By ARLENE MANNLEIN
Decatur Herald and Review Staff Writer
The library in Pantay is filled with children and books.
DECATUR – Nancy Judd Hawbaker of Decatur never got to see the library that now honors her in Pantay, Philippines.
After Hawbaker’s death in 2009 at age 67, her husband, Stuart, his brother, John, and John’s wife, Barbi Carroll-Hawbaker, decided to build the structure in her honor.
The library sits in front of a church built in honor of the men’s mother, the late Jeanette Parker, who died in 2008. Both buildings were constructed through a mission founded by John Hawbaker and Barbi Carroll-Hawbaker, Mission Love Seeds Inc., which now has three churches and six water purification systems to its credit.
“The library is stocked with books. Most of them came from the Destin (Fla.) United Methodist Church,” said Carroll-Hawbaker.
The children of that church gathered books as part of a vacation Bible school project.
The library was built with local labor and materials, and many women of the village clean the library and help in its operation, Carroll-Hawbaker said.
“There is someone in charge who lives in the village,” she said.
Carroll-Hawbaker said she and her husband founded the mission after moving to Florida from Ohio.
“It’s a God thing. We did that (moved) to retire,” she said. “Now my husband says he’s ‘just tired.’”
Once in Destin, they met a woman named Fely Zapanta, not knowing that encounter would lead them to found Mission Love Seeds. Zapanta shared photographs of children in her homeland, the Philippines, and Carroll-Hawbaker said she could not get the images out of her mind.
“I wanted to do something. I wanted to help the children.”
Her initial idea was to gather 600 pounds of rice to help feed some of those children.
“Long story short, the people I told said, ‘They (the children) can’t live on rice alone.’ We ended up having box after box.”
Zapanta had to return to the Philippines, but it was just in time to receive those boxes, distribute them before Christmas and become the Mission Love Seeds coordinator there.
Since then, the mission also has helped victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquakes.
“I am very proud of this Monticello boy and his wife who are trying to help some very poor children in the Philippines,” said Stuart Hawbaker.
“I know Nancy would be very proud of this library we built in her honor,” he said. “She loved reading so much and would be thrilled to see the pictures of all the kids in the library.”
This article first appeared in the Decatur Herald Review on April 17, 2010.
