Year 2002 before the Packards received the Mission call from the Church in 2006
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This summer, I did something I haven’t done during my entire career as a physical therapist.
I took time off from work and left the country
for three months. Many of you know that I’ve been working with my wife, Cindy, in a non-profit organization we founded last year known as Care for Life.
Our work focuses entirely in Mozambique, Africa, and involves providing a free health care clinic, providing agricultural assistance in gardening and small animal production, and education in several other areas, including
health, agriculture, Portuguese literacy, English and computer training.
We also have a small microcredit loan program. We have spent from mid-May until mid-August primarily in Beira, Sofala Province, Mozambique. Another FSBPT Board
member, Deb Tharp, joined us for two weeks this summer and worked in severalclinics and hospitals, providing greatly needed pediatric physical therapy,consultation and training.
Lest anyone think that I’ve neglected the Federation, I will simply add that email still gets through and there has been a constant flow in both directions over the past three months.
The work of the Federation goes on and there are
wonderfully talented Board members and staff who have continued without missing a beat in my physical absence. I also returned to the U.S. for one week in
late June to join other Board members and staff for our annual planning retreat.
At the same time I’m writing this column, I’m also writing an annual report to the Delegate Assembly. In that report I’ll detail current issues, activities and goals
of the Federation. But in this column, I’ve chosen to divert for a moment and share a little of our African experience with you.
I’ve taken the opportunity to record a few journal entries on occasion and will simply share here some excerpts
from a few entries. While everything we do in life has importance, I’m learning the lesson that it is the everyday opportunities placed in front of us, the choices
we make each hour, particularly in how we see and relate with others, that have the largest effect on others and on our own lives.
MAY 20, 2002, MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE
Africa has a way of stripping you down emotionally until you stand almost naked and look at yourself. As this evening wore on, I found sleep fleeing away, and then
finally, Cindy and I just got up and talked for a while about what was on our minds.
We talked about family relationships, and then I shared that I was troubled about the day’s events at the craft fair. I may have been temporarily pleased with
my purchases of craft items, but even that had faded. I was not pleased at all with my treatment of human beings.
There were some there, particularly the beggar
with the withered hand—I had successfully avoided even looking into his face or eyes for an entire morning, even though I had dozens of opportunities to do so as
he strove for my attention.
I was in Africa on the pretense of doing charitable work in health and economic development, and yet I haggled over a few dollars to help honest craftsmen, and I ignored someone with a disabled arm and leg whose
Blair J. Packard, PT, was elected president of the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy in March 1999 and releected in April 2001. Prior to that, he served the Federation as chair of the legislative committee and chair of the task force that developed the Model Practice Act for Physical Therapy.
He has been active in the American Physical Therapy Association as Arizona chapter president (1983-1984) and as a member of the APTA Board of Directors (1991-1994).
He served on the Arizona Board of Physical Therapy Examiners (1987-1991).
Mr. Packard is a practicing clinician and co-owner of East Valley Physical Therapy and Aquatic Rehabilitation in Mesa, Arizona.
We know the common pattern lds are using even now in Africa is to send in a humanitarian couple to do work of that nature -- so it opens a door for their mission, missionaries, stakes, branches and mission presidents of a district to follow. (IOW, the humanitarian work rarely stands on its own as the lone motivation...now while the Mormons aren't alone in often having hidden motivations re: humanitarian work, it just seems like the Lds pattern in Africa is too "coincidental" for it to be anything but a structured way of how to get the governments to approve of their presence and expansion in that country)