awagoh christian library

 My Sunday school teacher had this colorful story book about the Bible and she would get her story from that book every Sunday. We had no television then and so the story-telling once a week was a good source of entertainment. The creation in six days; Adam and Eve; Noah and his three sons Ham, Japhet and Shem; the ark; the flood; Moses in the basket; Joseph and his dreams, the parting of the Red Sea; Samson and Delilah; David and Goliath; Daniel and his three friends; Paul and the blinding light; the birth of Jesus, and many more. 

Since my teacher and I lived in the same house, as she happened to be my mother, I had a chance to review previous stories, see the pictures, and practice my reading. When I turned six I would go and do a 'sit in' in my older brother's first grade class. I also got to see the pictures in his books. 

We did not have the money to buy children's books and most of my resources were my books at school, plus several used, hand-me-down bible stories in magazines from my parents' friends. I would also borrow a book or two from our very small library in my elementary school. I would not forget, Ogre and Molly Mullet, from a thick book of stories that I checked out from the library many times. In the end, it was given to me by my principal.

I would read even in the evenings and I enjoyed cleaning my nostrils in the morning with a white cloth. Strangely, I loved the sight of black soot on it. I was already nine when we had access to electricity and kerosene lamps were used in my home before that. 

I felt so frustrated during my elementary days, because I wanted to read more but I did not have the resources. My father's books were too few and quite old. Moreover, the books in my school were also old, and our library was almost not functional.

Wonderfully enough, I grew older and needed to go to high school. I first met Anne Frank in my high school library, and the rest of her family there, while looking for a book to borrow one day. I am also forever grateful to Edna Magada, my coach in extemporaneous speaking for three years. She really got me into reading more. She lent me books and recommended good titles in the library. And since I would compete every year in extempo I needed to read a lot of current events. I don't compete now but I do read news with enthusiasm and 'involvement'.

I would also often hear Papa say, 'I went to see very good expository books before I left Bacolod today, but they were very expensive'.

Then I went to study in a university, with an excellent library, after high school. And generally I was in an environment where literature was a big deal. I came to know brilliant authors like Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky; and christian authors like Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgoen, C.S. Lewis, Chuck Swindoll, Max Lucado, Philip Yancey, Randy Alcorn and many more. However it was in the selling corner of Phillipine Christian Bookstore (PCBS) one day that really led me to see the wide disparity between my university and my rural hometown as far as availability of reading resources is concerned.

So I started dreaming...

 Of shelves full of books