Sister, Are We Poor?

Our Relief Society lesson in the Tanay branch a few weeks ago was a time of learning for me. The sisters were studying a talk from the Ensign. I cannot tell you whose, as my Tagalog includes how to say "good morning", "good afternoon", "good evening" and "thank you very much". But the language of the land is actually Tagalish: mostly Tagalog but with a smattering of Spanish and even more English. All Gospel terms are English.  So I knew the topic was self-reliance.

First, you must know that at that moment I thought these people were probably not as poor as many I have seen here. They dressed very nicely. The sister who taught the lesson spoke in such a manner as a good RS teacher in any ward. And they talked about the usual topics of self-reliance: taking care of what you have, putting away something for the future, not spending above your means. Sister Dalay was talking about using their swish card: a bank card, like a debit card. She talked about how easy it was with that card to spend more than they had. “What is it about us”, she said, “That we cannot resist the temptation to swipe that swishy card”. Then she turned to me and said, “Sister, are we poor?” 

The Sisters of the Tanay Branch

At the moment I just laughed it away, but I have given it a great deal of thought. The next week we were visiting in the homes of two of these good sisters and I realized that though they were not in the realms of the poorest, we in the North Logan 10^th would consider ourselves very poor indeed if we lived in their circumstances. The two homes in which we visited probably ranged around 500 sq. ft. Walls are made of cement block and windows are few. I think that some of the sister have better circumstances but  by my standard of living these could be called the “poor”. But really, are they?

Walking to visit Sister Elinda, an original member of Tanay Branch. Her health no longer permists her to come to church 

The door to Sister Elinda's home

There are some ammenities. Elinda had a TV. 

Elinda is going blind and uses a very small magnifying glass. I bought a small LED flashlight to help her. I wish I could find a  magnifying class with a light like the one Mom got from the Blind Foundation

All the neighborhood kids were interested in our visit (my white face mostly) and kept saying hello through the window

These people are in general happy. They smile and they laugh. They have lots of fun associating in activities outside of church. They are raising families with a large portion of their children serving missions. They keep themselves and their physical surroundings very clean. The members I meet have testimonies of the Gospel and take a “tricycle” to church each Sunday. (But who would want to drive a car on those narrow streets)! They have friends and family they love. The homes of “neighborhoods” are very close together and grouped into joined structures, and they know everybody and take care of each other.

Are they poor? Perhaps by the standards of the world they are poor, but in the things of the heart and the spirit, in the sort of gold that counts to God,  the saints of the Tanay branch are very rich indeed. So my answer would now be, “No sister, you are not poor. In fact, you are very rich indeed.”

Typhoon Ruby - Part Three: Our Sacks are Delivered

The only problem with creating 3000 food sacks here in manila is that the storm did not actually hit us. We just had a little rain. So one of the employees at our office, Willie, made some phone calls. This actually isn't a picture of the phone calls. That took a whole day to set up

Bruce and Willie

The humanitarian outreach of 2 of the TV stations sent vans to come and get a few hundred of our  sacks.

ABS-CBN, and Channel 5 each sent vans.

And finally, GMA, a third TV station,  sent over the marines. They loaded the majority of the sacks onto their truck and then they headed out to the base where the sacks were loaded on a C130 to be flown down to the Philippine island of Samar, the island most badly damaged by the storm.

This was such a great experience, everyone working together for a common good. We asked for volunteers and people spent all of Saturday and Sunday before or after their church. On Saturday we had 10 of the missionaries from the Quezon City mission helping. They were a lot of fun to talk to. As I worked I kept trying to imagine the people this food might go to..

And finally we had about 800 lbs. of rice left over which we donated to the Bubahay Deseret Hospice House. It was founded by the Jacksons to serve as a home where people could live while their children had their procedures. They treat club foot,, with people having to come for several weeks at a time for a year or more, as well as other conditions. I include a link here. It is a very worthy charity. 

http://www.mabuhaydeseret.org/

Typhoon Ruby - Part Two: Preparing for the Typhoon

No one was willing to be unprepared again. Yolanda taught lessons. So while we waited, we made food kits. The members made 3000 in Legaspi and 3000 in Cebu and Bruce was in charge of getting 3000 here in Manila. He ordered 140 50-kilo bags of rice, cases of corned beef, sardines,and ramen-style noodles.

The young man carried the sacks on his head.

         

Each sack had 3 kilo rice, 6 packages of noodles, 6 cans of sardines and 4 corned beef, enough for a family for 3 days.

    The rice had to be  repackaged  into 3 kilo bags. You put in one large scoop and one small scoop, press out all the air and tie a knot. We are working in the office garage, but this is not your normal garage. They wash and buff the floor daily.

You get into a rhythm with each person doing one of the steps and it goes pretty quick

and we ended up with 3000 sacks. Each sack carried our logo.

We put 1000 sacks right on the Mabuhay Deseret truck leaving 2000 piled in the office garage.   Mabuhay is a private medical charity run by  Dr. Jackson and his wife who, as a young man, was a missionary here in the Philippines. 

We put the food sacks inside the empty rice sacks so we could stack them more easily in the truch.

Typhoon Ruby - Part One

Typhoon Monday: I am sitting here in my “office”. Our area is in the Area Presidency Office or APO. We are in the basement, but I am looking out my window at the dark skies and gusty winds. I have never been in a typhoon. Bruce weathered a hurricane in Houston but it wasn’t too bad in our area. And now a typhoon approaches. It has been downgraded a huge amount, we are not expecting the 3 feet of water once predicted but precautions are in place. None of our area service missionaries have left their homes to join us here. For most of them it is a 2 or 3 hour ride on “public” transit. Schools and offices are closed in Manila. The ride into the office was 10 minutes as compared to 30 on a regular day. And I sit here looking out the window and wondering what this will be like.

Everyone is still remembering Yolanda and lots of preparations have been made. All the missionaries in the storm path were sent to wait out the storm in a stake center on the highest ground possible. There were supplies sent down to the areas of landfall before the storm arrived. But the greatest blessing is that the super-typhoon quickly wore away to a category 2 storm. We were blessed. But now I can add this to my category of first experiences.

We had live feed in the office conference room to monitor the path and the strength of the storm

Very gray and heavy but just rain.

Typhoon Tuesday: Everyone was praying for us all over the world. And the Lord heard and answered their prayers. The Typhoon downgraded just before landfall and then after going over the island of Samar it headed up the channel in between islands and is almost out the other side. It was the very best of a potentially very bad thing

“The wind and the waves shall obey thy will. Peace, be still, peace, be still.

  They all shall sweetly obey thy will. Peace, peace, be still.”

Tahanang Walang Hagdan

We went out to visit at Tahanang Walang Hagdan which translated is "a home without stairs".  It is a large facility that provides work for people with physical disabilities. We had previously worked with Tahanang and wanted to talk about another partnership.  Tahanang has a wood shop, where some furniture and a lot of toys are made,  a painting shop; a metal shop where they make some wheelchairs, a sewing room, where they were making bags and embroidering on a logo.  The best place to work is in the room where they repack medications into a physicians sample pack because it is air conditioned. A number of the clients live at Tahanang. They also make a lot of items that are sold at their gift shop and of course I had to buy as much as I could.

The sewing room

 This is the woodworking shop. They make some furniture and lots of wooden toys for their gift shop.home.

The painting shop.

This man is working on the lathe. It looks like fun to me. It is a skill I think I will learn when I get home.

Repacking pills. You might note that the hands of the gentleman.

 The gift shop had lots of handmade treasures. Sister Smith is looking at one of those dolls that is one  character and then you flip it upside down and it becomes another.

There were lots of puzzles and wooden games.

CULTURAL PRESENTATION FOR ELDER OAKES

I wanted you to see the pictures from Elder Oakes visit in October. I am trying to learn to do this blog on my own.  These were taken at the Cultural presentation and represent the native dances. I was told the kids learn all these dances in school. This was a wonderful evening.

Those bowls really could fall off!

I loved the children.

They were so excited to be in the room with Elder Oakes

Picture with all the dancers. 

This is  a Nipa hut built for a backdrop