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A Gift That Keeps on Giving: 1 Bracelet – 1 Child – 1 Week of Food

10 Jan posted by
Give Jewelry - Orange Cuff Bracelet

Now that Christmas has passed and life resume to normal, our kids maybe still busy playing/enjoying their Christmas presents. But did you know that there are kids who are not as fortunate as ours? I’m talking about the orphanage children here in Indonesia.

I stumble on Give Jewelry and my heart melts, instantly.

BRACELETS WITH PURPOSE

Give Jewelry is a sustainable movement to provide food for children in orphanages throughout Indonesia. The vision is simple: every bracelet purchased directly benefits kids in need. So no matter what type of bracelet you choose: friendship bracelets, charm bracelet, leather bracelet, beaded bracelet, cuff bracelets  or any of their other bracelets, you’re really choosing to make a difference.

Knowing by purchasing one bracelet you can actually provide a one whole meal for a child is a tremendous feeling. You are giving them a better life. You can watch their full length documentary of the visit to Sumba and Bali Orphanage on YouTube.

Some of the areas that Give Jewelry are working on – the Indonesian orphanage – is located in the dry land of Sumba. This speaks volume to me as my late aunt who passed away from breast cancer last June was a pastor in Kupang. Her husband, a native son of Kupang and her has been doing a lot of humanitarian works in these small places to help the people. So now can you connect the dots why I feel this ‘calling’ to support Give Jewelry?

ONE PIECE –> ONE CHILD –> ONE WEEK OF FOOD

Give Jewelry is selling truly beautiful affordable handmade pieces. Do check out their products. These bracelets are helping children in Indonesia not only to feed them but also for medical treatments like you can see on this moving documentary. With every bracelet you purchase, Give Jewelry provides one week of nutritious food (that’s 21 meals!) for a child in need.

Below are some simple steps you can take to raise awareness of hunger, encourage activism and create lasting change.  With your help, we CAN end world hunger, one child at a time!

Would you like to get involve and support this cause that has become very near and dear to my heart? It’s so easy:

For Tatter Scoops readers, Give Jewelry is giving you guys’ special discounts! Woot woot! Easy as pie, if you decided that this is a cause worth supporting, please do buy a bracelet (or two or more!) and upon check out in the Comment Box please use this code: Tatterscoops to receive a FREE Survivor Purple Cancer Awareness Bracelet or Pink Breast Cancer Awareness bracelet as their thank you gift.

What are you waiting for? Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and their bracelets would make a perfect gift for your daughter, mother, girlfriend, etc.

If you do support this, please do let me know by leaving a comment below. Also please watch this 5 minutes video.

7 Comments
Filed Under: Indonesia, Uncategorized

Worry Wart Daughter

9 Jan posted by

Today the boy returns to school after a pretty long break for Christmas.

Ah, I can finally sit and write in peace…or so I thought.

Fingers typing then…

“How is he going to travel that far alone?” sneaked up on me and I lost what I’m supposed to write here. Followed by a silent prayer that he’ll make it there safely.

You see my father is leaving to return to Zambia this afternoon and being the worry wart that I am I just can’t help but worrying about his trip. After his surgery last October, he’s still on the road to recovery. So the thoughts of him flying to a far away land by himself scare me. It’s such a long flight. From here he will fly to Dubai then to Johannesburg before the last leg of his trip to a small mining town in Zambia.

“Be careful!”

“Don’t force it!”

“Ask for wheelchair at the airport to help you.”

“Are you sure you have enough time between the flights so you don’t have to run?”

Those were just some of the stuffs I told him since a few days ago.

He just laughed it off. Typical of him and I got irritated because he’s taking it lightly while his only daughter fret like an old women.

Please say a few prayers for him if you can. May he gets back to Zambia safely and continue his recovery process. Thank you, friends!

♥♥♥♥

Okay, my 5 minutes is up. Come link up with Stream of Consciousness Sunday at All.Things.Fadra

#SOCsunday
Updated: My dad arrived safely in Zambia. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers!

10 Comments
Filed Under: Musings

We Are Sticking Together!

2 Dec posted by

Looking back, this year I had spent so much times in hospitals.

Well, we all had…

 

More than the last few years combine.

In brutal honesty, part of me wish this would stop. No more hospitals please, Lord. It’s too stressful, mentally draining and physically exhausting.

Yet here I am, sitting by the window facing a mall and an Ocean Park with my mother lays in hospital bed to my left.

She’s been hospitalized since 29th November from breathing problems. Results shows her lungs were half covered with fluids.

My father was just released from the hospital a couple of weeks prior and currently still doing outpatient treatment daily.  My mother has been his ‘nurse’ at home so to have both parents ill really is hard for all of us the children.

Intensive Care Units’ Waiting Room really is one of the most depressing place to be.  There’s just  so much sadness and grief hanging in the air. There used to be an invisible bonds between families who stayed at these waiting rooms while their loved ones are battling their serious illness.

I first experienced this years ago as I spent so many nights for my Grandfather in the hospital.

Things are changing…

Actually, I just realized this when my father was hospitalized. There are more maids even hired caretakers than immediate families.

Yes, I understand everyone is busy in the big city. Time is money. Deadlines to catch, etc…etc…

Not for us!

Both my brothers are working full time and so am I but we managed to stretch our times to be with our parents. Even if the three of us have to take turns spending the night at the hospital.  Even if that means we had to sleep on a thin creaky beds that hurt our backs. We rushed to the hospital after work. We take turns staying in the hospital during the days too.

Of course like many families here in Jakarta, we have helpers at home. We could easily ask them to come and watch our parents in the hospital while we sleep in our comfy beds at home. So why not, then? It just doesn’t feels right. That’s just not in our family’s cultures I guess. None of our parents asked us to stay, sometimes they even try to shoo us out.

Our parents must’ve raised us good. They instilled in us from early on and by living the message that families stick together.

So to hear other’s criticizing me or my brothers for spending so much times in the hospital deserves some bitch slaps, hard!

Work is important especially when you’re a single mom – I’ll be the first to admit that. But still, family comes first and in times like this sometimes you have no other choice but being by the sides of the people you love. And that my friends, is what I’m doing.

This family has been through so much this year yet we are surviving  it all together. Tears filled coated with many of laughter wrapped up in an ever growing faith that God will let us sail through whatever it is life throw at us. We are together!

And that’s what matters most…

9 Comments
Filed Under: Health

Praying For My Father

30 Oct posted by

This past week has really been an emotional one for my family and I.

As I type this, I’m sitting on the sofa bed that has been our friend for 8 days while my father laying in the hospital bed. Three IVS running through his right hand, countless of daily blood sugar tests, pills and shots taken daily.

To honor his wish, I won’t disclose his real condition but it got something to do with his diabetes.

As his daughter it truly breaks my heart to see him in pain…to see his sufferings. Him, the one man in my life that I look up to as my own hero in laying helplessly held prisoner by this hospital bed. He needed me to help feeding him, to give him his drinks through a plastic straw, to wipe his tears when he apologized.

You know someone deeply love you when they are more worried about your own well being even when they are in a lot of pain.

“Have you eat yet?” He would asked me daily “You should go to sleep…don’t you have to go to work tomorrow?” when it is him who needed to rest and recuperate.

There has been many many tears shed this week.

“I’m sorry I’ve troubled you and your brothers…” his voice cracked and tears seep from the corners of his eyes.

“NO! Stop saying that, Papa…” My own tears would be blurring my eyes as I fought back my own tears. “As your children it is our responsibilities to care for you.” I would squeezed his hand tighter.

After the scare of his heart attack back in 1999 where he was ‘gone’ for 15 seconds, dealing with hospital hasn’t been easy for me.

He stayed in this very same hospital for a whole month after his bypass surgery back in 2000.

In this past week I’ve only seen my boy for short times as I would go to work and madly rushing back to the hospital to be with my father after work. Usually by the time I get home my son would be asleep. Also, my brothers and I are taking turns to stay in the hospital at nights with him.

How I miss my son…but right now my father needs me, needs us as a family to wrap him with our love and care.

In these past 8 days…I could barely focus on anything else but my father’s condition. We got him a birthday cake although he can only blew the candles a day after his actual birthday, after he left the ICU. It made him happy and my heart was swollen with so much love for this man.

Thank you to those who had prayed and sending him well wishes through twitter and facebook also emails. My family and I are strong believer in the power of prayers.

So thank you dear friends!

15 Comments
Filed Under: Health

Power Walk and Healing

28 Jul posted by
walk

No pain, no gain…

Is that true?

I’ve been dragging my behind back to my-nearly-two-months-neglected-power walk for the past 3 days. As you can imagine, my legs are sore, my shins are screaming with pain when I walk.

But for the sake of getting back in shape, I push forward…

This got me thinking – as my alone time during power walk has always been somewhat my meditation time. Just me, those pump-up-your-spirit-music and my thoughts, power walking through the darkness before crack of dawn.

Is healing similar to power walking?

Here’s the piece of conversation I had with myself.

“You keep walking…pushing forward even when your aching body beg you to stop, just like you must keep on living even when sometimes your broken inner self wanted to shut down. Your blisters goes beyond your toes and feet…you are beaten down.

There are times where you do must take a moment to stop walking – to rest…to regain, recompose yourself and catch that much needed breath – maybe a day, a week, heck, maybe even two months like I did!

You still need to get up and walk again…no matter what kinds of shits life throw at you. Maybe it will be a slow walk at first but you are moving…on your own pace. No one can push you when you are not ready to take the first steps.

The road up ahead is uncertain. Maybe there are uphill climb, steep slippery slopes, it may become twisted full of turns or pot holes on the bumpy street. Does it stop others from going? Certainly not! So why should you quit?

And as your steps grow stronger…the pain, the aching will cease…you will welcome the energy that comes with it, you embrace the breeze of fresh air filling out your lungs. The strength is within you! You are a winner!

Plus you might drop a few size and look great in that little black dress?!

Hey, maybe one day you’ll be strong enough to even do the unthinkable…to jog…run into your bright future!”

One day when I feel like quitting again, I must re-read this post as a reminder that one must keep on pushing forward  in life.

Do you exercise? How do you feel about pushing yourself to exercise and most importantly to move forward?

3 Comments
Filed Under: Divorce

Not Goodbye

16 Jun posted by

“You’re in a better place, I’ve heard a thousand times
And at least a thousand times I’ve rejoiced for you
But the reason why I’m broken, the reason why I cry
Is how long must I wait to be with you…”

(Homesick – Mercy Me)

Everytime I play this song tears still fell on my cheeks…

It brought me back to years ago when I was a little girl. When I looked up and see that smiling face beaming with so much happiness as she sat there on my bedside telling me stories from the Bible.

If I suppose to picked my favorite moments in my 30 something years knowing her, my childhood wins by a mile.

Having her around when I was little was so much fun. She used to brushed my curly hair before telling me so much intriguing stories. She was a joy all around. It’s like having my own personal Sunday School teacher.

I remember 21 years ago when we both giggled like school girls on her wedding day. I was one her little bride maids…we both love our white gowns. She looked like a princess.

She lived in an island far from me…all I knew was she and her husband both serves as pastors.

Little that I know how much of a special pastor she was to so many people there, it wasn’t until these last week that I learned more about her life.

Whenever we meet I would teased her and made a joke that the ‘collector’ is here. She could pack up so much stuffs in her suitcases.

Little that I know she would be handing those stuffs away to people who needs them more back in her home.

When she came to Jakarta three weeks ago, I almost couldn’t recognize her. She was so frail and her condition just breaks our hearts. She’s still there behind her eyes trapped in the body that had failed her.

I was worried…I was scared that we cannot help her financially…I felt so guilty for even worrying about the dough when all she wanted was to spend her last days with us as a family.

Her son, my cousin who goes to college in another town had to be flown to Jakarta immediately. She was in critical condition. She have her two daughters beside her so it was him she was waited for.

Last week…Saturday June 4th 2011…she won over her breast cancer. Less than 30 minutes after her son came to her bedside. Not long after he whispered to her that he’s finally there and tear fell off  of her closed eyelid. Even when she had lost her consciousness she knew her son, her daughters, her husband and her family were there.

She was only 45 years old…She’s gone too soon.

The pain is still raw…tears still fell down but it is a comfort when we saw how much she was loved by her people in Kupang. Nearly the whole city showed up, mourning for her. I was told more people showed up for her than when the mayor passed away.

Seeing that makes us realized what an amazing women she was. Seeing strangers touched by her kindness, crying like they too lost their family members gives us comfort.

I love you, Aunty Linda…rest in peace. God gives strength to your husband and children.

6 Comments
Filed Under: Musings
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