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A R T I C L E S
| On Mission
Building People
by angelo saludo
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Building People
Dag Hammarskjold, past UN Secretary once said, “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”
In our community we put emphasis on the development of individual members, so much so that we put them in groupings small enough to be given enough care by the head. In these groupings we are formed into the very person that Christ wants us to be. And so our leaders come from these households equipped with the teachings of the community. So I could fairly say that our leaders has the foundation of Christian values, to say the least we have the leaders with integrity, conviction and passion, vision and creativity for service. The same qualities that I believe our country needs from a leader. Servant leaders!
We had been building these kinds of leaders for almost 14 years now. And so we could also fairly say that since the beginning that God has brought this ministry, it has always been in His mind to build leaders who will build this country. And so nation building is not something new to us, IT IS IN US SINCE THE BEGINNING OF YFC. It is in our life and mission. It is our passion! And so, again, Gawad Kalinga comes so natural to us, because building houses is but one aspect of building a community of God. Here, we are not just building houses, we are building homes; we are not just landscaping plants, we are landscaping values. Our passion for building people with character and values of Christ shows in thousand of GK Villages that we have. The colorful houses and beautiful communities that we have right now are but great manifestations of the passion of people building those houses. It’s an inside out thing! What are beautiful houses without transformed families? What are beautiful landscapes without beautiful values? What are colorful houses without colorful lives changed?
Our Edge
When you go to the GK sites, and try to observe, if a YFC visits a site he always try to find where the children’s are. So, I could say, we love children, we love people; it is in our YFC blood. The formation we had for the past 14 years has prepared us to build the people in these communities. We loved building people! Our partners in the work love building houses, which is there strength. We can do a lot of things in so many different ways, all we need is to find our place, so that there will be no redundancy. Like a part of the body, we can be the hand or the mouth, the leg or the head.
Our strength is building people and so why not do it in the GK sites? This is our edge! We have all the learning’s we had for the past 14 years; we had all the teachings and trainings. All we need is to fine tune it, to be relevant with time and to be relevant in the GK sites.
The Necessity of Formation Tracks
We cannot build people overnight. We need to build them with time, equipped them as they learn along. There is no other formation track, as far as I know, that has produced leaders and missionaries in such massive scale as YFC. We have seen the fruits of it with the leaders that we have now both inside the community serving in different ministries of CFC, transitioning and leading in other service and the country in different levels. This is transformation! I have no doubt that in the next 15 to 20 years; we could see a dramatic change in our country because new leaders with values and character from YFC will be leading this country! This is revolution, this is conquer all!
But time has changed. We need to be always attuned with times. Values are constant but we can package them in a creative way, in a way that is relevant to our society now. And so, there comes the need to re-evaluate our formation tracks and make it relevant today, a formation track that has faith and patriotism as its base. It must be flexible enough to be stretch both ways for creativity to be encourage. This is very important for us to have a common basis as to the formation of our members. We need it for continuity, for good Christian values and qualities to be passed on to the next leaders. If there is continuity then sustainability follows.
Offense not Defense
We need to be on the offense, not on the defense mode. When we are on the offense, we can grow, when we are on the defense we somehow get tired and we lose membership. But again, let us not focus on numbers. We are talking here of substance, of meaningful and relevant changes in the lives of people. Now is an exciting time! We cannot just wait for opportunities to come, we will grab opportunities. We cannot wait for the youth to fall into vices and be put into neglect; we cannot wait for our society to break apart. We need to go on offense.
Create and Re-Create
Science says that we are a billion years old, from the first simple protozoa that were formed. So nothings really new to talk about, but we can create and re-create something new out of something else but with the same “matter’, the same “substance”. To put it in another context, we can re-create something new from our formation tracks with the same values. Values are constant, Christ is constant. His love is constant. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow but we can always present Him the way that is relevant now, for Christ is always relevant.
Relevance
So relevance is the word. YFC is relevant! Our country needs leaders that have the quality, the values and character of a YFC Leader! And the work that we are doing now is much more relevant than ever. YFC is much more relevant than ever, because loving our country without loving our God is nothing! It would be like a body without a soul! But our formation tracks must be relevant also to cope up with the changing times. Our programs must continue to be relevant. How do we know if it’s still relevant? By putting our feet on the shoes of our members and non-members and listen and learn from these 13 to 21 years old, vibrant young people.
This is YFC! More relevant than ever, more important than ever! Like a chameleon, we can adapt to changes, without changing our values. We are being prepared for this! We are being prepared to be creative, now is the time to use it with a shift of paradigm towards nation building. A mindset of building communities, building families, building people, not just villages, houses! This is our contribution, a drop of water in this ocean wide work for God and country.
Our Strength
Our strength is that we are families in the Holy Spirit renewing the face of the earth. We are a family! We are a family united to build our country because we believe that we are loved by God and this country is loved by God. We are a family building individual lives patterned after Gods own heart. And so building people becomes more exciting. It’s so easy to build houses, because you can follow a house plan. But building people, it’s a different story, people are dynamic, and your plan can change. You get excited, disappointed, affirmed and down again. You give trust and you get judged. But almost 14 years had proved it all, as Hammarskjold put it, what a noble cause to build an individual! It is all worth it.
Fertile Soil
Forming leaders, transforming individual lives in the school of Christ in YFC is bearing fruits but like the soil, we have to produce a hundred fold, a thousand, millions because the world needs a YFC leader!
Angelo T. Saludo
Date added 2007-08-16 16:39:55
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 archie | Brod mzta na?????????????????????????
Date added 2007-11-28 18:21:02 |
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