Sister Isabel Alontaga

Cebu, central Phiilipines is not unlike many cities in the United States. It is crowded, people walking, shopping, many food vendors line the streets. At night the "Red Light" district in the east part of the city becomes increasingly crowded. Again, while clearly immoral and wrong, not unlike so many American cities. The biggest difference? Many of these "working ladies' should be in middle school.

Now enter Sister Isabel Alontaga and her small band of nuns. These brave ladies form rescue operations alongside the roads in a community called Camagayan, a hotbed for the Fillipino sex trade. These rescue teams consist of up to six nuns, trained volinteer lay people and are part of an Apostolate that reach out to prostituted women and girls. They distribute rosaries; phone numbers where the girls can get help. Most of all they distribute love. They distribute hope.

The groups foundress is a lady named Coazon Salazar who started the Apostolate in 1996 as a lay woman. In 2000, it was officially established as Mary Queen of Heaven Missionaries by Cardinal (retired) Ricardo Vidal. In 2003, Ms Salazar, was an officially professed Sister and the order was canonically erected as a Public Association of the Faithful.

The Mission of this order is to "seek the lost and fallen by the wayside, and work to bring them back to the bosom of the Father so that there may be one flock under one Shephard",

It seems to me that is exactly what we try to do as Brother Knights. Let us pray that this mission be successful so that all innocence lost will somehow be found again, and that no child shall have to lead a life of prostituion, or indentured labor of any kind.