Bridging the Gap

Publisher Marketing: My life is a story. Bridging the Gap chronicles my journey from World War II - I survived the Japanese, the Muslim raiders, malaria, and leeches in the jungle - to building a bridge of understanding, peace, and harmony through education across religious and cultural barriers in my hometown, Balabagan, Lanao del Sur, Philippines. I am a descendant of immigrants in the 1920's from Cebu in the Central Visayas, who acquired tracts of land as homesteads in Lanao del Sur, a province with a large Muslim population. Walk with me in my journey as the woven tapestry of events unravel through education at Silliman University in the Philippines and Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington; marriage to Dr, Merton D. Munn, Presbyterian missionary to Silliman University; service at Silliman, with the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia in New York, at Lakeland Village School in Medical Lake, Washington, Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska, and as Principal of Blair Elementary School on Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. I survived the turmoil and challenges after my husband's death. Meandering through widowhood in search for a life with purpose, I decided to help build and develop Shalom Science Institute, a non-profit Christian school in Balabagan. It was a turning point in my retirement, one that had taken me to China to teach for four years and to Chile for two years to generate funds to build the school. From experience with leeches in the jungle in the Philippines, to view the vast expanse of China from the Great Wall and to climb the Moia Statue quarry in Easter Island in 2007 is a span of sixty six years I continue on bridging the gap between Christians and Filipino Muslims in Balabagan, my hometown... My story is far from over