SOS: A house of Hope, of Love, of Life (Part 1)

Chenelle is a very lovely and friendly 4 yr old girl. Her mother is dead and her father is in prison. When she grows up, she said, “I want to have ‘holes’ in my ears.” She and her sister, Ligaya, 6 yrs. old, are the newest members of the SOS community.

Discovering Chenelle’s world was a bit serendipitous for me when, last June 10, Atty. Raul and Jeane Sanchez, together with some friends and relatives, celebrated their 25^th wedding anniversary at the SOS Children’s Village in Talamban, Cebu. The surprise did not end at knowing why SOS, of all places. It was just the beginning

Coming dressed for the occasion, I and my wife were “floored,” so to speak, to see that, contrary to usual wedding celebrations, the celebrants were in T-shirts and jeans in the midst of scores of kids shrieking to the antics of the party clown and magician. When they all had their fill and delight, a program was held and more surprises.

SOS is “home” to 141 children ranging in age from four to 20 years or so. And as their variety show progressed, I was rapt in personal reflection – while a lot of us gripe and complain about life, struggle with our spirituality and other things of desire – inside SOS are children who are either orphaned, abandoned or with parents so destitute to support them even at subsistence level. Yet they danced and sang and did karate exercises as if they had everything a heart can desire for.

Watching them, one cannot help but be shamed and awed, all in one roll. Through no fault of their own, they were denied, early on, that priceless gift of parental love and care; a lot of us take it for granted, even abuse it. Children on the outside, too many to count, willfully and knowingly inflict psychological and physical wounds upon themselves; through no fault of their own, the children of SOS are wounded and had to struggle to lead beautiful and fruitful lives.

The wounds of their experiences run deep and heal long. Chenelle, is garrulous, even more so, her sister Ligaya. Yet when pressed how their mother died or why their father is in prison, her fingers go into a frenetic and involuntary motion while repeating the words Kuya Raymund and the nuns of the Missionary of Charity – her earliest experience of love and care. Irine cried while relating her life before she and three other siblings found a home in the SOS.

Irine is 20 yrs. old and dreamt, even at 6, of becoming a nurse. Now she is on her 3^rd yr. When her father died and her mother had to scrounge for a living, she was left to care for them. She recounted how she had to beg their grandmother for food when the supplies left by their mother ran out. She dropped out of school and they found refuge in the Cebu City Task Force on Street Children of Cebu City’s First Lady Margot Osmena.

Now she gushes with happiness about her life in the SOS. She feels a prick of envy, though, to see her classmates with their parents during school activities. But then, she answers herself, “my Nanay more than makes up for my biological mother.”