Manny,

I will now attempt to communicate with you and our greying classmates before Alzheimers sets in. Thanks for all your efforts in networking us. We had a wonderful reunion on Angel Island with Perry, Reno, Neph, Bob Torres, Butch, Fred and Ed - the magnificent 7 (remember the movie - I think it was showing around the time we were in sophomore year) + 1.., me. Each of the guys put down some reflections and I will get it to you when I decipher their handwriting :-).

You look like you have put on a little weight but not because of more hair :-). Would love to hear about what's happened in your life since we graduated. I remember what a great classmate you were, with a great sense of humor.

After graduation, I attended UP Diliman then went to UP Coll. of Med and graduated in 1974. Did my internship at PGH and thoroughly enjoyed the experience including the food in the cafeteria there - I never thought I would end up at PGH when we were rehearsing South Pacific at the PGH Auditorium. Got married to Alice Kuykendall (class '68) - she and I had been writing to each other since 1970 when she left for college in the US. I really admired her courage to leave all the amenities of life in the US and her work as a Med Tech in Princeton, NJ to accompany me to Bunhian, Ifugao where we worked in a medical mission clinic for 7 months -- no running water except for the kindness of the village people who rigged up bamboo piping from a spring about a kilometer away; they even dug us a pit toilet (everyone else just went behind a tree and the dogs cleaned up after). The people supplied us with delicious upland rice and there was an old lady Angfuan, who always went topless in the afternoons and wanted Alice to start having babies. Alice had to cook with firewood in a makeshift stove, wash clothes by hand, and act as nurse, med tech, pharmacist and wife. She put up with all of this on condition that there were no snakes in the area, and I had assured her before she accompanied me there that I had never seen a snake there. The day we were dropped off by small plane, and were being escorted by some of the local Christians to our hut on the next mountain, what did we see lying across the trail as the plane took off? A large snake skin--too late for Alice to leave me. When we arrived at our hut, there was the very first patient waiting for me--it was the local Shaman and he needed treatment for a snake bite! Boy was Alice mad at me...and we were only married 1 month :-). We had a great time those 7 months and I think they were some of the best memories we have; the local church grew in faith and in the Word; the local Shaman became a friend, and we trained several of the men to become barefoot health providers. Then moved to Vancouver, BC (Canada) in 1976 as my family had moved there after Martial Law; got into a residency program and was the chief resident at Vancouver General Hospital. Took a Fellowship at Harvard in Boston when our 1st born (Kirsten) was only a month old and Alice's parents drove across Canada with us in a VW camper van. We were in Boston 3 years and had our 2nd (Mark). When he was about 6 mons. we moved back to Vancouver where I was invited to be the director for Medical Resident and Med Student training at the new Univ. Hosp. on the UBC campus. While there we had 2 more (John and Kevin). Had several opportunities to go to China during the 1980's and helped start a CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) funded research project on Hepatitis B prevention and treatment in Beijing. Also went with several mission groups to former missionary hospitals in Coastal China to give lectures and bring medical supplies. Led a Canadian team of doctors and nurses to give medical aid in Bangladesh after the 1989 cyclone. Then moved to Oregon 1991 and joined two fine Christian Internists in a busy practice. I have quite a few Filipino, Hmong, Central American, Chinese, Romanian, Egyptian, and Russian patients; also have the opportunity to teach a medical student from Oregon Health Sciences Univ. each wk during the school year and also work with High School students in the community who are interested in the health care field. Our kids have grown up on a minifarm with all the animals they wanted to raise. Alice's parents who had moved back to the Philippines in 1974 joined us in Oregon in 1993 and Flora and her son Steven came from Rochester, NY too. She now lives in Vancouver, Wasington. We will be accompanying Kirsten, our oldest to Revelle College in UC San Diego this September. Hope to meet Edna and her family there in a few wks. After all these years, I have to say that God has been very gracious to us and we have been greatly blessed. As Job said "I know that my Redeemer liveth..."

Trust that you and your family are well, and hope we will be able to get together in the near future, "sa awa ng Panginoong Diyos".

Bob Sayson