My Faith Journey

                    I was born and grew up as a Roman Catholic. When my traditional home Church was teaching about homosexuality as sinful when I was in Grade 2 in a Catholic, Jesuit school, I started to question that teaching. I was taught and trained by my mom to be prayerful. Every 6 P.M., we would stop everything that we do and pray the rosary. If we didn’t want, she would get angry.

                As a prayerful person, I would cut and draw pictures of angels, Mama Mary, and Jesus.  I created my own altar in my room. I would even pray that I see my male crush on breaks and play with him. True enough, after a few minutes of praying, I would see him and I immediately thanked God for granting my prayer. However, that joy didn’t last long until my religion teacher taught about homosexuality. I was trying to erase the word, homosexuality, from my textbook using my pen while my teacher was talking. From then on, I started to hate myself. I became more shy and was not that chummy with my crush anymore.

                When I turned 18 years old, I met Fr. Richard. He introduced me to St. Aelred and eventually MCC Quezon City. In 2007, I became a member of MCC Quezon City, now Open Table MCC. I became a Lay Leader in 2010 to start the Mission Group in Marikina City. In 2012, I got anointed together with 300 Pastors in Southeast Asia through the Amplify Asia Conference in Hong Kong. We were anointed by the Elder. Ken Martin of MCC, Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Church of America, and Bishop Yvette Flunder of The Fellowship. From then on, I’ve been attending conferences in Asia and last year in Australia.

          My values have been those of inclusion, community, spiritual transformation, and social justice, which we practiced in our own Church. I’ve learned to believe that God loves us all, regardless of our sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics, height, age, civil and health status, race, color of skin, physical appearance, etc.

    In order of importance, my priorities are God, my Church, myself, my family, and friends, while my beliefs are described on my Personal Statement of Faith. They are the ones that inform my ministry towards other people and myself. Learning to love oneself is at the core of loving others and God at the same time.