GIVE MORE, SHARE MORE, LOVE MORE The first session of Day Two at the conference was entitled ‘Prayer, Presence and Provision in the Pandemic’. Here one of the speakers, Floyd Lalwet, Provincial Secretary of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, expands his theme. While we cannot even begin to imagine the extent of humanity’s collective and individual grief over the loss of lives and destruction of communities caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we can say that the pandemic has also impacted the Church in a very positive way. Indeed, the pandemic has served as a compelling reset button for the most important things in life – family, community and the environment. In the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP), the pandemic has shattered certain assumptions, practices and worldviews which have previously served as obstacles for it to truly be an institution founded in Jesus Christ. The values of individualism and materialism that have engulfed the world have been stopped in their tracks by the restrictions and difficulties arising from the pandemic. This has provided the Church with an opportunity to re-calibrate its mindset and reaffirm the values of the Kingdom of God. The ECP is a small church of 200,000 compared to the 84 million Roman Catholics living in the Philippines. Our mission fields for the past 120 years have largely been rural areas nestled in the mountains and valleys. While we are headquartered at Cathedral Heights in the central metropolis of Quezon City, the majority of our mission areas take several hours or even days to reach. When the lockdowns were imposed, we could not move out of our cities
and towns. Because of this restriction, the ECP began embracing city-dwellers in a more intentional manner, such as our neighbours in the communities near Cathedral Heights. For a long time prior to the pandemic, our neighbours didn’t give much thought to Cathedral Heights. However, in recent months Cathedral Heights has become a symbol of hope for them. When our neighbours lost their jobs, we welcomed them into Cathedral Heights. At a time when communities were understandably closing their doors for fear of infection, the Church did the exact opposite. We opened our compounds and church centres to economically challenged households and to frontline medical staff. Our doors have been open to anyone in need of somewhere to rest or in need of a secure place to quarantine. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the Church to take these drastic actions. Yet, taking these actions has changed the Church into a more inclusive, welcoming institution. In this way, the pandemic has helped the ECP to love our neighbours. For a decade now, ECP has been practicing an asset-based approach to development as opposed to the needs-based mindset that had previously dominated our development planning for more than a century. With the limitations on movement brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, communities were forced to look at themselves. By looking after and developing their
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