When I picked up my journal to write these words, a sheet of transparent paper slipped out — one I had used to prepare a small gift for the sisters in Lipa, bearing the words “boundless love.” I like to think that such moments never happen by chance, and indeed, the more I reflect on it, the more I realize how true those words are: what we lived and experienced on this journey was truly a love without boundaries.
Each day we were surprised by the sheer generosity with which every person we met offered us something precious, by unexpected gestures of care that, without even realizing it, we deeply needed. During this month, we did not only encounter others; we encountered ourselves as well. Through meeting the other, we came to discover who we are — and this, we believe, is something rare and invaluable, to be held with the utmost care.
Throughout the journey, we reflected often on the meaning of fraternity — understood as that condition which allows one to be together and, at the same time, truly present. Every time we arrived at a new convent, every time we met a new sister, from the very first moment we were welcomed as part of the family, like a brother you never knew you had, yet whom you could not wait to embrace.
On this journey we encountered a new culture — Filipino culture — different from our own, and one that we fell in love with. We encountered it in people, along uneven roads leading to villages, in the often mismatched flip-flops children wore while playing basketball; we encountered it in our being brothers and sisters, all belonging to the same world.
In these difficult days, we cannot help but think of what is happening in the world: of the fear that some countries may be destroyed, conquered, or forgotten. And so we find ourselves asking: if those in power, those who make decisions, had lived an experience of volunteering like this, how might things have changed? How might they change each day? If they had truly met the other, if they had felt — even for a single moment — like brothers or sisters in a country 10,477 kilometers away from their own, how different might the world be?
We wish for everyone the chance to live an experience like the one we were given.
Lara & Leo
