Her parents’ religion did not prevent Evangeline Musaling-Pacinabo to embrace the Catholic faith and help spread the Good News on a remote island in the southern Philippines.

Evangeline’s Muslim parents migrated from Indonesia to the small island of Balut in the southern province of Davao Occidental in the 1940s, during the height of World War II.

As years passed, some of the migrants and their children became Catholics with the blessing of their non-Catholic parents. “A catechist was instrumental in my embracing the faith,” said Evan-geline, who later married a Filipino, and became a catechist.

For the past 22 years, Evangeline has been going around the remote municipality and its nearby islets to share her experience with people and teach them about the faith.

Balut is the sleepy centre of the Sarangani island group that can only be reached after a nine-hour boat ride from General Santos City, the nearest urban centre in Mindanao. The 24,000 population of the island comprises of Muslims and members of the B’laan tribe who mostly rely on fishing and coconut farming to survive.

It is around the fringes of this municipality that Evangeline shares the teachings she learned from seminars and workshops she attended in the parish church.