| Poor Cebu folk get medical help By Patricia Esteves Updated May 04, 2009 12:00 AM |
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Mang Mariano, a 60-year-old farmer living in the hinterlands of Barangay Guba here, has been suffering from persistent cough and joint pains for a few months. He has been ignoring his illness but he does not have money to pay for the medical bill at the municipal hospital.
Mang Mariano is not the only the sick one in his neighborhood; many children and adults are also ailing, but do not seek any treatment because their families are too poor to afford it.
When he learned that the Bukas Loob sa Diyos (BLD, meaning “open in spirit to God”), a Catholic organization founded in Manila, would conduct a four-day medical mission in Barangay Guba, a few meters from where he lives, his heart leapt with joy and he thanked God. For a time, he had lost hope that he would get help because he and his neighbors live in the uplands where life is just really difficult, and besides, he had no stable job.
But today is different. Upon seeing the smiling members of BLD-US, Mang Mariano and his neighbors flocked to the area and were very happy. He was also both surprised and glad to see his neighbors in Guba and adjoining mountain barangays form a long queue and converge in makeshift tents for medical consultations with doctors from the United States.
The 160 BLD volunteers, who were just too happy to help, were organized into different teams. Some were in charge of registration, while others took care of the flow of patients, supplies, and medicine distribution.
Several doctors and dentists from the country and all over the United States, including Hawaii, joyfully took care of the medical, dental and surgical needs of the community. At the end of the four-day mission, over 6,300 residents received much needed medical care.
Spreading God’s love
The BLD members’ resolve to come home and serve in a remote community in Cebu was not dampened despite the economic slowdown in the US.
Dr. Bong Encarnacion, a BLD volunteer based in New Jersey, said the mission is an annual event, part of the BLD’s commitment to let their impoverished kababayan feel they are loved and have not been neglected by God even in these most dire times.
“The mission is about willingness to accept God’s call to care for the poor. One can spend his entire life studying to know God but all that effort is wasted if that person does not know or has not felt God’s love. We are all poor in a way but we have felt God’s love and we just want to share it through our mission work,” he added.
Sharing blessings
“The BLD community worldwide strives to reach out to those in need, sharing their blessings and continuously loving them,” said BLD’s medical mission coordinator Nong Bustos.
“Despite the economic crisis, the BLD-US groups are here to help the poor and make them feel that they have not been forgotten,” he said.
“It’s our willingness to come down from our comfort zones to make the poor see and feel God’s love and grace through us,” he added.
Bustos said they have been doing medical missions and other outreach activities for many years now as part of their commitment to reach out to the less fortunate and give thanks to God.
“We realize that undertaking the mission may not change their lives physically or materially, but we trust it will help change their outlook in life,” Encarnacion said.
“We pray that the little we do for them may give them hope and that gift of hope enables us to serve so willingly and gratefully,” he added.
From just a small community in Manila, members of the BLD community now live all over the world.
Source:http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=463875&publicationSubCategoryId=130
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