​For every Christmas season, in the almost 2 decades I spent away from the Philippines, this Josi Mari Chan song brings back memories of home… 🎶 girls and boys selling lanterns on the streets…🎶

Maybe because these scenes are unique to the Philippines, in the backdrop of kids caroling on every doorstep each and every night, another quite unique Philippine tradition. A few times during the COVID outbreak, my FilAm group tried to share this tradition by caroling around our neighborhood. It was a lot of fun! 

This year’s Christmas for me is more memorable in terms of celebrating the season with fellow kababayans. The church community in All Saint’s Catholic Community in Mesa AZ has a 'Christmas Around the World' event where all Filipinos can share the traditional food and kakanin that one Sunday evening and mingle with the Pinoys in the community. San Diego Parish hold Simbang Gabi masses at 6:30pm and a get-together where Pinoy kakanin is shared follows the mass one Saturday evening for a casual Filipino style gathering.

As our family grows on this side of the world, as mine certainly did when my son got married in October this year, our memories of home shift to a different meaning. ‘Home’ is where our heart is, and we try to make the best of the season wherever we may be. 

But there is no place like ‘home’. So while it isn’t always possible to travel and be ‘home’  for Christmas, let’s strive to keep Christmas at ‘home’ in our hearts…wherever life takes us.

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It was just summer break not too long ago, and now we're back to school again! Every school year I try to inspire my student with a word of the year. Last year was "KIND"! The year before was "HOPE". For this school year, I'm the one taking inspiration from my daughter, Angie. It's "DREAM ON!" 

Most of us who've been blessed to be in the US long enough that we forget how life has been back where we came from, needs some waking up. That's exactly how my summer went for the past few weeks. I took Angie with me on my trips to pick up J1 Teachers (International Exchange Teachers sponsored by IAGUSA, a company my friend and former colleague, Jason Hammond, owned) who came to AZ to teach our students since we still are short of qualified teachers (even with ADE loosening it's certification standard) for this school year. 

"Laban Lang! Ma'am", one teacher coming from the Philippines commented when asked about how his long flight went. Despite the 24 hr journey, with long layovers and delayed flights in between that caused him to miss the connecting flight to Phoenix, and the fact that his arranged long-term accommodation bailed on him the day he flew out of NAIA, Santi's optimism, enthusiasm, and resilience had my daughter appreciate what America has to offer even more. We ended up hosting Santi & another J1 teacher, Gretch, at our home for a week until they found a decent place to live as we vetted through online 'for-rent' postings. On the hindsight, hearing Santi and a handful of other J1 teachers' stories of their journey in the pursuit of their dreams and how they missed families, friends, and their students back home made her realized how blessed she is to not have been left behind by her loved ones. Little did she know that her brother wasn't as lucky. I teared up inside as I reminisced the time when I, too, had to leave home and my son in pursuit of that American Dream, which journey I will share in my next post.

Meanwhile, these two teachers, stayed with us through the 4th of July as we hosted a few other J1 teachers we previously took care of for our backyard BBQ and later, our neighborhood Independence Day celebrations at Eastmark and such stunning fireworks display. Jeff, a J1 teacher from Ghana (also sponsored by IAGUSA), was  thrilled to see how patriotic everyone was, but misses his family dearly, particularly his fiancée who's still back home. But knowing that he's doing this to give them a better start at life together gave him some consolations. Gretch, on the other hand, tried to stay in contact with her teenage son every minute she can get a hold of him, assuring him the same promise of a better future I gave my son way back then, with the chance of him coming to America very soon. When it was time for our guests to say goodbye as they settle into their permanent homes, my daughter shed tears of longing for a sister she never had, that she briefly found in ate Gretch, or her cousins, mostly girls, she missed back in the Philippines. "My heart belongs to the Philippines, mom", she proclaimed. 

As she reflected on all these experiences, Angie felt the need to do something for those left back 'home' with even a simple gesture of giving back and sharing her blessings. As a Success Partner at IAGUSA, I do get a small stipend for my time and reimbursements for fuel, which I share with Angie being my personal 'success partner' (her summer job) who assisted me in holding the signs up and waving the teachers down when I'm trying to sneak into some tight parking spots at the airport, or ticking of that Teacher Arrival checklist for them to get through all the documentations needed for onboarding at their host districts. She then asked if she could use her share of the stipend to send it back home for the kids at our hometown who may need 'Back-To-School' supplies. Her dad and I signed up to match her funds and her grandma (Mamang) matched ours. Her cousins were all on-board in the Philippines and signed up to fill the bags and help distribute them. 

Angie's BTS ("Back-To-School") Drive, as we called it since she's a K-Pop Idol band BTS' army, garnered a lot of interest from the little town that was once plowed by my grandfather as a rice paddy field (and later, his coconut plantation). Her cousins made 50 kits out of her $50 seed money that had multiplied hence, thanks to her fundraising efforts, but that still wasn't enough as the number of needs almost doubled that we streamlined our distribution list. Some families with multiple children can only receive up to 2 kits on Angie's BTS Drive Day on August 8th @ 10 AM (7pm in AZ on August 7th, the Purple Heart Day 💜 in the US for our brave fallen and wounded warriors) at a town chapel which lot my grandpa donated decades ago. As for the rest of those in need, that didn't get a share from the BTS Packs, her brother, a US Air Force veteran (another brother in the US Air Force will be deployed in South Korea soon), stepped in to donate some funds to supplement a Day 2 BTS D-Day as his way of celebrating his own blessing of a new addition to our family.

After the kids got their BTS packs and snacks, everyone were happy to hear Angie deliver a quick message of hope to them, which perfectly caps my post today, encouraging the students to keep going and never give up, laban lang nang laban (grit-ful brave hearts), and reminding them to love themselves 💜 (as the BTS K-Pop group's mantra) as they Dream On... 

 

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As we welcome summer, Arizona Pinoy kids are already halfway through their summer vacation, while the rest of the country will have a week more to go, just like our kababayans back home who are currently burning midnight candles, cramming for last minute reports, projects, finals this week or so. 

Last year I had the privilege of addressing the student awardees at our private school (RAS) in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental during their commencement exercises. I'd like to share it with you... Speaking to DepEd Commencement Theme, June 2022: