Love in Action

 

Report from Formosa

(Originally in English)

Sister initiates cutting hair for the Bunun people
On December 30, 2001, a team of more than thirty fellow initiates from all around Formosa visited a remote Bunun tribe (a group indigenous to Formosa's Central Mountain Range) to provide free medical consultations and haircuts for local people at the Red Leaf Elementary School in Red Leaf Village, Taitung County.
Just as the initiates were getting everything ready, some local children were already lining up for their haircuts. But obviously, they were more attracted by the blessed food distribution desk. Clutching their precious packets of candies and cookies, they could barely conceal their inner happiness. The school staff member on duty, Miss Wang, helped us with translation, making the medical consultations much smoother for our doctors, who were also fellow initiates.

Senior citizens used a variety of gestures and spoke in the Bunun language, trying to express their health problems. When Miss Wang was too busy translating for the patients, brother Han, who for a long time practiced chiropractic medicine in Formosa's indigenous communities, helped to communicate with the patients in simple Japanese, which is spoken by some older Bunun people. His efforts solved the problem of not having sufficient translators. Through this experience, we realized even more why Master always wants fellow initiates to learn more foreign languages. "Sooner or later, we will become torch bearers of the world," She once said. Thus, every fellow initiate should be proficient in fundamental communication with people of other cultures.

Some visitors from outside the village also took this rare opportunity to ask our fellow initiates to treat them. When some guests joined us to taste the hot soup and vegetarian rice dumplings we had prepared, they were amazed to find that vegetarian food could be so delicious! So, in addition to offering free medical consultations, we also began promoting vegetarianism. We hope that these unexpected visitors will try following a vegetarian diet and join the ranks of those seeking world purification.

The activity was scheduled to end by noon. However, at the villagers' request, we continued the event for thirty minutes, so that those who could only come home at noontime would also have the chance to enjoy Master's love. With infinite bliss, we thank Master for Her grace, which gave us the opportunity to interact with so many local inhabitants. We hope that the Bunun people, with Master's grace, will quickly recover from their ailments, and soon find their real inner Self, which is forever free from birth, death, illness and suffering.
Doctors among our fellow initiates diagnose local inhabitants' illnesses, prescribe medication and provide chiropractic treatments.