The San Isidro Labrador parish is located in Agusan Del Sur, Mindanao, one of the poorest provinces of the Philippines. It is comprised of eight villages with nearly 30,000 citizens. The number of children aged 0-6 years old is around 5,000: among those, some 370 children present with moderate to severe malnourishment. This is the official data given by the Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) of the region. These statistics, as well as witnessing the poverty of the people living among our 34 chapels, inspired us to help these little ones—the favored ones of Jesus. In consultation with the community, our missionary faith leads us to action.
In our missionary work, we regularly go to the far-flung communities of the parish; the poverty of many of our people is quite evident. The children and their mothers are the most vulnerable, and typically are the most affected. We understand that health and nutrition are not obtained by simply filling peoples’ stomachs. There is much more to be done. Therefore, we implemented a program of Pastoral Care for Children: helping the little ones through organized pastoral care that promotes nutrition, primary health care and education, and evangelization that celebrates life.
The Pastoral Care for Children was envisioned as evangelizing and aiding with a holistic approach. It takes into account more than just the physical situation of these children, but rather the whole social and familial fabric of their lives: the interconnected parts of the whole. At its core, the program promotes a better quality of life for poor children and their mothers. The main focus is on eradicating mortality due to malnutrition, and accompanying families and pregnant women early on through monthly visits by trained volunteers.
The target beneficiaries of this program are impoverished children (0 to 6 years old), their mothers, and pregnant women. Our current goal is to reach approximately twenty children and ten pregnant women from each community visited by the facilitators. That amounts to roughly 200 children and 100 pregnant women that are regularly accompanied. Coordinators have to produce food supplements for those 300 people and organize the visits of some 20 facilitators throughout each month. This project has been a great benefit to the communities where it is being implemented, and the people have realized its importance.
The implementation of Pastoral Care for Children has only been possible through the generous support of our benefactors. The support has enabled us to offer formation to lay leaders, prepare and deliver regular food supplements, make monthly visits to the families, hold on-going formation for facilitators and coordinators, and hold a monthly “check-up” day where children and their mothers gather to evaluate their progress and to celebrate life together.
The Pastoral Care of Children is profoundly related with our call to discipleship. We see the care of these children as a Gospel mandate. It is a social justice issue which should concern all committed Christians. While there are other programs (government and various NGOs) at work to address the needs of impoverished children, our parish program is unique in its pastoral concerns. We see evangelization as an integral part of addressing the human person in all its dimensions. The PCC is motivated to address the health concerns of malnourished children, but we are also there to accompany the whole child, the whole family, and to share the Good News of love and life with all in our communities.
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, inspired by the Judeo-Christian Tradition, has not left behind the children. It addresses the dignity and rights of children in the following: “The Church’s social doctrine constantly points out the need to respect the dignity of children. In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights. This is true for every child, but it becomes all the more urgent the smaller the child is and the more it is in need of everything, when it is sick, suffering or handicapped” (CSDC, 244).
Our own Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM) founder, Father Theophile Verbist, was moved when he came to know about the situation of poor and orphaned children in China in the middle 1800s. He had a very clear goal in launching a missionary project in China that was to help the children in need. He was sensitive enough to leave the comfort he found in his homeland in order to address the needs of the children in another corner of the world. It is more than150 years since those early days of the Congregation, and Father Verbist’s successors have engaged in various kinds of ministries in numerous countries around the world. We believe that his vision to help impoverished children is still valid and necessary in today’s world. Thus, we, the missionaries in San Isidro Labrador parish, take notice of the struggles facing our children and communities in poverty, and we strive to fulfill our commitment to support and accompany them.
The Gospel of John (6:1-13) speaks about the multiplication of the loaves where Jesus fed more than 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, ensuring that each took as much as they wanted. This miracle demonstrated that, through God, the little that they had already been given was more than enough. The Pastoral Care for Children is a program that demonstrates the same principle: that through God our impoverished children can and will get what they need. We connect our faith to our commitment to the community. And though our material resources may be small, we believe that our “little is much if God is in it.”
The PCC is able to organize communities, train volunteers, provide nutritional supplements, share information and offer solidarity to a multitude of families. It all begins with alleviating infant mortality and malnutrition among our littlest ones, but the pastoral care extends to our families and communities, making us stronger in many ways. Through the PCC program, we continue carrying out Father Verbist’s vision: with faith leading to action. We are confident that, with the compassionate support of our benefactors, this frontier ministry in favor of the littlest ones of God’s Kingdom will persevere.
Márcio Martins, cicm
Agusan Del Sur, Philippines
Fr. Márcio Martins, cicm, is a native of Brazil who joined Missionhurst-CICM in 2005 and was ordained in 2012. Fr. Márcio has been working in the Philippines since January of 2004, and is currently assistant pastor of San Isidro Labrador parish in the diocese of Butuan (located on Mindanao: the 2nd largest and southernmost major island of the Philippines).
