Philippine Self-Help Foundation
About the Founder...
My stay at the Cagayan Valley Children's Home in April, 1986 left a mark. I experienced love and joy in the home which filled a void in my life.
Richard on a sandbank off the coast of Cauayan in 2012
PSHF founder, Richard Foster was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1952. After a couple of years of primary school in Brussels, he went to boarding school in England at the age of seven. He attended Ladycross Prep School, 1960 to 1965 and Harrow School, 1966 to 1970.
After leaving Harrow, he spent some time back in Brussels before beginning a four year sandwich degree course at Thames Polytechnic in International Marketing, 1971 to 1974. In his third year, as part of his course, he returned to Belgium to work as a business trainee.
Despite having a business-related degree in hand, Richard opted not to enter the corporate world. Instead, he loaded up his Volkswagen Variant and drove down to Grenoble, in the French Alps, with a dream - to open a squash club, no less. Sport was a passion for Richard; he had played in the school's first tennis pair at Harrow, represented the school in its own brand of the beautiful game 'Harrow football' and won the Thames Polytechnic squash championship.
His dream was now to earn a living in the world of sports. His idea of opening a club in Grenoble, however, never did materialise. Out of the blue, sometime in 1976, a call came through from a certain Jean-Pierre Camuset, inviting him up to Paris for a meeting. It transpired that squash club La Défense was seeking a coaching professional. He left Grenoble, where he had been teaching English, and moved to Paris. The club, still under construction, was situated in La Défense, the new business centre for Paris.
In 1978, Richard's somewhat carefree life in Paris came to an abrupt end. He recalls receiving the visit of Stan Havrlik, a director of the Castle Club in the suburbs of Brussels. Over dinner in a fine Parisian restaurant, Richard learned that the sports club was seeking a General Manager and "would he consider taking up the position?". Very soon afterwards Richard was back living in Belgium and finally embarking on his sports management career.
Richard spent six years running the Castle Club and, for a while, the Fort Jaco sports club as well. During his tenure, he continued his squash playing career and was a member of the Belgian national team in three successive European Team Championships. On the surface, all was well: he was achieving success on the courts and managing one of the premier sports clubs in the country. On a personal level however, things were not what they seemed; Richard was struggling with low self esteem and a lack of inner peace and joy. He sought meaning in astrology and embarked on a psychoanalysis that was to last close to two years.
He ended his analysis inconclusively and took up his mother's suggestion of meeting up with the vicar of Holy Trinity church in Brussels for a talk. Soon after, he was encouraged by the Rev. John Lewis to attend a worship service and, little by little, the faith in God which Richard had held as a child was rekindled.
One Tuesday in early May, 1984, Richard took the opportunity of a lunch meeting with the Castle Club chairman to announce his resignation. The job had been a realisation of a dream; it had provided both status and success as well as a formative management experience but it was time to move on and discover what else was out there.
On September 22nd, 1984, Richard boarded a Gulf Air flight out of Heathrow airport, bound for Colombo, Sri Lanka. This was the first port of call in a round-the-world journey. Why did he abandon a promising career in sports management? What factors lay behind his staying in Japan and never completing the journey? What was it that propelled him into what he came to see as his life's purpose?
When I first left Europe on my round the world journey in September, 1984 I had no idea that I would be making a permanent move. My idea was simply to broaden my horizons for a few months and then return to Europe and resume my career in sports management. A short stay in Japan was included in my itinerary for two reasons; it was convenient for flights to the United States and my old school friend, Stephen Gill lived there and I was keen to meet up with him.
It turned out that Stephen would hold the key to the initial extension of my intended one week stay in Japan. I sent him an aerogram from Bangkok announcing the date of my expected arrival in Japan; at the same time, I asked him if there might be any scope for doing some English teaching there and thus be able to stay a bit longer in the country. His reply awaited me at the 'poste restante' in Singapore; he wrote that he had a part-time job in a language school and perhaps I might be able to replace him as he was getting married and would be returning to the UK for a while.
I vividly recall my first day in Japan. I had flown in from Seoul, arriving at Narita airport in the early afternoon. Stephen had instructed me to call him on arrival to receive his instructions on how to get to the coastal town of Katase Kaigan. He met me at the station and within a few minutes he had given me my first sight of the Pacific ocean. Later, he took me to the school to meet Mr Hirano, the elderly owner and he accepted me as the new teacher for his small school. Most significantly, the schoolroom was downstairs and there was a vacant three roomed apartment upstairs which I could use. So within a few hours of my arrival in Japan, I had a part-time job and a place to live!
When I had set out on my world tour in September 1984, Japan had just been one of 14 countries on my itinerary and my stay would be for just one single week before crossing the Pacific to the United States and back to Europe. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined settling in Japan and spending 25 years in this land.
My early days in Japan were generally happy ones. I taught in the school in Katase Kaigan for three months and then went to China which at the time was just opening up to individual tourism. Before my departure, I had answered an advertisement in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper for an English teaching job in Tokyo. I was accepted so on my return from China, I had a job and the promise of a working visa. In those days, you had to leave the country to obtain a working visa so I went to Hongkong and met up with my old friend from Thames Polytechnic, Carey Edwards, a British Airforce helicopter pilot.
I started my teaching job with Borgnan in the spring of 1985. I was initially hired to teach at Toshiba but for some reason, the commencement of classes was delayed so I did children's classes in Borgnan's schools instead. This entailed traveling all over Tokyo so I got to know the city's train network pretty well. At this time, I had started attending Tokyo Union Church and become a member.
I was now living in Kamakura near the beach in a small two-roomed apartment. I had a job and I was beginning to make friends. On the surface all was fine but I was about to face a major challenge.
For a period of two years, I was to experience a deep depression. It is beyond the scope of this article to delve deeply into its origins but suffice to say that the root cause lay in a poignant childhood experience long buried in my subconscious - I had rejected my childhood sweetheart and never forgiven myself for it.
Out of depression came a rekindled faith in God and the first glimpses of a life's purpose. In early, 1986, Kathy Matsushima, TUC associate pastor at the the time, knowing my interests, encouraged me to join the church Outreach Committee. I well remember my first meeting, I didn't have much to contribute, but I was relieved when the Elder, Wyman Robb asked me if I might like to join the team. At the time my self-esteem was low and my need for affirmation and acceptance very high.
At the following month's meeting, a guest speaker by the name of Virginia Fleenor came to talk to us about a Children's home located in the northern Philippines. Her talk struck a cord in me; I was resolved there and then to visit the home.
My stay at the Cagayan Valley Children's Home in April, 1986 left a mark. I had experienced love and joy in the home which had filled a void in my own life. I left disappointed not to have been offered a job; I was ready to leave Japan and work for nothing but God had other plans!
Soon after my return to Japan, I was alerted through a newspaper article to a famine on the Philippine island of Negros. The world price of sugar had collapsed and thousands of sugar workers could no longer feed their families. I resolved to go and on January 1st 1987, I landed in the capital city, Bacolod.
The story of the early days of the PSHF are to be found elsewhere on the website, including the details of the first two livelihood loans. I should like to conclude by telling the reader about our first 'grant' for medical assistance. I was in the main square near Bacolod's Capitol building when I saw a child all on her own with an open wound in her leg. She was no more than 5 years old and her name was Christina Ambong. I took her to the doctor and was charged 50 pesos (US$1) to have her wound cleansed of pus and dressed. She walked out of there with a beautiful white dressing and soon after I met her mother, a vendor of plastic bags.
I plan to tell you more about Christina and her family in a separate article; indeed I hope to assemble a series of reminiscences over in the future so watch this space!
Richard Foster
2nd September, 2010