LOVING DEEPLY

Don and Rosalinda

 I recently received an email from a fellow cruiser, whose wedding I attended, thanking me for taking photos and sending them a video slide show of it.  He wrote:

"I think one's art is certainly well-developed when one is able to capture the essence, and then to share this essence--of anything--a boat form, a learning process for young students, the story of one's life, or a wedding.  Thank you for being able to share this with us..."

He then added this quote:

"I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.  I see no reason for painting but that if I have anything to offer it is the emotional contact with the place where I live and the people I love."--Andrew Wyeth

 Wyeth's words about 'emotional contact with the place I live...the people I love..." and Don's observation about one's art being well-developed when essence is captured and able to be shared, resonated within me as to Why, long-after One Candle Schoolhouse's last class ended, I continue to tell the stories.  

It isn't just gratitude for the support that was given.  It is because love this place and these people; I want to show and share that love with others.  

Rosalinda was is/was the mother of Welnar, an OCS deaf student who died tragically in 2007. Don, now 81, provided employment, taught her English, and gave Rosalinda a new life aboard his steel sailboat, SCOTSMAN.  Don is a good man, a Don Quixote, eager to offer help to those who need it most and appreciate the opportunity. 

Thank you, Don, for taking he time to create an email Thank You that went deep into my being.

RAZZLE DAZZLE

 "If someone listens, or stretches out a hand,

 or whispers a kind word or encouragement,

or attempts to understand, 

extraordinary things begin to happen..."

--Loretta Girzartis 

Last month I posted a list of names that belong to friends who were (and still are) founding supporters of One Candle Schoolhouse. For the past thirty days I have been sorting through reams of photographs, stacks of CD's, and wallowing through ancient folders from long-defunct laptops, determined to find one special picture I have of Jim and Jamie Richter. That photo, taken in January 2004, was of them standing amidst the happy hoard of students who'd planned a going-away party for them, in the still-under construction rooms where OCS had seriously begun Saturday school. I have given up on locating that picture, but the two faces above have exactly the same joyful radiance they had then, almost ten years ago. Jim and Jamie truly were with us from the start, arriving in Port Bonbonon aboard their s/y RAZZLE DAZZLE, the same year (2002) that Saturday classes had casually begun as summer school for a few local children. At that time, we didn't even have a name, or a building of our own, or even knew we'd soon be needing one! During the time that the Richters still lived aboard their boat, they participated as teachers to the children while Bill and I were in the States, providing them with their first exposure to professional photography lessons and giving them 'throw-away' cameras afterwards. Their next project was to solicit the donation of TWO Macintosh computers, a printer, and about a hundred educational CD's!

click here to read Jim's Journal

The list of their donations goes on and on--books, tools, art supplies, mounds of dried foodstuffs, household goods, (recently, two MORE cameras, with lenses--professional quality, too!)--but undoubtedly the most significant were the funding of two college scholarships.

Roy, Cornelia (widow), Ivy

Roy, a recent high school graduate, became One Candle Schoolhouse's first recipient of the opportunity to attend College. Roy wasn't able to complete a full course in law enforcement, but does now have a respectable position as a Security Guard, and responsibly supports his young family.

The following year, when Ivy graduated from high school, the Richters again offered to sponsor a college education, but this time for Ivy. And, because they "stretched out their hands,"extraordinary things have happened...

Jamie congratulates Cornelia

2009 Graduation

Ivy elected to major in Secretarial Science, finalizing her last year's requirement of On The Job Training (OJT) at Great Physician Rehabilitation Foundation, for Children with Disabilities, in Dumaguete. Immediately hired to work full time as a bookkeeper and librarian after graduating, she soon began assisting the physical, occupational, and educational therapists. 



Ivy with Gabrielle

 As GP Rehab's funding began to wind down last year, Analou Suan, Founder/Director, arranged for continuity of services for their client families through local municipalities while Ivy secured for herself another place of employment.  Her dream, however, was to bring those same services back to her own rural community...

 (from a recent email: )

     "...I've just spent the morning talking with one of my former students, IVY, who is so dedicated to helping the Special Needs families in our area that I am continually re-inspired to hang in there with the community work. She has asthma, which is aggravated by not only working in an air-conditioned environment, but living in Dumaguete, too. Bad air. She works at a call center, rotating her shifts weekly, 6am-2pm/2pm-10pm/10pm-6am, and then on her one day off, Sundays, she comes back here to tromp around the back-bush finding families of Children with Disability. 

     Today she told me she's asked her mother to donate some of their land so she can build a Center where livelihood skills can be taught to those capable of it, train locals to be Physical Therapists to teach parents how to give proper exercises, as well as be a resource for education/diagnosis for the locals who are in need of help with their children. I had visited her in order to get a photo of of Jim and Jamie Richter, who'd funded her college education, because I had planned to FINALLY give them their long-overdue Thank You blog posting...but in checking emails quickly, I looked at a Grants Newsletter I subscribe to, I was thrilled to find something I think we can apply for, for her! It's a thousand dollars, not as much as she is going to need but that goes such a very long way here it could possibly be enough to begin the basic building ...certainly it would be enough to begin getting medical help for some of the kids..."

 Since last December, Ivy has steadily pursued her project,

 
methodically using the skills she gained at GP Rehab to interview and assess families, 

while listening carefully to the dreams the parents want for their children's future.

 Her project has a name:  

OPEN DOOR HABILITATION

Last Sunday, May 12, 2013, Ivy's first classes were held in Siit and Bonbonon, at the two Bright Lights Community Learning Centers.

...and there is much more to come!

Jim and Jamie, daghang salamat for all that you helped make possible.