Woah!

Has it been a long time since this thing's been updated? Well, for starters i have been busy! Juggling school and seminary is not easy. And it is not like the last time. This time i'm even more certain of it. Moving away from my parents for long term and not like the last time when i came home so often. But i know its all good. School has been awesome. Thanks to MS0502. For truly being there. Esp after knowing what the real story is and not changing opinions. It's a pity that 01 will never hear it.

The most important thing i shall blog about will be Pattaya, Thailand. The mission trip that showed me that however lucky we think we are. We are luckier. However happy we think we are. We are happier. However lousy we think we are. We are not. However life has abandoned you and left you in a ditch. It has not.

But first off. I wrote this in my old blog more than a year ago.

All for God's glory.>

Helping the poor. My dream since i was 14. The reason i joined the Redemptorists. The one thing i want to give up my life for.
Been looking for the person who actually shares such a passion.But the person has been there waiting.I thought i should plead to find someone who is willing to help the poor and sacrifice everything, but i guess i do no have to! Been slightly, ok VERY ignorant! But God, you have plans....that are simply AMAZING!!!!!

God will guide us in our endeavours and will bring us to light. Bring us to assist the poor and starving. Guide us through our studies and then bring us to do missionary work.

GOD BLESS!


The 1st of December to the 9th. An amazing sequence of events. That affected many of us. The Redemptorist Centre in Pattaya housed us. The food was good. Thank God for that. The people who came for the trip. Some of them taught a whole lot of new things. Thank you Lord for working in them!

Now about the trip itself!

The Street Children's Home. This is a place where kids between the ages of 4 to about 18 are brought into the home right of the streets. You can see children as young as 5-years-old with tattoos. Made me feel so weird la. Like this one kid had a huge tattoo on his arm and all i have are the ones on my back and Jesus on my shoulder. But then again it's life. There are girl as yound as 16 who were forced into prostitution. People may argue and say that is despicable. But i'm telling you it is part of life. It is by that experience that they have become the beautiful young girls they are at heart. One particular girl just touched me a lot. She came up to me with a piece of paper and said "Name". So i wrote Dominic. In turn she wrote. "BOWLOVEDOMINIC". And i was just so amazed. I wrote "When you learn English: I love you. SEE YOU AGAIN". And i wrote it for 4 other girls who were there as well. I told myself that during the 2 month break i am coming back, to teach these kids. To play with them and to give my free time to them. On the second day I did not want to get any kids coming to me because I did not want to feel that attachment. But it did not work. This kid came up to me. Dae was his name. I told myself, no way will I get attached to him. In the end, I kept hugging and kissing him and I just did not want to let go. As I left, he hung his head low and waved. He hung his head low and I could not see that smile. But I want to next year!

For those of you who know me deep enough, understand that however hard hearted I may seem. However hard-hearted I may be. You guys know I have an emotional side. I admit it. I do. I broke down when I had to leave the street kids home. I just did not want to leave. 2 reasons. Firstly, it was what Moses (one of the participants) told me. We come all the way here, spend a few hours with them and we go. We give them that sense of false hope. That we are coming back tomorrow, to play with them. And somehow when I heard that I kept thinking about it. And I just broke down. Secondly its how many distractions we have! What the hell are most of us lacking? Our parents provide for us. Yet we complain. I was guilty of that. I used to want to move out of my house so badly. To a bigger place, because I thought the girl I was going out with would like it more and I cared more about face. Now I don’t care. I’ve given up my life for missions. I still hope to meet someone who is as interested in missions as I am. So far no one. Well no one who I would want to travel with anyways. Not including the seminarians and Fr. Simon.

Well then, this was all that took place from the 2nd day to the 4th.

The orphanage. The place where all the little kids are left. From as young as 9 months to about 4. First day was horrible. Not one kid came up to me. Its hilarious how they run away from you when you approach them, but somehow they just don’t want to come to you. But the next day Somat just came to me. It’s funny how we met. I bumped into him and he fell down. He started to laugh and I followed. Then he started to introduce himself by sticking his middle and index fingers into his mouth and the index finger on the other hand into his nose. So I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. Basically, every time he was with me and we weren’t running around and doing cartwheels and back flips, he would unsuccessfully try to whistle. I would laugh at him and he’d laugh at me too! I’d swing him around and go crazy. But as I learnt to love this kid even more, I couldn’t visit him on the last day because of my fever. As much as I would have loved to kiss him goodbye one last time, I did not dare allow myself to pass any type of sickness to these innocent little ones.

The story behind all of these kids has violence or heartache on their side all over. There are some of the kids who are products of the White men who come from all parts of the world looking for a business trip. These men are usually married and have a perfect family at home. But they have mistresses in Thailand. They sleep with them, get them pregnant and leave. And these women the men sleep with are maybe between 19 and 25. They do no know what to do, and so they leave these babies at the Redemptorist Orphanage. Just like how the old CHIJ used to work. It’s ongoing in Pattaya.

Well that is about it as far as missions go. There was still the visit to the zoo that totally didn’t sit well with me. Torture of animals. Utter disrespect to great men like Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin and Sir David Attenborough. But then again, its only there for the money. Nothing else.

Well usually during a mission trip you learn a lot. But something Padre said during his daily mass homily really made me think again. He was talking about mistakes and how we choose to hold onto them. But yet Jesus chose to forgive us. He said, that there are people out there who have more problems, yet they do not stumble! I realized that with all my problems, I let them control me. I got angry for nothing. I chose to hurt the very peole I loved dearly. Rubbish! I was wrong. And after that I went up to him and I told him that I was praying for an answer to a question and he just showed it to me during the Doxology. The moment I looked at the Eucharist I knew that I had an answer that would also give me strength. A wonderful presence is the Eucharist. That is why we Catholics believe that it is truly the body of Christ. I heard something tell me to continuously pray for the strength to go forth and seek forgiveness. But somehow it seems a mountainous task.

Well as some of you know, my theme for Christmas is “Forgiveness. Both seeking it and Practicing it.” I have been wanting to seek forgiveness/start afresh with 3 people. Firstly, my Godma. I know she is a good woman. Maybe she has her own opinions, but I don’t care. I want to start afresh with her. Secondly, my Grandmother. I have not spoken to her for 6 years I think. Ignoring her during parties and gatherings have become the norm, and I think its time I stopped, because carrying such a grudge is not worth it. Thirdly is Jess. After all the shit that happened. All the anger and all that went down. I came to a conclusion that I wanted to clear everything. I did not want to bear this cross all my life. As a seminarian I should not have such crosses to bear. As a priest it would not be healthy to bear such a burden. But it won’t be easy, and a one time “hey I’m sorry”. But it seems so difficult. Well I tried unblocking and adding her on MSN again, but somehow the keyboard seems to be missing the keys, HI and HEY.

Benson. Blessann. Ming Yi. Denise. Shaiful. Candy. Reyn. Abner and Dale. Thank you so much for hearing me out yesterday. I meant my toast when we opened our beer. I just felt that it was time to let some of the people around me know why I did what I did. As wrong as it was, its people like you who have given me that second chance. Thank you very much. Oh and by the way, we won 9-2, but it was fun, given that it was my first match since my last operation.

Ok and finally. If at all you feel that anything here keeps you thinking, please let me know. Let me help you if you have a desire for mission. If you need to pray let me know. If you feel anything is incorrect or if you have opinions let me know. If this post has affected you, let me know. I feel this post could affect some people, and that the only reason I blogged about it.

Do not let something stop you from achieving what you want. Do not be afraid to make mistakes. I have made a shitloads of mistakes. But I don’t act like it did not affect me and hide from them. I faced them and proved people wrong. And the very people who had doubted me are definitely less happier than I am. Oh and if you feel that you are happier than me, then good for you. Because I think I am happy. And I’m happy if you are happy.

Lastly. I shaved. I went to Thailand, I told myself I’d come back as a new person and going bald was the first step. Seeking forgiveness and starting a new are the second steps at the moment. But I need time