World Vision Singapore

Bohol, a small island between Cebu and Mindanao, in the south-west of the Philippines is an Area Development Programme (ADP) supported by World Vision Singapore. In May 17-23 this year, a group of World Vision child sponsors visited their sponsored children and one of the visitors, Mr Stanley Gan, shares his notions and reflections of the trip with us.

Jessa: Showing sincerity in simplicity

Tomorrow, I will meet my sponsored child, Jessa. The World Vision staff leading the trip, Ethel, was herself a former sponsored child now serving in World Vision Singapore. She had told me how excited a sponsored child would be knowing she was about to meet her sponsor. It was already late. Could my child be lying in bed thinking about tomorrow?

My family and our trip leader cum former sponsored child, Ethel (far right)

“Strange? I was also excited about it,” I thought as I sat alone in the small café of the understated hotel where the other sponsors and I were staying. I was finally going to meet the child I had only seen in a picture and heard from in succinct and polite letters.

It was not an accident that I found myself in the almost empty café alone. I had come down from my room to think, and to write a letter to my child expressing my thoughts of life. I was idealistic in that I hoped she would keep it for life and read it from time to time as she grows up, especially when she feels down, and that when she reads it, she would find strength, courage and perhaps wisdom.

This hope was not totally unrealistic. Ethel had told me that what we, as sponsors, gave the child would be cherished forever, however tattered it may become. There was even a story of how a child held only one item close to his chest in a hurricane, and that was his dearest possession – a scrap book he had compiled of his sponsor’s letters and other mementos.

As the pianist in the lobby played beautifully and the music wafted to where I was seated, I started and discarded various letter beginnings. Then I remembered the suggestion shared by a fellow sponsor– write simply. That’s it! My sponsored child is only 11; there is no need to write anything more than simple, sincere words.

Thus, I wrote a letter from my heart for the little girl who was born far away from where I lived, who lived simply because she had little, and who knew she was going to meet someone whom God had somehow connected her with and who, in some mysterious way, cared for her.

Here comes the time to meet, finally!

We tried to spot Jessa among the children with excitement and trepidation.

An unexpected feeling rushed over me as I looked on to my girls, Nicole and Jessa – one I have known since she was a baby; the other I had just met, but they were both precious and have a very special place in my heart.

As we entered the fast-food restaurant where the children were gathered with their parents, I scanned the children who were sitting in a group. There were boys and girls, both young and teenagers.

My wife, who came along, pointed Jessa out to me. She looked more tanned than in her picture, but of about the same age. She had an almost frightened look about her as she sat there alone among strangers, seemingly abandoned in this large room full of people and wondering when someone would come and claim her.

She smiled shyly when she finally saw us and knew who we were. There was not much time to talk as yet. The programme began and the children got up and performed a dance to welcome us. The music was lively and catchy. My wife later told me this was one part that really touched her as she saw the children trying to give their best for us as if they could only give us this one gift.

I kept watching Jessa as she danced. Her eyes were everywhere except on my family (my 13-year-old daughter, Nicole came along). Her movements were in some parts quite fluid but she was occasionally confused by the little boy next to her who seemed to have invented his own movements. The sponsors were all put in a good mood by the dance and jiggled and clapped along.

Each sponsor then had a meal with the child and his or her family. We handed over our gifts and talked. They said little but smiled a lot. Jessa smiled and kept looking down, often burying herself as far as she could into her mother’s side. Later, Jessa wrote me a letter and told me she understood what I said but was too shy to say anything in reply.

The parting was also an event I will remember. As we stood on the steps of the shopping mall and watched Jessa and her family walking into the distance, they kept turning around and waving to us. I counted at least four times, until they were only specks in the distance, yet having now met, we were able to pick one another out from the mass of people in this world.

Making fast friends with shared vision

Jumping for joy with another family on the same trip, with beautiful Bohol scenery in the background

One aspect of the trip which should not go unrecognised was the kinship that grew among the sponsors in the group.

I think the fact that we all shared a common life – the familiar places, values and struggles, way of thinking, that is part of communal life in Singapore – and that we were all here for the same endeavour of the heart, bonded us, made us friends, indeed infused warmth among the individuals. The meaningful experiences in Bohol only added to the heady gluing effect.

I don’t think this was only felt by me. Before the trip ended, there was talk of a post-trip gathering. After returning to Singapore, Ethel sent out an email to fix a date and to kick-start the arrangements. There was an explosion of emails criss-crossing the net happily bantering about the anticipated occasion when we could meet up again, almost like a group of rebels fired by the same passion. The group met in my home on July 11. We laughed at the pictures and video highlights and reminisced about the memorable incidents.

There are of course many incidents, personal and group-shared, which lent their flavour to the trip and which cannot be squeezed into this article due to its nature. I will remember them whenever the trip crosses my mind.

Unforgettable Bohol

As I try to distillate the impression that the Filipinos left me, I seem to sense music, song and dance permeating the images that play through my mind. True, there were many periods of humdrum sounds of being on the road, of meals and conversation, of quietness in the hotel room. But the sounds of music, song and dance, when they did come, and they came perhaps more often than would in other cultures, seem to leave a deeper impression, and so weave their melodies into the fabric of the memories.

The warmth of the people of Bohol will stay with me for a long, long time.

From the songs the children sang in the schools, the Mayor of Loboc's concert, the vibrant energy of the villagers who sang and danced by the rustic river on floating pavilions, the gentle ballads singers sang as we cruised down that same river having lunch, the farewell dinner World Vision Filipino staff organised for us filled with hilarious singing and dancing, the meaningful dance of the sponsored children and even the beautiful haunting melodies of the pianist in the lobby of the small hotel where we stayed, the memories draw their lasting sounds.

When God handed out talent, He gave the Filipinos more when it came to music, song and dance and, indeed, a nature which enables them to enjoy such things and each other. My daughter said to me, “The Filipinos have a happiness that influences others.” I left Bohol with a greater affection for the Filipinos than when I came – an appreciation of their warm hospitality and a respect for their lightness of spirit.

To view a short clip of this Bohol ADP visit, click here.

(Clockwise, from top left) Jessa and her new teddy bear, children holding up pencil cases wrapped up in blue, fellow child sponsors and I trying our hands at rice pounding in Loboc River Cultural Village, all the visitors with World Vision staff, tarsier watching in an endemic animal sanctuary.

World Vision’s next supporters trip is to Dhemaji ADP in India from 10 to 16 October 2009. If you would like to experience a unique journey through Calcutta and the great Brahmaputra River whilst enriching your understanding of social development issues in that often overlooked part of India, please click here to find out more.

If you are interested to sponsor a child and to build a relationship with a needy child the way Stanley has with Jessa, please click here to find out more.