CTS Alumnus Brings New Eyes to the Philippines

Epenito “Rambu” Ursos (M.Div 2010) was going home again, but not like he’d ever gone before. For one thing, he was bringing the “kids”—ten members of the Mont Clare UCC youth group, ranging in age from 9 to 22 years old. As Associate Minister for Youth since 2008, Rambu was aware these young people had their eyes set on the Philippines a long time. All Filipino American, only half had set foot in the country of their parents. But previous attempts at a mission trip had fallen through. The youth asked Pastor Ursos to step up and present their case to the church.

After months of fundraising, Mont Clare put their full support behind the trip. Six adults, including the minister, Rev. Maxwell Codillo, joined the mission. Arriving June 24, the group of seventeen spent almost a month working with UCCP churches and Global Ministry sites around the Philippines to further their mission work.

At Ellinwood-Malate UCCP in Manila, the youth were immersed in their street dwellers mission, serving homeless people and families; in Dumaguete City, they worked with Habitat for Humanity and engaged with abused children and poor communities in the area; in Davao City, they assisted dentists and medical workers in public schools, met families in Smoky Mountains, a city dump, engaged the local youth group and led worship, and visited the Badjao community, a tribe that lives off the sea, fishing and diving for pearls.

Rambu was amazed by his young colleagues’ dedication and maturity. The nine year old boy, the “baby” at home, worked as hard as any of them, without complaint. Indeed, despite the lack of material ease, Rambu watched them “transformed to the joy of serving, without focusing on their own comforts.”

For him, too, the trip was a revelation. A native of Davao City, Rambu was a 30 year member of the UCCP Davao City Central Church before coming to CTS, but had never engaged in mission work there. His coursework at CTS, he says, especially in pastoral care and ethics, helped prepare him, and helped him prepare the young people with him, to drop the “stereotypes and judgments” and enter their mission with “a different view of God’s people, endeavoring to see with eyes of love, compassion and justice.” Through new eyes, and through the many angles of his Seminary education, going home again gave Rambu another vision of his community: “a kaleidoscope vision, rather than a single point of view.”