Stuck in Manila

9/02/10

One of the definite perks of being country directors of humanitarian projects is the travel. Unfortunately we have been stuck in Manila for almost a month now. First we had the church auditors from Salt Lake. The church is very fussy about how the money is spent and rightly so. You can be assured that every penny donated to the Humanitarian fund goes to helping people. There is no overhead or administrative costs. August 26th was our 44th wedding anniversary, and this time we have had in the Philippines has been great and brought us closer together. We have been able to do so many good things. It is wonderful to have a united goal and common avocation that we both feel so strongly about. It sure doesn’t hurt to have the financial resources of the LDS church behind our efforts. Every day you can do little things that will brighten someone’s day, but we are so blessed to be able do big things. This last week we've been involved in a symposium with the World Health Organization (WHO). It was concerning controlling and eliminating measles, hepatitis B, and polio. Countries in the southeast Asia area had come together to discuss their inoculation campaigns. It was very technical and boring. The only reason LDS Charities was invited was because we donated a million dollars toward purchasing the measles vaccine for the Philippines. Also LDS Charities will be involved in the social mobilization effort as volunteers. It is amazing how donating a million dollars can make you so popular, we had no lack of people who wanted to sit with us at the lunch table. I actually began to wonder if boredom could have lasting physical or emotional side effects. The up side is we met many interesting people, and made some good contacts with people who can help with our other projects.

We love the Filipino people that we have been blessed to associate with. They are so generous with their time and talents, helpful, kind and accepting. An example of this is the sweet tolerant people in our branch; we are assigned to attend a branch 2 hours from our house in the provinces. There is a young man in our branch named Mike, he has no family with him and attends by himself. The members marvel that he finds his way by himself and knows when the church starts. He is severely handicapped, Down’s syndrome, blind in one eye, deformed face, unintelligible speech, and mentally retarded. He likes to stand at the door greeting people as they come in. After exchanging hugs with several people, he likes to stroke my hair (I guess because we are the only people that don’t have black hair) he makes his way to the stand. He prefers to sit with the Branch Presidency; one of them usually puts an arm around him affectionately. His attention span wavers, often after the sacrament and he gets up and wanders a little. One Sunday he discovered the numbers on the hymn board and rearranged them. When he was done he proudly gave the Branch President a big smile and a thumbs up. Once he discovered the remote for the air conditioning and walked around adjusting each blower, rather than taking it away from him the congregation just sat patiently through the varying blasts of air. He thinks he is helping, but the following Sunday the remote was kept out of sight. Last Sunday when we stood to sing the rest hymn Mike stood up straight and proud next to the branch presidency and sang at the top of his lungs; of course he didn’t sing words just sounds. As I looked at Mike and around at the accepting, sweet and gentle people in the congregation I couldn’t keep the tears from my eyes. I know Jesus is pleased to see his teaching of love practiced in the Baliwag Branch, Philippines.