hard to say goodbye," Nana says. "They want us to come back, and we want to."

The Philippines has also become something much more than place of potential danger. Now, their developing neighbor is a place of friendship, love, and richly enjoyable experiences for the two students.

"I like everything here, because everything is really different." Yoko says, "Every day we discover something new and different. It's really exciting."

Volunteers on the ground are making a difference, but the situation remains precarious for many in Brookside.

A barrier of sandbags has been put in place, but the pressure of daily rain has put pressure on this levy. The levy has held, the creek has risen so much as to flow over the top, once again letting floodwater into the village.

GK Brookside residents remain under a lot of stress. They have been traumatized such already that even smaller rises in the water levels can trigger panic. People are crying, asking "For how long will this happen?"

The situation will remain dangerous for the residents until GK workers and nearby property-owners (also affected) are able to move the Quezon City government to take urgent action in addressing key issues with the creek.

In the meantime, volunteers have been present for the whole week, helping the village residents address the ongoing flooding, as well as working to improve the situation. Ateneo was providing overall coordination in Brookside yesterday, CFC Family Ministries the day before, and CFC North B the day before that. The residents and volunteers are also managing an early warning system to help the village cope with the daily rains and flooding.

URGENT NEED for SATURDAY 24TH MAY: 3,000 more SACKS for SAND BAGS, and volunteers on the ground to help raise the levy against the creek.

Neurosurgeon Eustaquio Abay is a founding investor in Kansas Spine Hospital and often is at the forefront to fight for the rights of physician-owned hospitals.

He says he's all about quality service and choice, which is why he invested in the North Webb Road specialty hospital in the first place.

But there's a spiritual side to the doctor as well.

Abay, a Philippines native who also is known as "Tex" to his friends -- his chief of surgery started the nickname in 1977 as an easier version of Abay's first name -- said he finds his true happiness in helping people in need.

That's why a significant portion of his time and money is spent helping impoverished communities in the Philippines, where he is the U.S. director for Gawad Kalusugan, a public health program -- under the nonprofit ANCOP umbrella -- that empowers villagers through education and prevention.

What is your role in that program?

"My role is to help coordinate the health care program. Rather than doing medical missions, which are short-lived, we're... establishing a social medical program in these villages, trying to mobilize local resources to provide a year-round presence in the community."

What is the extent of your involvement?

"I go there as often as I can, to help structure the program. My main role here is to raise funds. We cannot afford to put a doctor per village. We work with whatever we have available. In the Philippines, we assign local health care personnel to a local village."

What is behind your devotion to helping poor Filipinos?

"We cannot ignore our neighbors. We talk about the American dream... you want to make it big, to get the most of your careers, the biggest house, the biggest car, the most luxury for you and you family.

"When you come from a country like ours and have seen the poverty, you find the personal things really do not provide the deep fulfillment one is usually in search of. True happiness one gets from giving oneself to others."

What sets Kansas Spine apart from other hospitals?

"We owe it to the community. I keep telling my employees that they're here because of the patients and they should not forget it. That's why the orientation of our practice is service, service, service. To me, medicine is a vocation, not just a profession. Sometimes I liken it to priesthood. Priests cater to the soul; we cater to the body."

You put your money where your mouth is...

"Medicine to me is spiritual; it's a calling to serve people. I was oriented that way by my parents, and that's why I (went into) medicine. I could have bought a new car several years back when my car broke down. I was about to, but since I got involved with Gawad Kalinga, I ended up buying a second-hand car, and the difference I donated to help build a village.

" (The program) provides me with a way to help others, but, more than anything else, it's an opportunity to find the true meaning of happiness."

(Solemnity of Our Lord's Ascension, 2008)

Christians, but different

With such a history of conflict, one of the biggest surprises for the residents was when help came in the form of Christians, previously only associated by many Muslim residents with the migration, dispossession, and decades of conflict.

Now, these Christians have come to write a new history, to build homes for the Muslim would-be residents of GK Darussalam.

He continues, "They're very thankful to Gawad Kalinga that - even though they're Christians - they have come here to help the Muslim community."

As a leader of many, he has seen just how invaluable such direct action has been in opening the minds of poor and uneducated families to a reality where Muslim and Christian can coexist peacefully.

"For Muslim families here in Wao, maybe the best thing to do is introduce them to GK." He says, "That's why we selected the poor and uneducated Muslims to become GK beneficiaries, so that they will learn GK and accept GK, and learn that the intentions of Gawad Kalinga are good."

"Before, in Wao, it was Muslims and Christians fighting. Now with Christians coming in to help the Muslims, it's a way of educating the closed Muslims that there is a solution: Even though they're Christians they're still helping the Muslim community."

"For the most uneducated Muslims, GK is a way to educate the community - not only the houses but also the education programs. GK opens the minds of the closed minded Muslims."

A Faith Community

The Sultan notes that for many Muslims who join rebel groups, they seek in the first place to preserve a strong sense of their Islamic faith and culture.

"They start joining a rebel group mainly to follow and protect the faith of Islam," he describes. "In Islam we have five pillars of Islam, so they follow that. They joined a rebel group not mainly to fight against people but to protect their faith. Our plan for our people is to help them embrace the faith of Islam more fully."

And in an example of exceptional interfaith cooperation, the work of Gawad Kalinga has in turn become a foundational factor in turning lives around. Though most GK workers are Catholic Christians, the work in Muslim Wao has not been one of forcing their faith on others, or providing help conditional upon conversion to Christianity.

In the face of such, unexpected common ground has been found.

Through the work of GK, including programs such as education and values formation, the community is being strengthened even though their practice of faith is different from most of the GK workers.

"The Muslim community considers Gawad Kalinga as a third level for living life." Saripada notes, continuing "Because on the first level is God, Allah, Almighty God; the second level is the religion of Islam and their people; and the third level is Gawad Kalinga."

"Those are the things that are helping our people live and work as a Muslims" he says.

A Legacy of Peace

For Sultan Saripada and many of his Muslim constituents, their prayers are for peace in Wao, a restoration of their livelihood, and a restored relationship with their land. Moreover, they desire that their land be known not for conflict, but for peace, community, and achievement.

"We want for people to say that, even though they're Muslim and Christian, they can work together," Saripada notes, "We're praying for peace and unity in Wao."

In addition to working for peace, Saripada is working to strengthen the faith of his people. Along with improving access to regular Filipino education, the Muslim community is praying and striving for greater madras (Islamic) education, wishing to retain a strong faith and culture in future generations.

For the Sultan, working with and accepting Gawad Kalinga into the community of Wao is also a legacy he can leave to the future generations. Where decades past have been marked by conflict and violence, he sees a brighter future ahead.

"GK is a legacy for me, because it brings love and peace back to the community."

And as we sit inside a nearly-complete Gawad Kalinga house, volunteers from all around the Philippines work alongside Wao locals, striving through bayanihan to raise up homes for impoverished families. Alternating Muslim prayers and Christian praise songs ring forth from the PA system, an unlikely combination of sounds floating through the picturesque construction site.

"We're thankful for the 130 houses." Sultan Saripada says, "This work shows that Christian and Muslim can work together, stay together and live together with no war, and no troubles."

"GK is the only solution to the problem - to help Muslim and Christian unite," he says.

By Jonathan Rickard, peace correspondent, GK News Bureau

Wao, in Lanao Del Sur, Philippines, is a place of natural beauty and abundance. But, wracked by decades of conflict, it has also been a source of great competition for this wealth. As in many parts of Mindanao and the greater Philippines much land has ended up in the hands of the few, with many others dispossessed and cast into landless poverty.

Restoring Dignity

Now, 130 of the municipality's poorest Muslim families are to become residents of the GK Darussalam village, built by volunteers of Gawad Kalinga.

Gawad Kalinga's work in Wao was begun with the welcome of Sultan Acraman Saripada, who saw the difference made in other parts of Muslim Mindanao.

Initially contacted by GK Executive Director Luis Oquinena, former MILF commander Sultan Saripada travelled to see GK areas in Mindanao and Manila in order to find out just how GK might benefit his own poor Muslim folk in Wao.

As a result, Wao became a destination for many volunteers in GK's Bayani Challenge and Highway of Peace events. People came from all around the Philippines and even overseas, simply to build houses for those in desperate need.

For Sultan Saripada, Gawad Kalinga is different.

"The difference between GK and many other groups that have wanted to help here is that with GK everyone is equal," the sultan says. "It doesn't matter what your religion is, whether you're poor or rich."

"You build the houses together, you work together," he describes.

And for Saripada's Muslim people, the Filipino values embodied in Gawad Kalinga had a strong effect.

"The Muslim community embraced Gawad Kalinga through the bayanihan way of working," says Sultan Saripada.

Land for the Landless

For most poor families, the biggest struggles remain economic, impacting on every area of life. Many labor in other people's fields.

"They're farmers and the income is not enough to sustain their everyday life," Saripada describes.

With the forced government sponsored migration policies of the 1950s and onward, many former landowners have become dispossessed tenant workers and agricultural laborers, working on larger lands belonging to other both Christian and Muslim families.

And over the decades, violence between Christian and Muslim has wracked the land.

"They're very sad, because before their parents were ones who were prominent families in Wao. In the conflict, land was taken from many Muslims, and now former landowners are working as tenant workers."

For others, forced to the mountains, where even after planting crops transport to market areas remains a key issue, their hold on land remains tenuous.

"Some of these are asking even now for titles to their land in the mountains." The Sultan notes, "Even though they've owned the land for a long time they don't have legal titles."

by Marjorie Duterte, peace correspondent, GK News Bureau

Seeing the hope in Tomas "Tam" Carumba's eyes while walking around GK Darussalam village, one would not think that he had lost a close cousin, killed by a Maranao during a Muslim-Christian conflict between their families. To stop further bloodshed, the warring factions had negotiated for "blood money" as a peace offering."This blood money was given, but was used to build a GK house for our Muslim brothers," Carumba related.From the blood money to appease the death of his cousin, the Carumba family chose to build instead 10 GK homes for the Muslim community,to start the GK Maranao village, also in Wao. "Yung mga Muslim brothers have been so deprived, most of their lands have been sold to Christians but when they saw the sincerity of Christians, (it) encouraged them to also work for peace," Carumba affirmed."Tito Tam", a member of Couples for Christ and the GK Provincial Board was one of the pioneers that started Gawad Kalinga in Wao, Lanao del Sur. Two years ago, their local officials, the Muslim community, Church workers, the Wao Development corporation and the Bishop of Malaybalay came together to embrace Gawad Kalinga as a peace initiative. They wantedto build houses for Muslim rebel returnees who have no homes. The Muslims participated in the build and despite the lack of budget, the work was done through bayanihan (cooperation). This gave birth to GK Darussalam and GK Maranao villages, a haven for Muslims and Christians in the former war zone area."Malaki ang contribution sa peace initiative ng presence ng GK dito. Nakita nila ang samahan dito kahit hindi mo imbatihin, tumatawag, lahat ng tao gustong makisali sa GK," Carumba said. (GK's presence here has made a big contribution to the peace initiative. They (Muslims) see the brotherhood here and even if you don't invite them, they call, everyone wants to join GK.)A native of Wao, Lanao del Sur, Carumba recounted how his kababayans used to be paranoid and suspicious and how most residents here have been fully armed. Today, "wala na po yung takot, wala na po yung alinlangan. Nandito na po ang trust." (The fear is gone, the doubts are gone. The trust is here)."Ang strength po ng Wao ay unity, nakita po nila ang GK and they are so proud to be part of it," he added. (The strength of Wao is unity, they see GK and are so proud to be part of it.)"Very peaceful yung place,kasi nabigyan na lahat ng opportunity, nabalik na ang dignity," he added. (The place is very peaceful because the people have been given opportunity, dignity has been restored.) The former victim of conflict has now become a good friend. "You are very much welcome into the houses of our Muslim brothers," he said.Peace has been planted and is growing in the rich and fertile Mindanao land.

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