We are back......................
Our story from Tonga that ended in August 2010, when we came home, now has another chapter.
In December, 2011, we received a call from the South Pacific Area President to ask if Dick would accept, if he were called as a dental specialist, a return to Tonga and implement the program that he put together while we were there before. Of course he said he would be happy to. What an exciting opportunity for him to implement, critique, and evaluate his program that was definitely given to him through divine intervention.
Since we came home from Tonga, 1 1/2 years ago, Dick has had the opportunity to present this Preventative Dental Initiative to the heads of the Welfare and Humanitarian Departments of the church, as well as the president of the International Dental Group and the LDS Dental Academy. They were all very impressed with what he had accomplished. They said many dentist had come home from different areas and had seen the same problems he had. They all had good ideas of things to do that would help, but no one had ever come home with a program, a step 1, 2, 3, etc of how to begin to teach and help the people gain knowledge of how to prevent the dental problems that they had. Dick's mind just works that way; he sees a problem, and his mind analysis it and he will soon have the solution in a very logical order. The Lord used his skills and his willingness to follow, to create a simple to follow program that will be taken into the villages and there teach the families the basic skills of dental hygiene and proper nutrition.
Dick's long range vision of this program is that it can easily be translated into any language and then taken anywhere in the world where it will help the people to better care for themselves and their families and thus become more self reliant and healthy. Interestingly, over the last few months, Dick has had continued correspondence that had led to the translation and use of the DVD into 3 more languages, Samoan, Tongan and Spanish. Lawrence Porter, who did the DVD for us in Tonga, is soon to be in Samoa to do filming for another DVD to be used there.
This is exactly what Dick envisioned would happen.
In addition to the countries that will be helped, there is more good news. The church asked the the president of the LDS Academy of Dentist, Dr. Roundy, to provide a dental segment on the church's Provident Living Web Site, that could be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Dr. Roundy has talked with Dick about using his program. Of course, Dick is very excited about this.
So...................... as we have now received our mission call and will be entering the MTC on April 23, we are very excited about this wonderful opportunity that has been given to us to continue to serve in a way that will be helpful to many people, and to us as well, as we learn from the example of the beautiful people in the South Pacific.
