Joliet Diocese Medical Mission Trip: Philippine Islands Of the 7,000 Philippine Islands the Joliet Diocesan Mission, for the second year, has sent a fourteen member Medical Mission Team to the island of Eastern Samur, the Diocese of Barongan.  The population of Eastern Samur is 374,225, 97% of whom are Catholics.  The diocese includes 26 parishes ministered to by 60 priests.  In many ways this diocese is really the Church of the poor, by the poor, for the poor.

The Medical Mission Team consisted of one priest, four surgeons, four anesthetists, an internist, a recovery room nurse, an operating room technician, two staff nurses and a chaplain.  During the two and a half week mission surgeons performed sixty two elective surgeries.  Whole families come to be with patients so there were many opportunities to get to know people and even understand on another’s language.

Hospitals have no sheets, or even mattresses.  Patients are expected to bring a mat to cover the old and rusty bed springs.

As a chaplain, Sr. del Rey Waite, IBVM, was privileged to be with patients/families while they waited hours for surgery, with the patient in the OR, with the patients in the recovery room, and then on to general wards and able to take last steps with them as they returned to their homes.  In spite of their extreme poverty the Filipino people of Easter Sumar are by their own admission

Homes for these poorest of the poor are shacks with no electricity or running water/no plumbing.  Families of eight or more sleep on floors and cook meals over hot coals.

An ordinary working day began at 8:00AM with Mass in the hospital hall.  At 6:30 PM the team met for dinner.  Evenings were spent visiting the orphanage, meeting with the Governor, the Bishop, and attending parish functions. The diocese is now seeing the flourishing of faith communities, a diocesan radio station, and parish pastoral councils.

I hope to be with this Medical Mission Team when they return to Borongan in January, 2007.  In spite of their extreme poverty the Filipino people of Easter Sumar are by their own admission “a simple people who laugh much at little things.”  I take some liberty with the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkin’s words:  Christ plays in 7,000 islands, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father through the features of the Filipino faces.

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U.S. Province JPIC Team:

Coordinator:       Arlene Ashack, IBVM

Members:          Gerrie Baskerville

                        Judy Illig

                        Cindy Langlois

                        Frances McCarron

                        Jean Okroi

                        Terri Risolo