Pepe and Marina live in Tacloban city. Pepe works in the government and Marina works in a private office. They both met the Focolare Movement before they got married, and this way of life has come to form and sustain them in their married life for twenty years now.
Marina confides, “At the start of our marriage I stayed at home and Pepe was burdened by loans to pay. We could hardly make both ends meet. But I tried to be creative at home and not to add to his burdens by concretely loving him, even in small things.”
During that time Marina had to undergo two major operations for the ovary. In spite of their financial difficulties, they strongly believed that even this situation was permitted by God’s special love for them. They realized through the life of unity that God started to act and help them discover His plan for them as a family.
Marina continues, “We soon discovered the profound, divine importance of the family, trying to practise mutual love and living with God in our midst. We then prayed to God for children but after several years, we understood that God had other plans for us. We remained open to whatever God had in store for us, not only as husband and wife, but also as a real family.”
Openness to love
In the beginning, not having children created a strain in their relationship. Gradually, however, through the life of unity, their hearts were redirected towards Christ’s new commandment of love: “Love one another as I have loved you”. They understood that they had to love and respect one another and not live for themselves alone. Pepe shares, “I was sure that God wanted to help us understand something beyond this experience. So, instead of becoming an obstacle, this situation became a launching pad for us to love others around us, especially the families and youth of the Focolare in Tacloban.”
They were open to the needs of the other families and youth, and others turned to them for support of all kinds. Marina shares, “It was not unusual for us to be called upon very early in the morning because a member of the community was sick. This attitude of openness has opened the door of our home to families and youth who come to us to be nourished by the life and spirituality of unity. And this has fostered the reality of our being one big family!”
This dynamism of love opened their hearts to help some children find a family and home with them. Having been abandoned by her husband, the wife and mother gave them away as she could not afford to keep them. Marina and Pepe did not have second thoughts about welcoming these babies to their home, ready to share their lives with them. For 17 years now, Chiaretto and Chiarina have given them the joy of being foster parents.
Living for others
Marina shares, “We have made our children experience by themselves the value of life lived for the other. We have witnessed their love for us after Super Typhoon Yolanda. While everyone else wanted to go away from Tacloban, the children and I supported Pepe’s decision to stay and take on some responsibilities. This tragic circumstance inspired us to go out of our way to reach out to other families in the city.”
Right after super typhoon, they spent one whole day walking for kilometers, unmindful of the flood and barricades formed by toppled down electric posts and trees, just to find out what had happened to the others, specially their relatives and friends.
Pepe recalls, “It was a celebration every time we saw someone in our big family who was safe and had survived the ordeal of the disaster. As a family, we were motivated to embrace the suffering of many other families and not to remain transfixed by the pain that we, too, were undergoing.”
Marina recounts, “One day, when we went to examine the extent of damage at my workplace, I discovered that some families had taken shelter inside by breaking the doorknob and forcibly entering that part of my office just to save themselves. They were apologetic about the destruction they had caused, but on my part, I only felt joy that they had been saved. I saw that they needed shelter and food as their homes had been wrecked by the typhoon. We allowed them to stay as it was their temporary shelter, and supplied them with some water, food and even a little money.”
Full tank
Pepe has a wonderful experience: “Once, our mechanic came to our house asking for the fuel of our car, and although we were also in need of the fuel, we gave up the gasoline so that they could travel to visit their relatives in another town. The following day, he came over again, asking for the diesel in our other car that was not being used anymore, for he would use the fuel to light a lamp at home since there was no electricity in the city.
“Nevertheless, during those moments that we ran out of fuel, a cousin came to us, entrusting to me his pick-up, as his family was leaving for Cebu. The car was full of gasoline. So, we were able to go around to distributing the goods that came our way to the many families we knew and found along the way. Truly God cannot be outdone in generosity!”
Marina concludes: “Our family has been through many ups and downs. But we always try to remain focused on the commitment we made to each other when we got married, “…in sickness, and in health… ‘Till death, do us part.” Truly we realize now what the essence of married life is: to be love, to be a gift to one other and to all those who come our way.”
