March is a month of turning point. School year ends. Contractual teachers may also end up their contracts and job. Graduates are teary grateful and sad to leave their 2nd home, the school and the like.
March was also the birth-month of my deceased Papang, I treasure him. Our family keeps a celebration on his birth anniversary as we honor his life and love to all of us.
This year, the month of to me March is a challenge. I give my prayers and hope to have my contract renewed as an ALT teacher. The challenge is still on as I fight for the renewal of it.
One thing a bit new to me here in Japan was to meet new friends of common skin color last Sunday as I was trying to take time to have a pause when I parked my bike. I noticed three Filipinos who just arrived too with their bikes. I asked, “Pinoy?” And they nodded. I went to greet them and offered my hand to each of them. They are just 6 months in Japan as trainees sent by a Japanese company based in Laguna to Japan. That reminded me on my first months after arrival too in Japan, full of sorrows, pains and challenges. I wished to offer them more orientation on Japan way of life of Filipinos. Hence I invited them to a seminar for Filipino friends we have set dated March 21st in Suwa with Eddie P and Ronie D.
Yesterday, after some phone follow ups, it were Ronald and Raul who could come and they joined us to Suwa. Eddie P has his friends Jing, Mia, and Evelyn too in Suwa. Moreover our Yamanashi friends Jenjen Y together with her husband and a new Korean friend Ms. Ju came. We have a wonderful gathering and have a fellowship lunch with Filipino dishes prepared by the Fil-Jap couples. Our guests were so delighted with the long missed Filipino foods such as pinakbet made by Eddie, humba made by Ronie, Kare-kare with ginisang bagoong, Bopis made by Carmela, pansit made by Jenjen, buko majablanca made by Eddie and others.
After the lunch, Ronie and I inivited them to the lecture area to continue our exchanges more formally. After an introductory message by Ronie D. I was tasked to present a modified view of the Principle for OFWs particularly the Filipinos staying abroad or in Japan. I have to consider my audience who were OFW trainees and the former entertainers too.
The purpose of Life and the Life of married-OFWs was my first emphasis in the presentation. I also presented the root cause of the fall of man with emphasis of family breakdown which was once presented to OFWs by the CBPC Episcopal Commission for Migrant Workers. I also sighted the poor move of the government who just simply offer to migrant workers in the airport an orientation on safe sex by using condoms as they depart as OFWs. They could not attend the case of moral issues of the married Filipino couples but only let them use condoms while they are far from their spouses.
The gospel of Jesus who taught the Jewish people a new way on who will throw the first stone to the caught adulterous woman was a delight to the eyes of the Filipina entertainers. ”Whoever has not committed a sin may throw the first stone for her death.” And in silence, the Jewish people dropped one by one their stones and left the adulterous woman. Jesus said to the woman, “Go and sin no more.”
Comparing this to a government who simple offered the use of condoms for safe sex to departing immigrant workers, two contrasting lifestyles are seen. Jesus taught the woman to go and not to commit adultery anymore is one. The other one is telling the departing Filipinos to use condoms when they are to make sex with others while they are far from their spouses when working abroad as OFWs. It indirectly allows the immgrant workers to commit adultery in a sense with safe sex emphasized.
The explanation of the root cause of the fall of man was clearly presented. The participants were interactive too as they tried to check their lifestyles as OFWs. In short, they understand where they are at and get what the precautionary message is to avoid the fall of man and keep a moral foundation for his family. It is a difficult responsibility to control man’s sexual emotion and desire but God’s ideal plan for each family is so clear.
Ms. Ju, a Korean PLA and a graduate from Sun Moon University also supplemented the presentation with the four kinds of love. She empahiszed the exclusiveness of the conjugal love compared to the other kinds of love. She too has a nice, though brief supplement lecture. She served for three years in the Philippines working in PLA or Pure Love Alliance in Mindanao. She is blessed to marry a Japanese spouse too from Yamanashi, the place of Mr. and Mrs. Jenjen Yamaguchi.
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