The True Meaning of Christmas

Every once in a while we have an experience that touches our soul. Last night was such an experience. Susan organized a visit to the temple grounds for the children of the Mabuhay House (our Ronald McDonald house). The temple area is beautifully decorated here with colored lights on the palm trees and a manger scene near the temple. It is closed on Monday nights but we arranged for it to be opened for our children. We met about 5 PM and the children had been anxiously awaiting our arrival for the past 2 hours. We brought the children a treat of yogurt and tangerines and sang Christmas songs while we waited for the vans to arrive. I pulled one little girl over to the food. Her arms were deformed and so thin I thought they might break. I pealed a tangerine for her but had to feed it to her as her arms wouldn't bend enough for her to put the food into her mouth by herself. Most of the kids currently are there for repair of clubbed feet and are on crutches or in wheelchairs, but others have cleft lip & palate deformities, cataracts or crossed eyes or burn contractures. They each have a parent or guardian with them. After singing "Jolly Ole St. Nicholas" I asked them "when does Santa Claus visit in the Philippines?" All I got was a blank stare. I then realized that these people were too poor to have Santa visit. It is all they can do to feed their families. The time finally came to get in the vans and we drove through Manila traffic for 15 minutes to arrive at the temple. One little deaf boy, who has difficulty interacting with the kids because he can't talk, started jumping up and down with delight as he saw the colored lights and ran up to Susan, threw his arms around her and gave her a big hug. This was something he could experience like the other kids. We walked as a group, looking at the beauty of the grounds, stopped for a few group pictures and then over to the apartments of the temple workers right there on the temple grounds. We sang Christmas carols to them in English and Tagalog and they came out and gave the children candy. After, we went to the Manger scene and I told them a condensed version of the Christmas story as related by Luke. During the entire evening no one cried, there was no fighting among the children only a peaceful feeling of love and happiness that is difficult to put into words. When it came time to leave, no one wanted to get in the vans, but babies were starting to fall asleep and the time had come. We drove back to the Mabuhay House and let them out knowing they had experienced something special, the true spirit of Christmas in their hearts as we had. Early this morning I awoke with tears in my eyes as I thought about these children. We have come here to help mend their broken and deformed bodies but Christ is there to comfort their souls and through His atoning sacrifice they will eventually all be healed, completely restored to their perfect frame. They will undergo enormous difficulty in this life but can be resurrected without blemish through His perfect life and atonement. This makes me feel very inadequate but so grateful for the knowledge I have that He lives and loves us all.

The Clinic is Completed

Susan is letting me write on the blog this time! The Craniofacial Clinic buildout is finally finished and really looks great. The purpose in doing this is to reduce the number of hospital cases we do by using the clinic as an outpatient facility thereby reducing foundation costs and increasing the number of cases we can do for the same amount of money. I brought a lot of instruments and some equipment with us but the dental chair, unit, light and air/water facilities needed to be purchased. The problem with much donated equipment is that it is a cast off from someone who no longer uses the outdated stuff or it is broken and requires hard to find and expensive parts. We thus invested in some new equipment that will last and can be repaired locally. Using my previous office as a template we employed a local carpenter to build out the cabinets, plumbing and electrical. We were able to get a donated panoramic x-ray machine to work so now we're in business. We should be able to do many of the cleft lip and some palates right in the office under local anesthesia and sedation. Dr. Guiverra, our plastic surgeon, was really excited after seeing the potential and I am anxious to work with him. I have struggled getting licensed through the local political boards and failed to get approval last week as one of the agencies once again failed to get their certificate to the Regulator Board in time so it will be January before I can be official, but we will begin to use the clinic anyway. I do have a cleft lip case scheduled later this week at Fatima Hospital Medical School. Hope you enjoy seeing the before and after pictures of the clinic. Hopefully, next month, there will be a few pictures of patients to show.

HIGHS AND LOWS

Working with the government to try and get Grants license has been very frustrating. The committee meets on the first friday of the month. In December he was turned down because one letter had been sent to the wrong fax number. Then last friday it was turned down for some problem with the public health department. We don't even know what it is and Grant is trying to find out what the problem is today. He might have to wait another month. It was not so bad the first time because the clinic was being built out but now it is nearly finished. Now it looks like another months wait. You can imagine that it has been quite discouraging for Grant. On the brighter side, we went to Villa Escudero on monday. It is an old Spanish Plantation. The family still lives there but has opened it to the public probably to make money. The grounds are very extensive and beautiful. One of the fun things to do is eat lunch in the river by a manmade water fall. You can rent places to stay with back porches overlooking the river. They have bamboo rafts you can paddle around the river on. It is quite a peaceful and lovely place. I am sure it is used for some wonderful parties and weddings. Last Saturday night we went to Manny's ward party. He works with Grant and runs the Mabuhay House. He is also bishop of his ward. Anyway it was quite the event. I wanted to show you this little boy who did a Michael Jackson impression. He is probably about six years old. He should probably meet Annika and they could be on "So You Think You Can Dance"! Well, sorry the Michael Jackson dance did not download for some reason. Maybe it needs government approval. I am not sure what happened but I have tried twice and that's it because it takes too long.