Baguio religious group bids adieu to Belgian nun

By Maurice Malanes

BAGUIO CITY—Leaders and members of an ecumenical group here have honored and bid farewell to a Belgian nun who is scheduled to return home in June after serving the country for 51 years, 21 years of which she had spent in Baguio.

            “We thank Sister Agnes Walbers for her life of great faithfulness to the Lord, which she shared with us through our ministries in our ecumenical group,” said Rev. Joie Galinato of the United Methodist Church.

            Galinato chairs the Baguio Benguet Ecumenical Group (BBEG), which held a send-off party to and recognized the work of Sister Walbers last May 1.

            Walbers, an ICM nun, had served among the squatters in Paco and Pandacan, 

            Manila and among urban poor settlers in the Carmona resettlement area in Laguna. 

            From 1966 to 1968, Walbers became the principal of an ICM-run school in Ifugao.

            Two of the nun’s former students in Ifugao showed up at the BBEG-sponsored farewell party for her and recalled how Walbers would took care of students stranded at the dorm during a typhoon.

            Since 1991, Walbers had been assigned at the St. Louis Center in Baguio.  Her ecumenical spirit prompted her to collaborate with other Roman Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical church leaders who came together in 1999 to organize the interdenominational BBEG.

            The BBEG handed Walbers a plaque of appreciation for her contribution to the ecumenical group’s various advocacies and concerns, which included the campaign against all forms of gambling, honest and clean elections, good governance, Christian unity and interfaith solidarity.