A story of courage and success

 

A story of courage and success

 Maricel's story is moving and inspiring that you and I could not have imagined being in her place.

Maricel Apatan's family owns a seven-hectare land in Siay, Zamboanga, which her mother inherited from her parents.  However, a family who lives next to their property claimed a portion of their land. This property dispute  caused Maricel's physical disability.

On September 25, 2000,  a day before Maricel's 12th birthday, she and her uncle went to a well, one kilometer away from their house to fetch water. Her uncle reached the well ahead of her.  Then, she saw four men circle around her uncle and hack  him with bolos.  A man came near her ready to attack her but she started running to help her uncle. But seeing her uncle pass out having lost so much blood,  she just ran fast to avoid the men.   However, she was caught and was hacked as well.  To protect herself, she raised her arms, but the men mercilessly hacked her wrists and neck.  She fell down but she never lost consciousness.  To her mind, she still wanted to live for her family, so she pretended dead.  When  her attackers had already left, she stood up and with blood dripping down her eyes, she dragged herself home. A few feet away from their house, her mother saw her, and she started screaming for help.  Their neighbors came to help and they brought Maricel to a nearby hospital, 12 kilometers a way, on foot since there was no means of transportation there.  She was carried through a makeshift stretcher made of blanket and two poles  for four straight hours before reaching the  hospital.  

When they arrived at the hospital, Maricel underwent operation for five hours.  Sadly, they had to amputate her wrists. After the operation, the doctors talked to Maricel's family, telling them the worst scenario that Maricel might not survive.  In fact they said she might die the following day.  But they never lost hope, believing that God would make a way.  True to their faith, a miracle happened. Maricel unbelievably survived the ordeal. That was not all.  Maricel’s family was also blessed with relatives who paid for all hospital bills.

Ten years later, with Maricel’s determination and perseverance despite her physical handicap, she graduated with a degree of International Hotel and Restaurant Management and is currently taking up Culinary Arts at Global City Culinary Arts in Quezon City.  
Imagine the kind of sufferings that Maricel had survived.  Yet, she never gave up.  Despite having no hands, she became a professional chef.

What is so despairing is the fact that many of our college students are not physically handicapped yet they still end up drop-outs.

Let Maricel's story be a reminder that physical handicap is not a hindrance to success.  May her life story be an inspiration to those people, physically healthy with no disabilities, to strive hard and continue treading to the path of success.

The Making of Bo Sanchez

Success is something that everyone dreams of.  But why is it some are able to reach the top and make their dreams come true  while others get stuck at the middle  unable to climb the ladder of success?  The answer is that most people who create their own vision of the future are weakened by  fear – fear of exploring possibilities, fear of failures, or fear of change.  They are in their comfort zones.   These are the very people who are afraid of the unknown – who would rather be in the safe default mode rather than experience failures.

Successful people, on the other hand, are driven by passion, the desire to  make their dreams a reality.  They push themselves to the limits and they create endless possibilities. These are the people who are never hindered by failures because they consider failures as part of success.  They use failures to their advantage.  

    Any one who knows Bo Sanchez gets to admire this Catholic preacher in his inspiring books and talks. Little do they know that he had undergone a lot of struggles before he became a religious icon.

    Throughout his academic life at the Ateneo de Manila University, he never became an achiever.  In fact, he almost failed his Math in grade school, had it not for his tutor's help, who happened to be his Math teacher, too.     In college, his composition was rated F or far below the standard.  It was only in the graduate school of Theology that he was recognized because of topping the  Theology  examination. He couldn’t believe seeing his name written on the board as topnotcher in the exam.  That perhaps boosted his morale.  From there, he learned to believe in himself and found his niche at last.

    Not only did he experience academic failures, he also suffered from emotional pains.  As a young boy, he was molested by his cousin, and as a teenager, he did suffer from similar shame when he was molested by his spiritual leader. Yet, despite such bad experiences, he continued his life struggling over spiritual battles as he grew closer to God.

    But as a young age of 13, he started preaching in a small Catholic prayer meeting, which later on has expanded and is now called Light of Jesus community with thousands of members.

    Did you know that this preacher has achieved so much in life? Who could ever imagine that a mediocre guy throughout his academic life would be acclaimed here and abroad?  He is a recipient of the following awards: Outstanding Young Man of the Philippines in 2006, Serviam Award – the highest honor given by the Catholic Mass Media Awards in 2007,  and Golden Gavel Award, the highest award given to non-toastmasters for public speaking in 2009.

     With Bo's failures, he learned to rise up.  Failures had never become a hindrance to his successes. You too can do what Bo did if you will only believe in God and in yourself.

Dick and Royt Success stories

Personality is the sum or total of one’s physical attributes which include among others his attitudes, behaviour, value system, intellectual ability and communication skills.

People succeed not solely because of their intelligence, but more so because of their determination, diligence, hard work and strong belief in oneself.  

Dick and Rick Hoyt are unbelievably amazing sports enthusiasts whose determination to succeed as athletes is beyond imaginable.

At Rick’s birth in 1962, the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. The doctors told Dick  and his wife that their child, Rick, would be vegetable for life. 

Yet, Dick and his wife never believed it; instead they tried hard to raise their child Rick as normally as possible. In 1972, Dick wished to enrol Rick in a public school; however, he was refused admittance. Until a group  of Tufts University engineers came to the rescue. Sensing that Rick shows comprehension skills, the engineers went on to build — using $5,000 the family managed to raise in 1972 - an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write out his thoughts using the slight head-movements that he could manage. Rick came to call it "my communicator." A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.

When the computer was originally brought home, Rick surprised his family with his first "spoken" words.  Rick wrote "Go Bruins" on the screen. The Boston Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals that season, and his family realized he had been following the hockey games along with everyone else. At that moment, Dick realized that Rick loved sports.

In 1975, Rick was finally admitted into a public school. Two years later, he told his father he wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but they felt they had achieved a triumph.

It’s not only marathon that the Hoyt team participated in, they had also joined in two other sports – swimming and bicycling, which make up a triathlon. At first, they always finished either last or second to the last, but later on, their finished time improved until such time they finished in the top quarter of the filed in Boston Marathon in 1981.

“For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.”

It’s not only success in athletic competitions that Rick has been known for, he also graduated at Boston University in 1993 with a degree in special education.

Rick now works at Boston College’s computer laboratory helping to develop a system codenamed "Eagle Eyes," through which mechanical aids (like for instance a powered wheelchair) could be controlled by a paralyzed person’s eye-movements, when linked-up to a computer.

Nick Vijicic: The Product of His Right choice

Making the right choice is really a tough job.  Every day we are confronted by options which at times are difficult to choose.    Even at a young age, we were trained to choose which toys to buy, clothes to wear, food to eat,   movies to watch,  and the like.  Later on as we grew up, we were beset with much more difficult choices like which course program to take, which activities to prioritize, and even which friends  to choose.    Yet, despite knowing that choosing is part of our daily life, we are still at times baffled on which course of action to take.  But there can be one secret to making a tough decision, that is, weighing the possible consequences of our choice considering how it can impact our future.

Let me share with you a true to life story of a 28-year old Australian guy who made the right choice at an early stage in his life.    His name is Nick Vujicic and he was born without arms and legs.  At the time when he was old enough to enter school, the law in Australia never allowed a child with disability to be integrated into a main-stream school.  With much courage, his mother fought for the law to be changed. And a miracle happened, Nick was the very first child with disability to be admitted in a mainstream school. 

                However, in his first few weeks of schooling, Nick was rejected, ridiculed, and bullied by his classmates.   Out of depression, he attempted suicide.  At that time,  his mother  showed him a newspaper  that  featured children with disabilities.    And that became a turning point in his life.  Nick turned into a happy boy full of hopes and dreams, realizing he was not the only one in this world with disabilities.  He persevered in his studies despite his physical handicap.  Later on, he finished a bachelor’s degree, with double major – Accounting and Financial Management. 

 Today, Nick is a well-known motivational speaker who has travelled in more than 20 countries giving hope to the handicapped, the disabled.  Nick made the right choice.   He is now a successful man, instrumental in making a difference in the lives of others.

Yes, it  had never been a smooth sailing for Nick. In fact, it was kind of a roller coaster ride, having a lot of bumps along the way, considering his physical condition.  Yet, he was able to endure all the trials and emerged triumphant in the end.