Unravelling Human Knots     
T h e l m a  G.  N a m b u
 

“Life is full of knots.”  “We need others to help us in facing and unravelling the knots of life that we all go through.”  These were some of the insights the trainees expressed who took part in the group dynamics exercise called “Human Knot”.  I used this activity to introduce the discussion on peer counselling groups which I will facilitate with them the next three months.  The reality that knots and bumps are an inevitable part of our human experience is something Jonathan and I resonate with.  In the two months since we returned, part of our time has been spent sorting out some of the difficulties our team and the Samaritana community have gone through while we were away for sabbatical leave.

In our attempt to help loosen these knots we set up group as well as individual times with key people in the community.  It was something we wished we were not doing, but we knew that to ignore them would have been unloving and disastrous to the community.  There were feelings of having been let down, restlessness, disappointment and hurt, and quite honestly we, too, were discouraged and troubled.   In the midst of this, we were reminded that Jesus, too, went through disappointment with no less than one of the twelve disciples, Peter, whom he trusted and gave responsibility.  This person who seemed to get the answers right and was vocal about his all-out commitment to Jesus, failed to live out what he said, particularly at the hour of Jesus’ suffering.  While Scriptures speak of the times Jesus rebuked Peter, it is evident that he relentlessly pursued Peter with his unconditional love. As he was carrying his cross, he turned a look of compassion and sadness to Peter, and after his resurrection, Jesus spoke to him and three times asked Peter if he loved him.  Peter was, indeed, a consistent recipient of God’s grace and forgiveness.

As we deal with relational knots, we are invited to offer grace and forgiveness as well. While not minimizing sin and the pain caused by others, we are called to love and forgive, and give others second chances.  After all, there is a Peter in all of us.  Like Peter, we all have failed God, and in our own peculiar failures and inconsistencies, we, like Peter, never cease to be beneficiaries of God’s abounding grace…a humbling realization that nothing else can unravel human knots but love.

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SUPER BABAE
Laura Joyce Davis

super babaeSweltering smog. People who avoid walking at any cost. The mindset that fitness is a luxury for the rich. A group of women from poor circumstances who haven’t had so much as a gym class since dropping out of high school. How is this possibly the recipe for a successful fitness club? The story of Super Babae (Tagalog for “Super Woman”), however, is a story of the life-giving, healing power of exercise—-and the effectiveness of a well-placed donation.

In 2009, I was a burned-out track-and-field coach at Mills College in California, preparing to leave my job and take a year off to write a book about human trafficking in the Philippines as a Fulbright researcher, and volunteer at Samaritana. While my main project was going to be writing, I also wanted to use my coaching experience, if possible, to benefit these women who have been through barely-imaginable suffering. I had seen how running had helped athletes at Mills to work through physical and emotional challenges, but would it translate? And how could these women work out in pants and flip-flops? It was with great joy and excitement that I learned that Nike would donate $1,000 in equipment to help get Super Babae to the starting line. For the past four years at Mills College, I’ve seen the smiles on my teams’ faces as they try on their new uniforms for the first time. But when the Samaritana women—most of whom had never touched anything like a Dri-fit shirt—geared up and tried on their running shoes, their beaming faces of near-disbelief touched the core of what I love about coaching. Would the smiles stop, though, when they started sweating?

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CHRISTMAS AT SAMARITANA

(Krystel Mar Crisostomo)

Samaritana, World Vision & Local Churches Share the Christmas Spirit

On December 19, 2010, in partnership with the staff of World Vision, together with friends from churches in the area such as CCAC, Faith Baptist Church and NUCC, Samaritana’s Outreach Team had the opportunity to host a Christmas party for the women working in the bars and streets of Quezon Avenue this Christmas. This collaborative event was the fruit of much intercession and prayer walks around Quezon Avenue, an area where Samaritana has been ministering and seeking partnerships with other organizations for a long time. As Ate Billie, a World Vision branch officer put it, symbolically, the walls of Jericho finally fell. At the party, everyone shared games, Christmas carols and gift packages, and we did a prayer dance as a gesture of blessing and celebration. The group watched a video clip entitled “A Love Letter from God”, narrated by World Vision volunteer Pastor John.Tears fell as God moved through an overwhelmingly touching night. Eyes were opened, hearts were awakened and burdens stirred. Right before the end of the program, some of the women were amazed and said “ No one has ever given each of us this much importance and no one has ever valued us this way. This is the very first time someone organized a Christmas party for women like us. We didn’t know that God would still love us, despite our being.” A woman said afterward, “Ang saya naman” (It's so fun!). Samaritana, World Vision and other churches are looking forward to unite and pursue this great commission of reaching out to our modern day Samaritan women. God is awesome!

Songs and Games with Samaritana Scholars Moms and kids under the scholarship program of Samaritana had a day filled with lots of fun, gifts and prizes on December 11, 2011, at Quezon City Memorial Circle. Games were enjoyed both by the women and their children. A special song number was given by one of the trainees’ children. It was a happy, wholesome event ending in one big family picnic! Wonderful presents were given to the scholars and no one went home empty-handed.

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18th Anniversary Celebration

 It’s hard to believe, but this year Samaritana turned 18! Like a teenage girl becoming a woman, the celebration on May 8 was highlighted by the participation of eighteen of the women whose lives have been touched by Samaritana’s ministry dressed in formal gowns, descending the main stairs of Samaritana to be greeted and applauded by the gathered guests.

We are grateful for all our ministry partners whose participation and contributions made the evening so special: PRASIA’s music, Krystel Crisostomos’s interpretative dance, Oliver Quingco’s serenade, Patty Loanzon’s debutante cake, Dennis Zamora’s photography, a short video presentation by Ella Chavez and Lester Miranda, and the good wishes of both those who celebrated with us in person, and those who have journeyed with us all these 18 years! Many thanks, too, to all who brought or sent in special gifts in honor of the occasion!

 

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The other day, “Devan” told us that the morning after they had fought, the father of her baby left, taking the baby with him. She was beside herself mostly in anger, but also with fear and sadness for the baby. She doesn’t even know where to begin looking for them.

Our women friends are survivors and strong women, but their relationships, living situations, and lives are not stable, secure or comfortable. Often their lives are crisis-filled and on the edge of vulnerability and fragility.

Befriending and committing to walk with the women means sharing in these crises. Compassion means sharing and helping to bear and carry the suffering of others. It is not only saying that we will pray for them or feeling sad or sorry for them; it is an intentional commitment to nurture a heart posture that deeply shares their suffering, making it somehow our own. And at some level, in some way, it means responding or acting for and with the other.

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Flood survivors enjoying merienda at Samaritana   Relief goods included rice, milk, canned food, drinking water, school supplies and cleaning materials.

Left: Flood survivors enjoying merienda at Samaritana
Right: Relief goods included rice, milk, canned food, drinking water, school supplies and cleaning materials.
 

On September 25th, Samaritana sent a team of six to one of our partners, RENEW Foundation (www.RENEW-foundation.org) in Angeles City, for a joint training session on conducting outreach, and exposure to the situation of prostituted women there.  The two teams shared experiences, encouraged one another, and explored new ideas for outreach activities in their respective settings.  Although Samaritana's team had originally planned to join an anti-trafficking march in Angeles the next day, they decided to go home early because of an impending typhoon.  While they were on the bus heading back to Quezon City, Typhoon Ondoy hit Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The highway exit was flooded, and they were stranded on the bus for over 10 hours.

Nearly 80% of Metro Manila was under water as Ondoy brought a month's rainfall in just a few hours. The flooding that ensued led the government to declare a state of calamity, as the death toll rose to over 300 and hundreds of thousands were displaced. Less than a week later, Typhoon Pepeng wreaked havoc over northern Luzon leaving over 500 dead, hundreds of thousands again displaced, and many crops destroyed. Nearly everyone in the northern part of the Philippines has been affected by one or both of the storms.

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Recent news reports revealed Filipino women in Beijing being rounded up and charged with prostitution. Several of the women Samaritana has helped have in fact been rescued by other groups or ministries from bar/brothel prostitution in Malaysia, where they ended up after being deceived or betrayed by recruiters and traffickers. One of them recounts that after reaching a point of need and desperation, “I accepted any job that I can get, even one that is not pleasing to God. I went to Malaysia to better provide for my family.” Amazingly, however, this sister adds, “There I encountered God and started living in a new life.”

A friend who leads a ministry in Singapore’s red light district where many trafficked Filipino women are prostituted, has reflected on the precious value of each women in the narrow alleyways and lanes of Geylang. Rev. Gerard Seow writes,

“It is said that the more precious the stone is, and the more valuable the mineral deposits are, the deeper one needs to look. What is truly precious is not to be found on the surface. The most expensive ruby found in Burma, less than the size of a child’s knuckle bone was found at a depth of over 2,000 feet in the mountainous regions to the immediate east of the Himalayan chain. The daiamond mines of South Africa routinely dig past 3,000 feet. The higher the price, it seems, the deeper the dig.

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Several weeks ago, Samaritana’s community gathered as we do every month to listen to Scripture, have time for reflection together, and share in small groups.  We call this our monthly day of reflection.  As a guide for reflection that day, Thelma had arranged various symbols and images in different rooms, which we visited one by one like prayer stations.  In one room the jagged shards of a broken clay flower pot lay on a piece of cloth on the floor.

Later in the day, during group sharing, one woman told how she was moved by the broken pot’s symbolism.  “The broken clay pot was like my life, and the jagged pieces were like all the anger in my heart.  But as I sat and held some of the pieces in my hands and  prayed, and fit the broken pieces together, I felt that the anger in my heart was a little less, and the sharp edges of the clay felt softer.  And I believe this is what God is doing in my life here in Samaritana’s community.”

Beautiful!  This young woman was describing a gospel miracle that we pray for and work for and open ourselves up to at Samaritana… the grace and miracle of healing and transformation.

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