A Hard Lesson
I met S and her family outside a broken hut in between a rice field and a mangrove in a tiny village on an island. They welcomed us into their home and fed us what food they had. I ate as little as was polite. I was a bright-eyed teen thinking that, if there was any justice in the world, this nice family could be helped.
S and I stayed in touch, and without telling my parents I worked jobs in part to help her through high school and college. She was smart. She received a scholarship to study in the big city. I was a struggling student myself, but I was determined that, if I was going to make it, she was going to make it.
At some point S worked so hard that she hit 80 pounds before I realized just how much she was struggling. She continued to go to class and make top marks despite my begging her to take a break. She was fainting. She had scrapes that weren’t healing. I was again watching another loved one in the Philippines waste away.
The story has a happy ending. We made a plan that would get us both to graduation. It included pivots, new jobs, and rest. We are now working in our fields, getting healthier by the day, and she is doing well. I guess all this is to say that I was naive, and I still am, about what it can take to lend a hand. But S is amazing, and it has been the honor of a lifetime to be able to cheer her on.
Bringing a Store to a Village
We met a kind but impoverished family whose home was crumbling around them during one of our Philippine travels. The parents could no longer safely fish for food given their age and the increasingly turbulent weather in the area. They lived in a remote village with limited access to other opportunities. It’s a common enough story, unfortunately.
After some brainstorming we pulled together $3,000 to build a convenience store on a strip of land they were fortunate enough to own. Called a sari-sari store, this is a traditional shop in the Philippines that sells goods through a mesh window.
With that $3,000, the family bought materials and built the store from the ground up with a private room for housing at the back. With that $3,000, they bought goods in bulk, things like canned food and personal hygiene items, and purchased a motorcycle to carry the goods to their village.
In the end, the store was a hit with the local villagers who otherwise had to travel an hour by motorcycle to reach the nearest big-box shop, which often sold basic necessities at unaffordable prices. Best of all, the family had a new livelihood and a reliable shelter. We are thrilled to have been able to work with them.
