One 28th day of December, I took a bus and met a Burmese family...

POOPOO JAYJAY


HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR CHRISTMAS VACATION ?

AND YOUR NEW YEAR’S DAY ?

Me, on December 28, I took the bus . . . the Victory Liner from Cubao . . . to Baguio . . . seven hours away . . . to sleep.

The bus was full. But it had one vacant seat. Really, less than one. Half a vacant seat, because there were already two little girls seated on the next seat. . . . So I squeezed my fat body into the vacant space . . . and presto!!! I experienced the most beautiful, most fantastic, most divine Christmas adventure I ever experienced in my whole life!

The little girl beside me, ELIZABETH . . . moved and sat on the lap of the older girl . . . RACHEL. At first I thought Rachel was the mother of the little girl . . . but I was wrong. They were sisters, and during the whole trip they never violated MY space. They just squeezed themselves together and tried their best to fit on THEIR side of the double seat . . . because they were paying for only one seat.

For a long time we glanced at each other and smiled. . . . Then somewhere in Pampanga they began to speak in a strange language. Not Ilocano. Not Cebuano. Not any language I’m familiar with. I did not know what language it was. And I was curious. “Excuse me. What language are you speaking? What part of the Philippines do you come from?”

“We are not from the Philippines. We are from MYANMAR. We come from BURMA.”

In Tarlac I went down and bought some candies for them, and they accepted the candies with their beautiful smiles, and their beautiful trust. Then they left their seats and proceeded to share the candies with their other sister and their three brothers and their Mom and Dad.

In return, they gave me their most precious possession: an apple . . . and I could not refuse it, for I did not want to offend them, my new friends, the two little girls from Burma. And their three siblings and their poor Daddy and Mommy.

They began calling me LOLO, and so my name became LOLO JJ.

Then I asked, “How would you say LOLO in your language in Burma?” And they said “LOLO in Burma is POOPOO.” And so my name became POOPOO JJ. And if I had been a grandmother, a LOLA, my name would have been PEEPEE JJ, PEEPEE JJ!

Their father, VAN LIAN, was studying in Baguio. He was a strong Burmese tribesman, a native, a member of a cultural minority like our Filipino Igorot or Bagobo or Tausug. Van Lian was a native. And so was their mother, ROSE MARY.

The eldest among the children was RACHEL. Then REBECCA, then ISAAC, then ELIZABETH, then FAITH BOY, then the baby, STEVEN. Six children. They were all there in the bus, squeezed in whichever way, and their strong, serene Daddy Van Lian was there, and their Mommy Rose Mary was quietly holding and nursing the baby STEVEN, only a few months old.

I looked around and I wondered, “Why no fancy, expensive, bulging suitcases, why only cheap plastic bags?”

They seemed poor. They seemed very poor. They had only the essentials of life, and even their basic possessions were simple, cheap, and old. Van Lian’s thin shirt looked like it was many, many years old. Rose Mary’s native dress was rough and ageless. And the children . . . our own poor, poor Filipino street children dress just like them. It was very clear — MY NEW BURMESE FRIENDS WERE RICH ONLY IN THEIR POVERTY.

When we reached Baguio, I said goodbye to VAN LIAN and his wife and his unusual family — the poor, simple, loving, lovable children from Burma. And their Mother Rose Mary said, “Come to our home, POOPOO JJ, I will cook Burmese food for you.”

Two days later, I found the place where they lived . . . one little room for the six children and their parents and another Burmese student named Robert. So, nine people in a room much smaller than maybe 1/4 the size of a classroom. NINE people living in one cramped little room!

They were all there, the Van Lian Family, waiting for me, their POOPOO JJ . . . their new grandfather. Their cold and lost POOPOO JJ. They seemed really, really poor. Poorer than every-body here in this church tonight. Probably, even poorer than the housemaid of everybody here. And their food was, to my pampered Filipino palate, really, really terrible.

I heroically tried to eat it, but I could not swallow it. I tried to wash it down with their Burmese tea. But I could not take that, either. So I just smiled, and tried my best to swallow. I just smiled, and tried my best to swallow. With no success.

But although there was much poverty and deprivation there, there was also ineffable goodness, and love. . . . Even before I revealed that I was a Priest, they already trusted me and welcomed me and reverenced me, simply because I was a person, and not because I was someone in authority. Just a person. Like them . And I knew, and I really felt the divine beauty of their goodness and their love, embracing me and soothing me and healing me. For God Himself was in them all.

When I went home that day I said, “What a horrible meal !! ” Really, the last time I ate like that was when I lived and worked and suffered among the SACADAS, the migrant sugarcane workers of Negros.

BUT I also said, “What a wonderful family! What goodness! What holiness! What love! Never, never before in my life did I experience the transcendent yet real glow of love and divinity like that!! I FELT AND I KNEW — THAT GOD, GOD HIMSELF WAS THERE, PRESENT AND LIVING AND SMILING!

Those poor, poor people from Burma. They do not have the food, the clothes, the cars, the houses, the many, expensive Christmas presents like you and you and me. . . .

AND YET, AND YET, YOU KNOW, MY FRIENDS, JOSEPH AND MARY AND JESUS, WERE EXACTLY LIKE THEM. . . . THE VAN LIAN FAMILY FROM BURMA. . . .

Hindi ba? Just think of it. . . . Jesus and Mary and Joseph were like that . . . are like that . . . not like us or our friends staying in the BAGUIO COUNTRY CLUB or GREEN VALLEY or CAMP JOHN HAY . . . eating in the luxurious restaurants of millionaires. The HOLY FAMILY was a very, very poor family. But God Himself was always present in them — living and loving and smiling . . . in them.

And I thought, “What a beautiful gift God has given me . . .to BE with a holy family, a holy family . . . like the family of Jesus and Mary and Joseph!!!”

On NEW YEAR’S DAY, because I am a Jesuit, and because I am Fr. JJ, invitations came from my former students and their families: invitations from the Baguio Country Club and Green Valley and Camp John Hay and the private, wealthy houses of Baguio City.

But I wanted and I chose to be with my Holy Family.

And so I went to them again and I sat down on the floor again, and I spent the day, my New Year’s Day, with the poor and good and holy family of Van Lian from Burma. The Daddy. The Mommy. Rachel, Rebecca, Isaac, Elizabeth, Faith Boy, and Baby Steven. A Holy Family. God’s Holy Family.

Yes, there was something very weird and undeniable about that family. They were limited by poverty. But there was goodness and nobility and deep love, and holy divinity in them . . . . and I suspect, I think maybe Van Lian was really St. Joseph and his wife Rose Mary was really the blessed Mother Mary. And the children were all, all, all, Jesus Christ.

After a while I forgot their simplicity and their poverty . . . and I became aware only of THEIR LOVE. Love from ALL of them, love from EACH ONE of them — love for me, their lost, their groping, their poor, poor Jayjay . . . their POOPOO JAYJAY.

And so, on New Year’s Day, 1999, in cold, cold Baguio, sitting on the floor of a little room, I, Jayjay, was touched and warmed by the goodness and the love of the poor Van Lian family.

And when I was about to leave them, the Van Lian children did something very strange. . . . One by one they came up to me . . . and put their hand on my head . . . and they blessed me . . . and prayed over me. Me, a Priest! They blessed me, and prayed over me. As JESUS CHRIST would have done . . . the little children blessed me, and prayed over me.

And that was only right, for I am only Poopoo Jayjay, a sinful priest, while they, they are holy . . . God’s own Holy Family.

Thank you, LOVING FATHER, for your wonderful New Year’s GIFT. . . .

You gave me . . . YOUR OWN FAMILY.


Juni Jesena, S.J.