It was around 9:30 am in the morning while doing my office work, my phone rang. I saw someone was calling me. When I answered the phone, it was Amy, a staff in one of the Diocese I am overseeing on the program that aims to empower the farming communities.
What shocked me was her news about Kuya Willing. He was killed by unidentified persons who pretended to be chicken feeds buyer. They stab kuya Wiling and still out of discontent shot him from the back. He’s dead. And, its simply sad. Justice has not been served for him and could simply fall to be one of the numbers of killing for human rights advocates.
This happened last two months ago.
As I was scanning photos in my cellphone, a photo of Kuya Wilings carcass laying on a steel table, his wounds were shown, appeared.
It is only now that his loss made me realize that his gone. That he will not be accompanying me on my visits around the communities we are helping. That I will not see his welcoming face.
His death made me realize that to express real love to people we are serving around us, it can be much of an expense at our end. An expense which could mean death of our life. Just as the Good Samaritan did in the Gospel. He spent more and almost give everything comfortable for this robbed and wounded man.
It challenges us to connect to our fellow human being. Interconnecting is really about self-forgetfulness.
It is a scary fact but for person who found their passion and who are ready to lay down their own lives for that cause and reach the level of self forgetfulness. It is simply a given fact. It is life or death. And, there is no bargaining on this path.
It is only now that all this event make sense. To empower or compel farming communities to fight for their rights and speak out of it, one has to lead an example or to its worst offer his own life as a sacrificing lamb.
We empower through education, building capacities, activiites that will enrich the communities towards development. But someones death can also empower people to stand together as one community and tell authorities we are concerned and our hearts are deeply disturb.
Crossroad 