{"id":234457,"date":"2016-08-17T06:06:18","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T20:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=234457"},"modified":"2016-08-17T06:06:18","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T20:06:18","slug":"pastors-want-share-solving-ice-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pastors-want-share-solving-ice-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastors want to do share in solving \u2018ice\u2019 epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Most<\/a>
Most Rev. Bishop Ryan P. Jimenez addresses the crowd of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa after his Episcopal Ordination and Installation last Sunday at the Mt. Carmel Cathedral. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Newly ordained bishop Most Rev. Ryan P. Jimenez said leaders and members of various Christian churches in the CNMI have been planning on how to help curb drug abuse, which is one of the many social problems that the Commonwealth had right now.<\/p>\n

Jimenez\u2014installed as the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa\u2019s new pastor in a three-hour long ceremony where Chamorro, English, Filipino, and Korean hymns where sang by the choir\u2014said they had their first meeting last year where close to 100 attended.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically wanted to work together on how to address social issues specifically the problem on drugs like the one we have about \u2018ice,\u2019\u201d Jimenez told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, now that we have a drug court, we heard news that the government will soon open a facility\u2014a rehabilitation center for drug dependents\u2014they are planning now in the budget, I supposed, to have this rehab center facility,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

And this is where pastors like him and other church leaders would do their share. \u201cThat\u2019s why us pastors, we started planning, like where are we in this whole structure, in this whole organizational chart,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n

He said that they won\u2019t be running the facility but would rather help the persons recover from their drug problem \u201cWe\u2019re all excited to do our share in solving this social problem. And we will collaborate, we\u2019re not going to run the facility in all, but we will simply would come in and do what can we do to help the persons in the center to help them recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that they could provide counseling and spiritual guidance to persons in the rehab center. \u201cWe wanted to come in and minister. Pray with and for the person. And maybe we could also provide pastoral counseling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the spiritual sense, maybe just to go there, to the planned rehab facility, and provide services. Help the persons in that center. Help them in their rehabilitation and change their ways. So these are the things that we can work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

One challenge at a time<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jimenez, who was appointed by Pope Francis as the Diocese\u2019s second bishop last June after being the Apostolic Administrator for more than six years, said the Catholic Church in the CNMI is also facing a lot of challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to take one challenge at a time. But again I think we are reminded that in all of this, we\u2019re not in charge. God is in charge. In every challenge, we must allow God to enlighten us,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as a new leader of the Diocese, when you mentioned about challenges, we\u2019re going to work with my brother priests and pastors from the other churches. Because we all come from one God and I can\u2019t do it on my own,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can start with that, bask in the goodness of each person; each one of us is created in the image and likeness of God. And I think we are off to a good start,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He was also pleased with last Saturday\u2019s Bike The Faith event where other Christian churches took part and their respective pastors prayed for him. He said that he hopes the event would be the start of better things within all Christians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was probably the first time an event like this was organized. In the Catholic Church we have this what we call efforts for ecumenism. We may have differences with the doctrinal component, of our faith but it doesn\u2019t mean that we can\u2019t be together,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives a message that we are all the same; we are under one living God. We may have different ways of doing things and worship. But in the end we are all connected. I hope this outside of the ordinary be the start of better things in the church,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Lifestyle change<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jimenez said that he would still devote some time for sports like running and riding the bike to maintain a healthy lifestyle. He used to play tennis, moved to running, then to cycling, before taking on his first full triathlon\u2014Tagaman\u2014this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI already love sports, I used to play tennis, and I love to do a lot of things. I come from an island where I grew up climbing trees. So it comes naturally that I love the outdoors,\u201d said Jimenez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe realization hit me when I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes after my ordination as priest. After I was diagnosed, I really needed a full lifestyle change. Like here, from birth to death, and in between comes food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love food. I love to eat who doesn\u2019t? The question back then was \u2018what do I do to kind of balance that?\u2019 And that is when I tried sports. Hopefully this goal and plan to have a healthy living is sustained,\u201d added Jimenez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newly ordained bishop Most Rev. Ryan P. Jimenez said leaders and members of various Christian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":234464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[7059,1351,26,42],"class_list":["post-234457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-catholic-church","tag-chalan-kanoa","tag-cnmi","tag-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}