"SBC at 63: Unwavering Commitment to Quality Christian
Education
Responsive to the Needs of the Nation and the
World"
by Ruel P. Pagoto
23 March 2016
57th Southern Baptist College- Annual Commencement Exercises
To the members of Southern Baptist College’s board of
trustees—represented by the B.O.T. corporate secretary Dr. Silvius Jude Alon, SBC
president- Prof. Alvin Lynn P. Bergante, to the former SBC president- Dr. Pedro
S. Gape, to the SBC faculty and staff, graduates, parents and guardians of the
graduates, friends, and the entire SBC family—good morning!
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| The Recessional... |
It is such a beautiful morning and a lovely day, indeed,
especially to the SBC graduates of 2016.
Those years and semesters that bore the need for burning gallons of midnight oil are, finally, over! Now that you have achieved what you had been
aiming for, please accept my congratulations.
You deserve it!
Graduates, I am sure that behind the great story of your
current success is even a greater story of support. I know that there are people close to your
heart who have been unwaveringly standing
as your pillars of strength. I would
like to sincerely recognise their massive efforts in taking you this far in
your life. So whether they are present
here today to celebrate with us or not, because of their responsibilities and
commitments overseas, I offer my warmest felicitations to them!
My task today is to give you some inspiration. Honestly, standing before you to deliver a
message that’s expected to help illuminate your path to becoming a valuable
citizen of this nation or even a notable person in this world is a very challenging
assignment. But turning down the
invitation of Pres. Bergante to give a graduation keynote speech for you was
never an option for me. I left no stone unturned to organise
everything in Australia so I could grab this opportunity to speak to you
because I feared that declining such would mean missing out on my chance of
fulfilling another purpose in life.
Back in 1995, the twenty-fourth of March—that was my high
school graduation, I was occupying one of those folding chairs in this
gymnasium like where you are exactly sitting right now. After twenty-one years, it’s nice to be back
to SBC—my dear alma mater! I feel
greatly honoured to be entrusted with this meaningful mission I have
today! Honestly, I initially felt that I
am too young for this task; but when I calculated the average age of this
year’s graduates and compared it with my years of existence in this world, it
showed that I definitely have more than sixteen years of extra experience in
life than what you have had, so far.
Sixteen years may not be long enough but please allow me to give it a try.
Now that you have reached the pinnacle of formal education,
breathe and take time to savour the moment!
Now that you’re on the summit, you are standing on an excellent angle for
seeing the real world around you! You
are endowed with the best sight that only those who persevered could
attain. Behold and enjoy, and let me
remind you that your journey to greatness has actually just started. Yes, you will soon receive your degree parchment
and that is an absolutely fantastic achievement; but having been conferred with
that piece of paper entails an enormous duty for you to perform. Of course when I say ‘perform’, it goes well
beyond your performance on the upcoming board examination—if you have one, but
most importantly, your execution of the role you picked to play in this
beautiful yet formidable world of ours.
Armed with Southern Baptist College’s guiding values and
ideals—truth, faith and service, and having been
moulded and forged with our school’s Christian teachings, I am sure—based on
personal experience, that you’ve got what it takes to be a truly invaluable
person. For nearly sixty-four years, SBC
has been committed to teach the mind and to touch the soul. Like you, I am one of the living witnesses on
how this school has transformed—physically, with all these relatively
contemporary, well-equipped buildings around; and academically, with our
competent, qualified, and most of all—highly-committed SBC faculty. Having been trained in a school that
continuously seek for improvement to meet the demands of the modern world… to
have received an education founded on the highest principles of Christian faith
will surely make you stand out among the rest.
I studied in SBC in the early nineties and I’ve made it, I am sure that
you—who have enjoyed all the amenities a more modern SBC has to offer can make
it, too! So pick up your suitcase and
start your quest in finding some more success.
What is success, by the way, and what makes a person
successful? Success is actually very
subjective. Some would equate success to
power—which means that if they possess the power to rule over a crowd they
believe they are successful. While other
people would associate fame with success; that if they appear on TV or if their
name has been broadcasted over the radio or written on the front-page of a
paper, they’d consider themselves successful.
A fast-growing bank account and owning a lot of properties make other
people feel successful, too! When we see
people who have power, are famous or rich, we may think they are
successful. Yes, I know what you are
thinking; having all these three would be great. Of course you can! The possibilities are endless as long as you
are ready to hit the road to success and face the challenges along the
way.
Let me put it this way, if one of you becomes a school
principal or a municipal councillor one day, I believe your peers will consider
you successful. If one day you get
invitations to speak across the globe as a religious minister, or when you own
and run your own business with a few employees under your care, or who knows,
someone among you can own a copyright of a computer software—you will then be
considered successful, too!
Achieving a goal in life is not the end of our quest,
though. A living organism naturally
grows, multiplies and would actively respond to stimuli. It is our nature to seek for further personal
and professional development. I was once
very exhausted because of the challenges at the university in Australia, so I
made an international call to my mom to vent my troubles. She told me to stop being so ambitious—relax
and humbly enjoy the fruits of my current achievements
and stay away from the pressures of pursuing some more in life. It is the world, however, that stimulates me
to keep on dreaming! Every day, every
month, every year, the needs of my loved ones, the requirements of my
profession, the demands of the society, my country and the whole world keeps on
changing—and I know that it is my call of duty to be responsive to this
constant revolution happening around me.
So ten or twenty years from now, if the world needs you to step up to the plate, I expect you to be
ready and willing to take the commitment.
Go for it! If the province needs
your experience as a seasoned midwife, be ready to give up your position at the
rural health unit. If the world needs
your skills as an electronic or automotive technician, be ready to pack your gear
and explore overseas. Be ready to move
out of your comfort zone and seize the opportunity to grow.
Sometimes, opportunities for growth are not that obvious or
they may just take time. Perhaps it might
feel like you have stopped growing but it could be because the next big thing
that the world would want you to do is to bloom. Should there be fewer chances for you to
grow, be like a lovely tree—bloom where you are planted and have your branches
teeming with fruits! Who, then, would
dare to say that you have never succeeded at all?
Once you start making and leaving your own mark on the
universe, you may become an object of envy; you may receive criticism, and
encounter opposition. Don't be
surprised, nature tends to balance our existence, there’s always a pressure to
challenge or to accept the status quo.
So please learn to gracefully handle these issues and utilise these to
regularly check your character and your behaviour because at the end of the
day, your relationship with your peers will always matter. Be kind to those people who make your coffee,
deliver your pizza, tidy-up your desk and to all those who are yet to fulfil
their dreams.
Performing our duties and responsibilities on earth can be
arduous, indeed!
Honestly, fresh and straight out of this campus, the world
is expecting a lot from you but is, unfortunately, not ready to compensate you
well, financially. But stick to your guns; as long as you are
happy and you love what you are doing, stay there and go the extra mile. Passion
has the incredible power to take you even farther than where you think you can
only be.
To
satisfy the increasing needs of my loved ones, I took the risk of giving up the
job I really loved as a Swine Veterinary Epidemiologist. I left the country in January 2007 for a
better-paying job as a Piggery Farm Worker in Australia. I knew that it’d be hard work but I thought
that I am physically fit and strong to perform the job.
My first
three hundred sixty-five days on that job were never easy. I realised that being physically strong was
not enough. Fighting against the emotional torture of performing all the menial
tasks that I was not used to in the piggery was harder than I imagined. But I believed I could be an achiever—and
this thought had pushed me to keep going; I didn’t want to just simply quit and
consider myself a loser in Australia.
Despite all my efforts and my previous pig production experience, my job
knowledge was rated unsatisfactory during the performance review. With a wounded ego, I bravely decided to
leave the company. Luckily, I instantly
got a job offer to work as a poultry farm attendant. It was a stationary assignment so it could get
extremely boring at times. I tried to
make the most of the opportunity, convincing myself that it could be the
perfect time to flourish. This optimism
had, thankfully, prevailed; I was entrusted to lead the team that could produce
half a million chickens every sixty days.
Four years of perseverance—working in a dusty and itchy environment,
either through very hot and dry summers or very cold winters, had granted my eligibility for Australian citizenship. During my employment, I got free accommodation—including power, internet and water bills;
but despite the relative comfort I was longing for something else.
My
passion in promoting the health and welfare of food-producing animals had
persisted. In Australia, only a few
veterinarians were interested in dealing with pigs and chickens. Apparently, the country had been in need of
swine and poultry practitioners to help produce more meat to feed Australia and
the world. At all
cost, I wanted to respond to this need and at the same time follow my
passion. So I decided to pursue my dream of becoming registered as a
veterinarian in Australia. The
requirement of the university to finish the degree in 3 years, full-time, had
left me jobless during the entire period.
The clinical training was full of challenges and hurdles. I experienced levels of stress that I never
imagined I could have. With a limited monetary
assistance and massive moral support from my family overseas, with the company
of my friends in South Australia, the Australian government’s financial aid, my
fervent prayers and faith—and of course after shedding a few buckets of blood,
sweat and tears—I weathered the storm.
Just
recently, fate and destiny had taken me back to that piggery where, nine years
ago, my job performance was rated unsatisfactory. But this time, it was a different story; I
came back as a veterinarian to conduct a vaccine trial with them. In short, I have vindicated myself.
Like everybody else, I, too, have my own share of failures and
pains. I once made the error of
sacrificing my passion, which made me unhappy and lead me to a much longer
journey that took a lot of hard work, dedication and persistence to get back on
track. But I have no regrets because the
decision that I made had, in the end, allowed me to confirm what my passion
is. As a new graduate, you might be
confronted with similar situations. Well, everything happens for a reason, so as
long as you continue learning new skills and meeting people—nothing is in vain,
it is not a wasted time.
The academic degree you have right now is not just a piece
of paper from SBC that has to be enclosed with your resumé and job application
letter. It comes out with a greater
power and it is more than enough for you to start on your chosen career. The world is your oyster! Enjoy this
achievement and use it wisely; and remember that you have the professional
responsibility to morally, legally and spiritually respond to the needs of our
society. Southern Baptist College has,
definitely, prepared you well for that.
Make SBC proud… make your lecturers and mentors proud… make
your family and friends proud of you… or at least make yourself proud of what you
would have to contribute to this world.
Before I end, I wanted to share with you an analogy given by
Jesus M. Dureza-the keynote speaker during our commencement exercises in USM
last April 2001.
There are a few interesting geographical facts about the Sea
of Galilee and the Dead Sea. They are
both lakes—the Sea of Galilee in Israel is a fresh water lake that’s abundant
with life. It is teeming with various
flora and fauna and has contributed much to the region’s commercial fishery for
more than two thousand years. While the
Dead Sea which is situated just 141 kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee is a
salt lake—and its salinity makes it such a
harsh environment that plants and
animals cannot grow.
The most significant difference between these two lakes:
The Sea of Galilee
is fed by its major tributary—the Jordan River that flows into it, plus the
underground springs. The Jordan River
then flows out through the Sea of Galilee to the south, which means that the
water has been continuously flowing in and out.
The Dead Sea,
on the other hand, is receiving its water supply from the Jordan River—its only
major water source, plus, of course, a few perennial springs under and around
it. And the most striking feature of the
Dead Sea—there are no outlet streams!
So if you want to be like the Sea of Galilee that is full of
life, as you continue to receive the blessing that’s flowing in, remember to
share some of it.
Congratulations,
good luck and God bless you all!
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| Appreciated. |
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