Kids of Courage

Read the previous post about Justin, a teenager from Mindanao, an island in the Philippines. His father died in an attack by radical Muslims. His story continues below.

Living on the Chicken Farm
Two years later, someone came and saw our difficult situation. He told us there was a pastor somewhere who cared for children who could no longer live at home. He said I could live there, too.

At first I didn’t want to go. I thought I needed to find work to take care of my mom and my little sister, Genevieve. But later I changed my mind. I decided going to school was more important, so I went with him. I was 10 years old.

I lived in the house of the pastor’s daughter and son-in-law. They had a chicken farm. They take good care of me and are raising me. So I take care of the chickens.

Since I left, I’ve only seen my mom and sister once in six years. They live in a difficult area, and it is hard for me to go there. I can’t call them; they don’t have a phone. I miss them very much.

Thankfully their pastor visits the chicken farm every once in a while, and I get to hear how they’re doing. Sometimes I get letters from them.

Nice Memories
I still think a lot about my dad and sometimes I get sad. But sometimes I get happy because I have nice memories of him.

When I’m struggling, I ask God for help. I like to read the Bible, too. The best part of the Bible for me is Psalm 23. You most likely know it — “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Then I know that God takes care of me even better than I take care of the chickens.

To Think About
What did Justin have to leave behind to move to a safer place where he could go to school? What does Justin do when he is sad about his situation? What do you do when you are sad or scared?

The following story comes from Stef, the children’s publication of SDOK, The Voice of the Martyrs’ sister mission in the Netherlands. (Translated and edited from the original.) The story is told by Justin, a teenager from Mindanao, an island in the Philippines.

Justin’s Story
Do you like chickens? I do. I have a lot of them. Well, I take care of a lot of them — and also turkeys — in the orphanage where I live.

Why do I live in an orphanage? I’ll tell you why. But first let me properly introduce myself.

I am Justin, and I live on Mindanao, a large island in the Philippines. I like chickens, but I also like listening to music. And besides being a chicken farmer, I am also the handyman in the church. So I am very busy.

Of course I go to school every day, too. I go on a “tricycle.” It’s a motorcycle with a little shelter built on top where they can fit a lot of people. Here on Mindanao almost everyone uses a tricycle to get anywhere.

Why I Came Here
I came from a different place on the island of Mindanao. The area where I used to live is quite dangerous. Christians’ villages and homes there are attacked by armed “rebels.” They attack Christians because they think they whole island should belong to Muslims. So they want to take houses and land from the Christians.

Our village was attacked several times. We had to run for our lives.

When I was 7, something very bad happened. My dad died. He worked in the fields as a farmer. He was also a helper for the village leader (like a mayor). The rebels were fighting against the leader.

One day the leader drove through the rebel area. Rebels exploded a bomb under his car. The leader, my dad, and another person died.

Angry
At first, when my dad died, I was very angry toward the Muslims who did it. I couldn’t think of anything else every day. “When I’m bigger, I’ll get revenge,” I thought. I wanted to become a soldier and fight them. But things turned out differently.

Life was very hard for my mom. We had hardly any money for food or other things.

Justin’s story will be continued in the next post.

Photo credit: Bin Gregory / Flickr (bingregory) / Wikipedia / CC BY 2.0