By John Rainer Pulvera (LEAD Volunteer Coordinator)
Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest,” resonated deeply with Ms. Mary as she was attending her first Mass in the Philippines after her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2019. The epiphany that she had rekindled in 2024 when she encountered the call to service once more. In a message from Br. JJ Jimenez FSC, Brother Visitor, announcing the release of the LEAD Directory of Volunteer Opportunities, Ms. Mary found a profound echo of her own spiritual journey. The opening lines of the letter, "Then heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'" (Isaiah 6:8), immediately transported her back to the profound epiphany she had experienced years before.
On January 11, 2025, after months of rigorous application process, Ms. Mary was accepted as the 1st district volunteer under the LEAD Volunteer Program. She will be deployed in La Salle School Sangkhlaburi (LSSK) and La Salle Learning Center (Bamboo School) in Thailand on February 1, 2025.
Ms. Mary’s volunteer work is reinforced by the leavening movement, a process of authentic engagement to the peripheries. We hope that by her example, this will be the start of a continuous movement of people, a movement with which guides one to his/her vocation. After all, we are a Lasallian family, from different backgrounds but called to be together going out to find God in the peripheries.
One Life. Live it. Volunteer!
About the Program:
Established in 2024, the LEAD Volunteer Program was set up to continue the facilitation of international volunteers in the district. LEAD Volunteers are called to be a leaven to the communities they are assigned to and experience encounters with the peripheries as a mutually transformative one.
