The KBC held its 41st anniversary last Sunday and as tradition had it, Nang Nelly was the one tasked for the church history to narrate. As I figured in mind every turn of events in the past through her every word while giving thanks to God for putting burden in the heart and soul of one enlightened man to share the Light in his native land, I started to recall the rest of men and women who responded too to the high calling and gave their toil, blood and tears nonetheless for the work in Kirayan.
The list was endless thus some names for a season could be inadvertently forgotten, yet there are times when due to the mark they left in your heart, their memory would pop in all of a sudden. Like the very first Ma’am I’ve had ever known personally: The ever beautiful in my mind, Ma’am Arlene Faith Macabälē.
I was about five or six when I first met her, and I’m always thankful to my family for allowing me to attend Sunday School, where music and lyrics taught therein I learned in full, most especially the wonderful and inspiring stories in the Bible.
It was through Ma’am Arlene’s thorough and amazing storytelling that my mind learned to limitlessly imagine. Guided by her words, I could figure exactly the beauty of Joseph’s multi-colored coat fatally envied of even by his own brethren.
And in exactly tiniest detail as both hands on two main posts of main columns, the blind Samson’s remorse and repentance were I vividly imagined, especially when he summoned up all his God-given strength for the last time to destroy the building where he killed the most number of the rejoicing Philistines.
I could still post in mind Ma’am Arlene’s permanent smile as she repeatedly lead us to sing one of the favorite tunes of mine: “Kalipay sang akon kasingkasing, kalipay kay naluwas ako; Si Jesus naga-aman sang puluy-an sa langit, ang akon kasingkasing nagakalipay.” Many of those songs I still sing unwittingly when I’m taking a bath or prying dried fish excitingly. And to whom would I duly credit my full memorizing of John 3:16 other than Ma’am Arlene Faith Macabälē?
I could still memorize too those fine twinkling eyes, those narrative prose in whispering style, before shifting suddenly to a deafening crescendo when the climax of the story she would nail in my mind.
She taught me how to feel and imagine the pain, the kind of Christ suffered in Golgotha as He was beaten by His own race and men. And she helped me also how to figure the scene, when the same Christ would return anytime to this world to permanently reign.
Wherever you are now today, Ma’am, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you” (Philippians 1:3), and of our very song which message thereof is still as fresh as new: “Kabata-an sa layû, kamo amon gina-ampù nga makilala ninyo si Jesus nga Ginu-o… Kabata-an sa layû, kamo amon gina-ampù nga makilala n’yo si Jesus nga Ginu-o…”
No comments:
Post a Comment