Year End Inventory of My Missions

My first unforgettable mission happened in 2003 in Davao City, and it was an accomplished mission. At the same time, it gave me the opportunity to celebrate my golden birthday at Pearl Farm Resort. After that, I've considered some common missions part of my own missions too. Here's an inventory of those missions:

1. To spread the message of God to mankind, a message relayed by God through a task I was doing in 2001: This was the main reason why I started blogging, but sad to say, only 76 has read this message from the time I started to blog until yesterday.

2. To disseminate information about health and wellness: I have been accomplishing this as needed during conversations, through this blog, my "Amusing Tips" blog, my Facebook account, and my special child's Facebook account which serves as a journal of her therapies.

3. To be an advocate in bridging the gap between Western Medicine and Alternative Medicine: This seemed impossible at the start but just after a year, this was made possible by a non-stock non-profit organization called Philippine National Association of Acupoint Practitioners or PNAAP, and I believe that the organizers like Dra. Josie Ponciano and Edward Lee will be successful in their missions and visions for the organization. I cannot join them yet at this point in time, but I will be their advocate in any way I can, in continuing this very challenging mission.

4. To encourage people to be always positive and avoid negative thoughts, to start with myself: This is a recent mission that has just started and through Facebook, I have started with myself. It will surely be very hard and challenging to enlighten people who have posted negative comments in Facebook, but maybe through inspiring resources, that can be achieved.

May the year 2013 bring true peace and happiness to everyone!

Mission Impossible Part 2

One of my favorite posts in this blog last year was "Pearl Farm in Davao and Mission Impossible", probably because it tells about the most unforgettable chapter in my life, so far. My trip to Davao was sudden, of course also the stay at the beautiful Pearl Farm resort in Davao. I was not on vacation, I was on a mission, and that was to take back a special child to Manila.

My task in Davao was just to wait if the mother, who asked me to adopt her child who was born inside our house in Manila, will bring back her child to me before I go back to Manila. I brought them to Davao because the parents of the mother wanted to see their grandchild who just turned a year old, and whom our whole household, including that of my in-laws, learned to love so much in spite of the child's disabilities. She is blind and has cerebral palsy, two reasons why we and the mother would like to take her back. So she could be taken cared of, which would be hard in a remote town in Davao four hours away from a hospital.

While the mother's parents were enjoying their biological grandchild, my daughter and I stayed for 2 days and 1 or 2 nights at Pearl Farm resort. My objective was to forget the real reason why I was in Davao, and to take away all my worries. Afterwards, a couple in Davao City very close to our family brought us to the Santo Nino Shrine to pray. My prayer was to grant to the child “whatever is best for her welfare”.

On our fourth day in Davao, it was time for the mother and child with a child's relative to meet us in a mall in the morning. While waiting, my daughter and I shopped for some items, but ended up buying only for the child (a stuffed toy and a pair of cute sunglasses). I asked my daughter, "will she be able to wear this?". We were both sad, but decided to think positively. Unfortunately, they did not appear.

There was a garden resort owned by my husband's good friend, Mr. Puentespina, where we were invited to stay even for just a day, so my daughter and I proceeded to go there. But on our way, the child's relative sent me a message through my cellphone saying that they rented a van and that they wanted to follow us. She did not mention if the child was with them.

It was past noon I think, when I was waiting outside the resort for the van. As they went out of the van, I can't describe how happy I was to see the child. I learned that at 2 in the morning, they kidnapped the child using the rented van with driver. The mother kidnapped her own child.

I think that was August 26, six years ago. The adoption process is now over, only this month, and that was the reason why I haven't told a more detailed story like this one in my first post. Her new birth certificate is now filed in the National Statistics Office. It took years to complete that, because we wanted to be sure about the mother's decision, and some red tapes happened during the process.

Both the biological mother and grandparents of the child are now happy that she is in good hands and is loved so much. The adoption process is over, so she is no longer an adopted child.

Pearl Farm in Davao and Mission Impossible

I hope those who read my previous post The Special Child’s Rights will be able to read this post because it tells what happened before we adopted Lyca, the special child. I assumed the responsibility to care for the mother and child after birth and also brought them to the relatives especially the grandfather of Lyca who lived in a remote town in Davao, a province in the Philippines. The biological grandmother of Lyca stayed for a while in Manila to see this child so she was already with mother and child and a cousin, when we all went to Davao, my daughter Lauren also with us. My daughter and I stayed in the city of Davao while the grandmother, cousin, mother and child proceeded to the remote town where they lived. Lyca was already one year old at that time, her disabilities already known to many.

Lyca’s mother had wanted me to adopt Lyca since birth, but I was ready for whatever can happen when they reach their home in Davao. I said I’ll stay in Davao City to wait for them to come back, but only for 3 days. Whether they come back to me or not after 3 days, I’ll go back to Manila.

In the meantime, Lauren and I had the opportunity to stay with one of the closest persons to me when I was a child, her name is Ningning and lives in Davao City, and also the opportunity to spend a two days and two nights vacation at the most popular resort in Davao, the Pearl Farm Beach Resort in Samal Islands. At first I thought it was really a Pearl Farm so I expected to see shells with pearls but they said it used to be a pearl farm. It is now a resort that was initially exclusive for tourists until they opened it to the public. It has two white sand beaches and another two or more beaches at a smaller island.

That two days and two nights vacation at Pearl Farm Beach Resort felt like a gift from God. It was the first time I took a vacation leave from the office after 15 years, and it covered the eve and the day of my 50th birthday!

The video posted here was created by Ully Jerus, the President of Makati Toastmasters Club at that time, but it was just a series of photos that were of course shot by me, or Lauren if I was the subject. Ully used the "Mission Impossible" soundtrack which I feel is very appropriate because the only reason why I was in Davao was because of my mission to take back Lyca which seemed impossible at that time. I was also known as "Malui", and that explains the title of the video.

To make my story short, Lyca’s biological mother fought for her child to be brought back to me. Their place is not suitable for Lyca’s condition because it is a remote town two hours away from the nearest hospital by boat and four hours by bus, and there were limited facilities at the hospital. Worst was the grandmother couldn’t accept that Lyca has disabilities so she wouldn’t tell everyone about them. The latest that I’ve heard was the biological grandmother of Lyca has already accepted that the best for this child is to be under my care.