Maria Consuela "Chelito" Dimayo, from the book "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" by Kent Miles & James N. Kimball, (Handcart Books, 2009)

MARIA CONSUELA "CHELITO" DIMAYO

Interviewed in November 2000 by Kent Miles

Manilla, Philippines
©2000 Kent Miles 

In the early 1970s, "Chelito" Dimayo was a guerilla in the Philippine hills, fighting against the Marcos regime. Today, she is an active church member who has held almost every position a woman can hold in her ward in Tacloban, and her seven children have gone on to attend LDS colleges and marry in LDS temples. Her life has had many difficult periods, but she feels no bitterness. "I know how lucky I am, " she says. "I've been very, very blessed."

*****

I was born on September 12, 1951, in Nasipiti Agusan del Norte. It is a small town in Mindanao. I have one brother and three sisters, and I've been a member of the Church for almost 27 years. I also have a sister who was baptized this year. I have nine children--seven are living, I lost two in infancy--and one granddaughter. I have one son who's on a mission in California right now, and two children studying at BYU-Hawaii. My oldest son went to BYU and met his wife there. They're now living in Midvale, Utah. The rest are still living at home.

Although I was born in Mindanao, I was raised in Manila. After I was born my father went to work for an American company and transferred there. He worked at Subic Base, and from there he went to Pakistan and Vietnam, as a civilian.

I grew up as a Catholic. I studied in an exclusive girls' school, and later I transferred to a private high school. Afterward, I went to the University of San Tomas and studied nursing for three years, but I never took it up as a profession because in 1972 1 got involved with a movement that was fighting against the Marcos dictatorship. I got involved because my cousin, whom I was rooming with, was a leader of the Makabaka. This was a woman's organization, a counterpart to the men's organization that was opposing Marcos.

There were lots of anti-Marcos discussion groups meeting in the schools, and I think they were particularly interested in recruiting from the college of nursing so they could get people to run the movement's medical units. My cousin asked me to help her with a few minor tasks--typing her speeches, and proofreading some of their literature. Of course, when you're proofreading you're also reading the material. I started thinking, "This is really something important," and I started going to meetings with her.

I recognized that there were social problems in my country. I saw poverty all around me every day. But I thought, "Well, that's life, there's nothing you can do about it." But as I grew up and went to college, and read my cousin's literature, I realized, "You can do something about it."

I thought about it, and decided that it wouldn't be enough to finish college and go to work, helping myself and my family. You have to help others, as well. So I decided to join my cousin in the movement, and I participated in rallies and demonstrations against the president.

My cousin got blacklisted, and had to leave school. But she told me, "If anything happens, don't worry, we'll get you out of there." Then, after a major demonstration, I was blacklisted and jailed too.

I was bailed-out by my father, and the school expelled me, saying they couldn't be responsible for my actions. The police followed me everywhere. But my cousin contacted me, and told me that the movement would pick me up and take me into the underground. I wound up in a safe house in Manila, and that's where I met my husband. I was serving as a bare-foot nurse, and he was a bare-foot doctor. We had enough received enough medical training that we could care for those who with gun-shot wounds. and the kinds of injuries the combatants received. This was before either of us became interested in the Church. My husband to be was very nice. He was a gentle person, and as I saw him take care of our patients, his kindness charmed me. That’s how we met.

We learned that we would both be sent to Angeles Pampanga, to staff a hospital that was being built by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). When we reached Angeles, we started buying medicines and supplies for the hospital. We worked with the doctors in the operating room, learning first aid procedures, but at the same time we were providing support for the CPP and its Military wing, the NPA (New People's Army). Any of their people who were wounded in encounters with the government military were sent to us. We treated them for gunshot wounds, many of them very serious, because the government troops used soft-nosed bullets, which make a small entry wound but a large, nasty exit wound.

After a while my husband was sent to the mountains, where more people were being shot and where there were many cases of tuberculosis and other diseases. I was already pregnant with our first child, and I stayed behind in the city, running the hospital. What I didn't know was that one of our patients had been caught by the government and tortured. He told me later that the soldiers broke one of his legs. Finally he gave in to the pain and told them the location of the hospital.

One afternoon I locked up the hospital while I took a nap. Somehow the troops got in, and I was awakened by a gun barrel poking me in the face, and a man's voice saying, "Wake up." I saw ten men in army uniforms standing around me, and I panicked.

"No sudden movements," they told me. "Just stand up and turn around." They were looking for a certain commander in the movement, and I told them, "He's not here. Go ahead and look around, but there's no one here but me." When they looked in the attic they found the guns we were hiding, in case we needed to protect ourselves.

"What's this?" they asked me.

"Well, we have them for protection. Come on, I can't even reach the attic."

Often female prisoners were raped, or even killed, but for some reason they didn't touch me. I was using the nom de guerre of a very high government official, and they might have thought that they would be in trouble if anything happened to me.

But I still didn't escape the torture; I think everyone has to undergo that. While we were still in the house, I was beaten with the stock of an M- 16, because they wanted me to tell them where my husband was.

After I'd sat in a comer for about three hours, while they decided what to do with me, the commander they were looking for came to the hospital. Later I learned that he'd come because he had heard that our former patient had been captured, and he wanted to take me out of the hospital before the troops, got there. When he came in, the troops grabbed him and started beating both of us. The commander kept shouting, "Don't touch her! " But the more he shouted, the more they beat him. They wanted him to give evidence against me, but he refused.

After we were beaten we were taken to the military camp in Angeles, Camp Olivas, for tactical interrogation. They asked me questions, and if I didn't give the answer they wanted to hear, they slapped me. I still withheld my real name from them, so my parents never learned that I had

been taken.

I finally had to tell the military that I was pregnant with my first baby. They sent me to a hospital, to make sure that the beatings hadn't damaged my baby. Luckily, everything was fine.

When I got back from the hospital, they kept me in a military barracks with the other female prisoners. We were fed a steady diet of dried fish and rice, every day, which wasn't enough nourishment for a healthy baby. But the people outside brought fresh fruits and vegetables to the prisoners, and thanks to them my first son was born perfectly healthy.

After the birth of my first child, we lived in the prison for another year, while I applied for amnesty on the grounds that prison wasn't a healthy place to raise an infant. After a series of conferences, the military agreed to grant me an amnesty, on the condition that I report in weekly so that they could see that the child was well and I was no longer with the underground. My husband heard through sources in the opposition that I had been released, and sent me a note, saying that he wanted to see our son for the first time. He knew the risks, but he was just too excited about being a father to stay away.

Eventually we managed to set up a meeting, and the baby cried the entire time. But my husband was thrilled, and promised to find a way that we could all be together again in the underground. One day he sent word that I should pack my belongings and meet him with the baby at a certain time and place. I went there and waited, but he never came. Finally I learned through friends that he had been taken prisoner, and was being tortured. Even today he still has health problems as a result of his beatings in prison.

My husband was held in prison for eight months. After he was freed, we went to Cebu, where his family lived. We tried to find work, but no one would hire my husband because he was a known opponent of the Marcos regime. My husband is quite an artist, and he started giving art lessons and selling his own paintings. Eventually he had several students, and that's how we got by.

It was about this time that we first became acquainted with the LDS Church. My husband's cousin was working for the Church Educational System, and he was transferred to Cebu to help establish the seminary program there. He and his wife told us a little about the Church. Later, we met the LDS missionaries when they began coming by to meet with my father-in-law.

Eventually he lost interest, but the missionaries still came by. They would play with my baby, and I would sit and chat with them. Later my husband joined us, and before long we were listening to the discussions. About a year and a half later, in 1975, we were both baptized.

After we were baptized, some people from the guerilla movement contacted us to see how we felt about involvement with the opposition. We told them, "We have two kids now. We still support the goals of the movement, but we'll support them in a way that seems best for us and our children. " We found that the Church gave us opportunities to work to improve the social conditions in our country. One of the most important factors in changing the culture of poverty is the changes that are made inside a person, and the Church showed us that if you have the desire to make those changes, everything outside will change too.

My husband and I served a mission in Tacloban, in the Visaya Islands. It's a beautiful part of the Philippines, and it made me proud to be a citizen of such a lovely country. The Philippines is a great place to live, if you know how to live properly. So many of the people are poor and illiterate, and the help they receive from the government and other sources doesn't really show them how they can make things better for themselves. Being an active Church member helps you see a better way.

The Church makes a big difference in people's lives here. I think the Church welfare program is the best in the Philippines. I see this in my own ward, because we have many indigent members. Our bishop is a good man, and he finds a way to help everybody. During the recent flooding here, it took the government some time to respond, but the Church was there right away. Even non-members got assistance from the Church.

Back in 1979 our house burned down, so with the flooding my husband says, "Well, now we can sing, 'I've seen fire and I've seen rain.' " That fire was the first big trial we went through after joining the Church, but it was much harder to deal with the loss of our two children who died in infancy. My visiting teachers were a source of support during those times, and I continued to read the scriptures. Ultimately I relied on my faith in God, and my knowledge that I would see my children again if I remained faithful and true. I'd like to see young women working to change the world, but I'd like to see them use a different approach from the one I used when I was in my 20s. Back then, I saw the opposition making a difference in people's lives, but when we were captured by the government, the local people went back to the lives they led before. They hadn't changed inside. If more young people would share their testimonies with others, and help them to see how they can change the way they look at themselves and others, I think that would make a real difference.

I'm not sure how well young people here are receiving the Gospel message. I've been to Church dances where I saw young people dancing to music with objectionable lyrics, that would drag them down instead of edifying them. And I see young people dressing in ways that reflect fashion more than the attitudes of a Gospel lifestyle. Part of that, I'm sure, is just normal peer pressure and adolescent rebellion, but another part of the problem is that practically all of the Church materials that we receive are in English. If you don't speak English well, then it's difficult to get the full Gospel message here. I'm concerned that we're losing a lot of young people who were brought up in the Church because of this problem.

I think parents bear the biggest responsibility for keeping their children on the Gospel path. They can express the Gospel in their family life--through family prayers, family home evening, and their own conduct. Always watch for those "teaching moments." They don't always occur in the chapel.

I taught seminary for eighteen years, and Institute for two years. That experience taught me a lot as well. In fact, I'd say I've learned more through my experiences in the Church than I ever did from my experiences in the hills. In the hills, you woke up every day thinking, "Today I might die." My cousin, who got me involved with the opposition, did die. It was even more terrifying to think that someday I might have to kill someone so that I could survive. None of that applies in the Church. Instead, you always find new opportunities to express your love for others and to bask in God's love.

If I could give young women in the Philippines one piece of advice, it would be to stay close to the Church. It may not be able to solve all of your problems, but it can keep you on the right path. Adhering to the principles of the Gospel is the one sure way to happiness, and it will never lead you astray.

Eight Years Later

I still have three children at home. Two are in college, and one just left for his mission.

I have married children. I’m happy they married in the temple, and I’m happy they have remained strong in the Church. Our children like the stories we can tell from the revolution, but their experiences have been those of growing up in the Church. They have learned to be independent, and I have seen them make their own difficult decisions based upon the values they have received from the Church. When I think of independence in terms of what we experienced in the Revolution, it is very, very different from the kind of independence my children have grown up with, and with what they know right now.

As my children have grown I have been able to do my housework quickly and I found I had more time on my hands. So I decided to go back to college and to get additional training in the care of geriatric patients. I finished that, and after 6 months my school contacted me and asked if I would be willing to teach Care Giving in the school where I graduated. And since I had lots of time, I said “Yes. I am more that willing to teach.”

I started teaching, and while teaching I decided I should improve myself some more. So I enrolled in college to get a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a major in English. I decided on English because eventually I’d like to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers – like Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and of course Philippino’s who are willing to enroll.

I see this as having a connection with my other work, since there are many students in my Care Giving classes who cannot speak good English. They have difficulty finding employment because they can’t communicate fluently in English. My feeling is that if I am able to teach them how to speak better English in order to pass their interviews at the embassy or the job interviews they apply for, it would make a significant difference in their lives. I just graduated with my Bachelor’s degree, and in order to teach English as a second language I will need to take additional courses that will be equivalent to getting a Master’s degree in English. So that is what I start on next. Life is never dull.

The biggest surprise I have had in life, since the time I had children, was the way my children seemed to suddenly grow up, were getting married and leaving home. It was as though I woke up one day and my children had their own families. I have come to realize that life is short, and our experiences here on earth are to teach us what God wants wants us to learn. I realize that nothing is permanent in this world. The only permanency is change.

Tsobinar Tadevosyan, from the book "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" by Kent Miles and James N. Kimball (Handcart Books, 2009)

TSOBINAR TADEVOSYAN

Teacher

Yerevan, Armenia

Interview by Kent Miles

10 April 1997, Salt Lake City, Utah

©Kent Miles

In 1951, Tsobinar Tadevosyan’s brother published pamphlets protesting the forced relocation of native Armenians out of Georgia. He was shot while being held by the Soviet KGB. Tsobinar and her family were arrested, taken from their homes, and sentenced to five years in a Siberian prison camp. In the Gulag she experienced trials and terrors most people would be unable to imagine.

Of the experience she said, “Though it was hard, those who were sent there were the best people of our country. They were the thinkers, the scholars, the artists and poets, and the most moral of men and women. They were the ones who dared to speak out against injustice. It was a profound and even joyous experience.” She was released after five years and returned to Armenia where she married and raised a family. She was interviewed at the home of her son in Salt Lake City. She passed away in 2007.

“I believe I was kept alive only because of my faith in my Father in Heaven.

I believe he did this so I might hear and understand the Gospel in this life.”

*****

I was born in July 6, 1930 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Both my parents were Armenian. My parents were survivors of the genocide of 1915 in Turkey. My father was an actor and my mother was a teacher. I had four brothers, but three of them died and only one survived. His name was Andronik. He was the oldest, and he was an actor, too, in Tbiblisi.

In the genocide the Turks killed my grandfather. He was a lawyer and they killed him, and almost all of my father's family was killed. They captured my grandmother and sent her to a camp in Turkey. My aunt, with her two children, jumped from the bridge not to be in the hand of Turks. My other aunt just disappeared . . .

In Georgia in 1949 the KGB started arresting Armenian families, just whole families and putting them in trains - cattle cars. The KGB was doing that, but at that time they had a different name. All the intelligent people were disappearing. Then we heard that poets and artists and writers, and many of our teachers, were disappearing, just disappearing. After a while we learned that they had been imprisoned. At that time in 1949, they didn't do anything to our family. Everything was okay.

But it was happening around us. All around us, our neighborhood, my teachers, only Armenians. And every day when we'd see our neighbors or someone that we knew, we'd give each other hugs and start crying. We were happy that we were still there, that we were not in the prison.

In 1949, June 14, the KGB arrested my husband's family. (We didn't know each other yet. ) They were arresting whole families, and were sending them to Siberia, to one town. The families were told "You will live in this town." It was not a prison, but forced relocation of families. Those who resisted were arrested, taken to the KGB building in Tiblisi. There were trials, beatings, killings ... In 1949, on June 14, in just one day they arrested, I don't know how many families, 100, 200, 1,000, I don't know how many families But they were also arresting individuals and putting them into the prison, one by one, not as families.

When the KGB started acting this way, all of my family was worried because we were different, like our those who were disappearing. My brother was really worried. As an Armenian man, he was concerned about what was happening all around him, not only to Armenians. They were catching some Georgians, too.

My brother knew that they would eventually arrest him, too. He said if we don't do anything, we can't change anything. He decided to print brochures warning people to be careful. He denounced what the KGB and government were doing, crying out that it was not right. He warned that if they continued the day would come when they will answer to the people for what they did. In the mornings and late at night he would put these brochures on the walls and around the neighborhood. In the beginning it worked in this way. After that he started going to theaters and to cinemas. In the middle of the show he'd just throw the brochures from the balcony.

I think that he was right in what he was doing. He was the one. There needs to be one to tell the government and the KGB that they were not doing right, and he was the one who did that. He knew that they would catch him. He sacrificed himself for the nation, not only for Armenians. Most of the time he was writing, he wrote not only for Armenians, not only for Georgians, but for all the people of the Soviet Union, all nationalities, not only for Armenian....

At the time [my brother was arrested] I was in living in another area, teaching school, very far from Tiblisi. One day the KGB came into the town. There were no telephones. I didn't know what was happening in Tiblisi, what was happening with my family, with my brother's family and my mother. Two days after my family had been arrested, the KGB came to the village where I taught school, and they arrested me. I was in the middle of my lesson. They just came into my class and they took me away...

I was arrested in November of 1951, and arrived in the Gulag on October 12, 1952. It took three days going from Moscow to Siberia, three days without stopping, to get there. I was very tired and very depressed. All my family was arrested, but I was the only one who got only ten years. Ten years in the prison, and five years probation in the same town, not having any rights. I asked them to please let me say goodbye to my mother. They didn't let me . . .

Until Stalin's death, it was very, very bad. He died in 1953, on March 5th. I was in a camp. It was isolated . . . separated. There were soldiers standing in towers, with dogs, lots of dogs. All the soldiers who were looking after prisoners were told that all these women were enemies to the Soviet Union. They were told all this, and they watched us very, very closely. Most of the time they were laughing at us. At the prison they gave us black wool clothes. They had a prison for men, too, but it was separate.

I was in a building with two floors, and bunk beds. We were like fish. The room was made for 15 people, but more than 50 people lived there. We had one bathroom in the same room. They kept me there for 21 days. Then we were taken to the woods, where we worked cutting trees, draining the swamp. Ten months in the year it was snowing. Ten months. Then one or two months without snow, and daylight for 24 hours. Every day I prayed. I was praying for my mother. I was praying for my brother—I didn't know that he was killed. I was praying for his children . . .

I was blessed as a prisoner there. It was only because of my Heavenly Father that I survived. Only my faith and my prayers saved me. At five o'clock every morning we woke up and were given a small bowl of rice or gruel, then the soldiers took us to the places of work. Every day we walked 10 kilometers there and back—all year, even the winter. All the time I was working, I was praying. All the way there and all the way back, I was praying.

When they sent me to the prison, in one way I was happy, because when I looked around me I saw so many innocent people. They did not do anything. Maybe one of them told a joke or something. But I felt that it was good for me to be there because I did something to be there. Strictly speaking, I was not innocent. I supported my brother. I only helped him once, but I believed in him. And I knew what he was doing.

I didn't have any hate in me, for people, for government. I didn't have hate. I had a deep pain inside, as though my heart was always hurting, but not hate. And I'm just surprised when I see people who have been in Siberia, and when they speak they are full of hate. But I just think I'm happy that I've been there. The only thing I feel very bad about is that my brother is not alive, and he is not here to witness that what he was telling came true. But I lost these years. I didn't have a chance to use those years, and when I think about my youth, I try to imagine what my life would have been like if they had not sent me to prison. I just try to think what might have happened and I have a pain. Only pain, but not hate.

In prison, I always had big, big hope. I always knew that in the end, everything would be okay. I was always telling my friends, "The time will come. It will not be this way always, and our lives will change.” My nickname was The Idealist. All those years in the prison, I was trying to take something from life, to learn something. I practiced my Russian those years. When I saw someone doing something, I would try to learn interesting things. I learned about medicine. I tried to read big books and practice mathematics. I was very active playing chess. When they had a competition between the women in the prison, I won first place.

Though prison was hard, those who were sent there were the best people of our country. They were the thinkers, the scholars, the artists and poets, some of the most moral of men and women. They were the ones who dared to speak out against injustice. It was a profound and even joyous experience.

They were very, very interesting people, the prisoners, very interesting. Out of four thousand women, there was only a handful that were not political prisoners—they were just ordinary criminals. Some of them had shot some guards. So instead of being ordinary criminals, they became political prisoners, political terrorists. We were considered worse than ordinary criminals.

I stayed in the prison four years, eight months. In 1956, a big group from Moscow was assigned to start letting prisoners out of the prison. They were asking us questions and just letting some of us go.  At the time of Stalin’s death, I had been interviewed by one of these men. The government was giving amnesty to many, but not to me. They were not going to let me go.

They called me a second time before the whole group, nine people. They started asking me questions, so I told my story, what had happened. They asked me, "What do you think? Was your brother right? Did he do the right thing or not?" I said, "Yes, I think that he did right."

So one of those nine people, he would not agree to let me go. They said they'd let me go only if someone from outside would write a letter that they would be responsible for me. I told them I would not agree to that. I'm not guilty, and I know that. I said, "Who's going to write a letter like that? Maybe he's more guilty than me."

I said, "I'm not guilty. I want to be a normal citizen, and if you think I'm guilty just shoot me, too, because I don't want to live without any rights. I don't want to speak any more with you because nobody will understand me."

There was one person from these nine who had been in prison too. He said, "No, don't think that way. I was in prison, too, and I understand you." This old man said he knew my case, and that I didn't have any relatives to write a letter. My brother had been killed. For months I didn't know where my mother was. So he said, "I'll write letter for you."

I was always praying. In the beginning there had been 4,000 women in the prison and now there were only 40 remaining. One day I came and I kneeled down on the floor and started crying. I couldn't take any more. It was very hard for me. I prayed. If you'll just open one window for me and help me to go out from this prison. And it was the next day, maybe two days later, that they called me back again. It was on my birthday, July 6. They asked me "If we let you to go, what you will do?" I said, "I wish to go to Armenia, to Yerevan. And I'm going to continue my education." So they said, "We have decided to let you go, but we are not going to give you amnesty." They let me go. No amnesty, just an early release.

I think that I needed to go through this experience. I know that everything that happened, it happened by providence, that God's hand was in this. The years that I went through all this, it was like a very big school. And all the people who went through this school, they got cleaner inside. It was a purifying experience.

Now, when I think about all these things that happened . . . I believe it was Heavenly Father's will that we experience everything that happened. One time I asked my mother—after the prison, in Armenia—about these things. I asked, "Why? You and Father were so kind and such honest people. Why does this happen to us? Why is Heavenly Father punishing us so, giving us so much suffering?" My mother said, "Jesus Christ was Heavenly Father's son. Don't you know His father loved him so much, and yet he went through all his sufferings too. Don't think that we are suffering so very much, and don't think it means that Heavenly Father doesn't love us."

And I always remember what she told me: "There is a purpose, and Heavenly Father gives us all these problems. We need to go through all these things. It is not that Heavenly Father doesn't love us, He loves everybody. But it needs to be this way. We need to go through all these things.” After that, I was always remembered that Heavenly Father gave all the trials to his son, all the pain, and that Christ sacrificed himself for the people. This always helps me when I remember my brother. He gave his life for others. And then he went away.

My advice to others is that when they have hard times—and there will always be hard times—to be still. The first thing to always do is pray, always pray, and have faith and hope. When my son came to America it was very, very hard for him, very difficult. I would always write in my letters, "Please be patient and always remember how your mother spent five years in prison and what the conditions were that I endured. Always lay your burdens on Heavenly Father. Always trust Heavenly Father. Always pray and always have faith.

Difficulty is always for people, and people need to always be strong and experience all things, and rise above it all. There are people who have great difficulties, but they choose not to grow from them. They go the wrong way. Everybody always needs to stay very clean, their hearts must stay clean, and to go the right way.

One day when I was in the prison, they took a group of us to the kitchen to peel potatoes. A couple of the women said, "Okay, we have this chance, let's take couple of potatoes and hide them, take to our barracks, and then we'll cook them and we'll eat." I said, "It makes me very mad." I said, "You can't do that, because you are going to steal our friends' food. I'll not take part in what you are going to do, to steal." And they started laughing at me and they said, "You are idiot." They took the potatoes. They brought them to their barracks, they fried them and they ate. And as they were eating they said, "Okay, okay, now come and eat with us." I said, "No, I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to take from the others."

There are many, many small stories, episodes from my life in which I could choose to go the easier way. But Heavenly Father was helping me always, to choose the right way.

And when you are doing something good, something for others, you never need to tell or announce or remind others every time, just do it quietly. When we help someone else, we are helping ourselves.

Carol Gray, conclusion, from the book "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" by Kent Miles and James N. Kimball (Handcart Books, 2009)

This is the concluding segment of the interview Jim Kimball and I did with Carol Gray.  Carol passed away after a long battle with cancer on July 3, 2010.

     The fact is that I know the Lord went with us on that first convoy, and so a month later I went on another one and I continued to return. The Lord has just opened so many doors to me that have allowed me to go into areas where not even the UN was in the early days.  The UN used to come up for a debrief. They would ask "Where have you been?"  I would tell them and they'd say, "How have you got into there?"  I would say, "It was because the village people took me round the back way so that they knew I would be safe."  They then said, "We can't believe you've gone there.  We can't even get in and we are a peacekeeping force."

     I had a strong feeling before I went on that first trip that I knew I would be kept safe and that the Lord would look after me, but I somehow knew that it had to be me to go.  I realize now why. I know that in the early days it had to be a woman, because a woman wasn't seen as a threat, and they were great with me.  They looked after me so wonderfully.  They are very special people. 

     I have been on 32 convoys there, and over the years the British people have been wonderful. It costs us approximately £8,000 to £10,000 every time a convoy goes over.  It is an extremely expensive trip.  Over the years we have taken well in excess of £4,000,000 worth of aid just as a small charity.  I know that is because the Lord has opened so many doors.  

     We have been able to go to some of the most incredible places where there has been the greatest need.  These people just throw their arms around me and tell me how much they appreciate what we have done and how grateful they are. It is a wonderful feeling to hug someone and say "We're here because we care and because we love you."  It has just been an unbelievable story to me of how, when the Lord is on your side and you have a desire to help He gives you the ability to be able to do it.

     I have learned a lot over these last few years.  I have learned that as individuals each and every one of us can make a big difference, regardless of how small we are, or how insignificant we think we are.  I am just a very ordinary English housewife and mother that has got involved in something that the Lord has somehow made very wonderful.  I did not expect that when I began this. I think the greatest lesson I have learned is that within each and every one of us there is a wonderful capacity to do a lot of good.  All we have to do is get down on our knees and ask the Lord what he wants us to do with our lives, and he will direct our path.  

     Another thing I have realized is that the greatest gifts I will ever have in life are the spiritual gifts, such as gratitude and love for these people.  There is just a wonderful feeling of oneness with them.  I know that over these last few years I have sometimes put my hand out in times of real difficulty, and I know that the Lord has taken it.  I have learned to love my Savior very much.  It has been quite an incredible experience for me.

     All we have got to do is just plunge in and do it and not be afraid.   I am not a business woman.  I am totally devoid of any business acumen, but I muddle through it, and somehow the Lord has given me the ability to raise the money that is needed.  I can't always believe that it was me that has been through all of this. Some people get involved in things like this because they enjoy the publicity of the moment, but most people go there because they genuinely care, and they do a wonderful job. 

     I remember one man who came on a convoy. He was an ex-SAS paratrooper and he was a very macho, tough man.  He was a born-again Christian. When he phoned me, he explained who he was and said, "I've heard about these wonderful convoys you do.  I'd like to go on one, can I join you?"  I said, "We would love to have you."  But then he said "I must say to you, I don't want any of this lovey-dovey stuff, I have heard that your convoys are a bit emotional and you put your arms around everybody and you tell them that you care, and that isn't my scene at all.  I just want to go and take the stuff and hand it to them."  So I said "Fine, that's lovely."  When I met him, he was a lovely man and I traveled with him for a time. As we traveled there he was saying, "You're not going to get me putting my arms around anybody.  It's just not my way.” 

     When we got into the first village all these old ladies came running out because they recognized our vans and all the other convoy members who had been before were greeting them and there were tears all around. Mike was standing back. This old lady went up to him, she just threw her arms around him and he just raised her in the air, and spun her around and he had tears streaming down his face. He hugged everything that moved after that.  He was just the most amazing man. He came on several convoys afterwards and always loved the experience. 

     The Croatian government in Rovanska asked me if I could take lots of flat pack kitchens and bathroom suites. We had lots of these flat pack kitchens donated, and many bathroom suites of all different colours. I was just leaving on the convoy and I suddenly had this real strong urge to put my old pea green bathroom suite on the truck.  It was the last one to be loaded. I thought nobody will want it but I will take it just in case.  I was a bit embarrassed about it when it came out as it was such a disgusting colour. 

     As we started to hand the aid out in Rovanska all the lovely bathroom suites came out, the magnolia ones, the white ones, the pink ones, the light grey ones. Eventually the only bathroom suite that was left was mine and everybody was saying, "Ugh, who on earth would want that disgusting green?" 

     We went to this last house and the lady came out as she was expecting her bathroom suite.  When she saw the bathroom suite on the truck she threw her arms in the air. She laughed and started to cry and hugged me, and then she said, "You come, you come, you see."  She took me in to her home. It was devastated, but it had had a new roof on it.  There was no furniture in it and the only room that was left intact was where the bathroom suite was going.   It was the only room that had any tiles on the wall.  The tiles left on that wall were an exact match to the bathroom suite.  She just raised her hands and said prayers the whole time. She just loved this bathroom suite. 

     It is a funny story, but if I hadn't have been prompted to put it in, we would have been one bathroom suite short and she would have gone without. Yet it turned out to be the exact colour that she wanted. 

Eleven Years Later – September 2008 

     My last convoy to the Balkans was in 1999. It was in 2000 that I was invited by the church humanitarian department to visit Africa. We flew out to assess the situation and see if we could help in any way. My first trip was amazing.  

     I always had a dream to build an orphanage in Africa. It would be like a home with a momma and a family. There are so many children in Africa that grow up without their parents, due to the aids epidemic, other diseases and poverty. I wanted to give these children an environment that would be as close as possible to being raised in a family. 

     In 2001 I returned to Ghana and bought 36 acres of land in Trom, Somanya. This was an area of great need. The first necessity was to sink a well, so that there would be water close by for the village and the site. We then began the building work. We built houses that would a home for 10 – 12 children, a momma and another caregiver. 

     We called the site Mmofra Trom – this means Children’s garden, aptly named to emulate the focus of what we wanted for the children whose home it would become. The homes were opened in 2004 and since then I have been privileged to see many young children come to our homes. They have been sad, frightened, shy, nervous and timid on arrival. It has been amazing to see the transformation in them from their arrival to when I next visit Ghana. They are cared for, sheltered, fed and loved. When I see them again they are smiling, laughing and playing as all young children should. Their personalities are flourishing; their confidence just gleams and their eyes are bright. 

     The site has always tried to be as self sufficient as possible. There is a fish farm, poultry and a plantation to provide food for the children. Also the children are to be trained in a trade that will help them be able to provide for themselves when they are adults.

     In 2006 the school was opened and it has gone from small beginnings to grow and flourish. It now has an intake of 400 students. The next plans are for a medical centre that will reach out to 40 villages in the surrounding area, so that those who cannot walk to get medical treatment will still be able to have health care. All the volunteers in Hugs International feel that Mmofra Trom is an oasis in Ghana and will always try to shelter and protect those in need. It has been a wonderful blessing to have been part of this amazing experience.

 

Carol Gray, part 2, from the book "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" by Kent Miles & James N. Kimball (Handcart Books 2009)

          The feeling that prompted me I know has prompted me many times in my life, but because of that experience I was more aware of it.  I recognized it when it came.  It was that same feeling that came one day when I had been watching the events that had been unfolding in what was then Yugoslavia.  We were watching awful scenes of what was happening there day after day and night after night. Although I didn't want to see it, I was compelled to put the TV on every day to see how the situation was unfolding.

          One particular night I can remember watching a program on the women who had been released from the Serbian rape camps.  I was watching the looks on their faces and I really felt inside this same feeling come. I felt I needed to do something, but I didn't know what.  At this time I was serving as Relief Society President in my ward and I questioned my feelings again.  I'm not an adventurous woman at all and I didn't even go down to the London temple without my husband.  I had no intentions of ever leaving my family at any time.   I really felt strongly that the Lord was requesting me to do something more than just take out my cheque book and write a cheque for a charity that was doing something over there.   

          I spent a lot of time on my knees over the next few days, pleading with the Lord to help me to know what it was that He wanted me to do.  I phoned several charities that went over into Bosnia.  I was just checking around to see what I could do.  I asked that if I started an appeal what would be the best aid to take in, what would you advise me to collect and if I could collect some stuff, would you be willing to take it on the back of one of your convoys?  It was never my intention to go into a war zone. I love my family far too much to even remotely think that I would get involved in anything like that.  My intentions in the beginning were to just do something that would help me feel better, knowing that I had done something practical for them.  Finally I got one charity that was willing to take all the aid over to Bosnia, if I collected it.

          It was just before Christmas of 1992 and I went and saw my bishop. I told him that I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for the Relief Society sisters to get involved in some compassionate service that was outside of our area.  Then I went and saw the stake president. I then went to our area church headquarters to see if we could use the basement of our chapel, which was completely empty, for storage, just on a temporary basis. They were very supportive and said yes, I could do that. 

          The next Sunday I went to the Relief Society sisters and within three weeks we had collected 38 tons of the most incredible aid.  We did 24-hour shifts boxing and packing and going through all the aid.  All the missionaries used their Preparation days to come in and help.  People who would have never walked into a Latter-day Saint church before came in and stood side by side with the Latter-day Saints, sang with them and laughed with them as they boxed and packed.  It was just the most unbelievable time. I think with it being near Christmas, everyone became infused with giving.

             

          Everyone became involved, not only our own church, but many other denominations as well, hospitals, the Post Office, schools, the police force and the general public.  Day after day there would be wagons pulling up and dropping off tents, cooking equipment, emergency equipment and hygiene items. There was everything from food parcels to medical supplies.  It was just incredible.  

          I had already arranged with one of the transport companies that their donation would be that they would pick up all the stuff and deliver it down to London where the charity was based, free of charge for me and this charity was going to take it over there.  Two days before it was to leave the charity rang me up and said that they were very sorry, but they couldn't take it.  They had run out of money and they were not taking stuff over any more, which left me in a real dilemma, because the church was absolutely packed full.  The classrooms were full; even the bishop's office was full of baby milk and disposable baby nappies.  Then on Sunday I went to church early as the Relief Society president to make the room look nice, and as I got there, my heart just absolutely sank to my boots because a lorry had been and dumped about 10 tons of aid in front of the chapel doors the previous night. 

          When we arrived at church, we couldn't get near the building so church services were not held that day.  We had to spend virtually all of that Sunday, moving all the boxes just so everybody could get into church, and I wasn't the flavor of the month, with the bishop.   We just had Sacrament meeting and everything else was cancelled.  The Primary children thought it was wonderful. 

          When that happened, I was absolutely devastated.  I can remember getting down on my knees and saying to my Heavenly Father, "Lord, what have I done?  Was I listening to the wrong promptings?  What has happened here?  Everything has gone wrong.  Yet there is all this wonderful stuff, absolutely incredible aid, that is waiting to go and they were waiting for it, and I have no means of getting it there."  More vans and cars were showing up all the time with more contributions. The whole situation was spiraling out of control.  

          I found out that somebody had gone to the newspaper. Some of the newspaper headlines said "Christmas Carol Bags for Bosnia", "Mother of Seven Bags for Bosnia", or "The Latter-day Saints are bagging for Bosnia."  It really seemed to somehow capture the imagination.  The BBC picked up the story and although it was wonderful because it got more aid coming in, it put me in a difficult position as how to get it over to Bosnia. 

          Again there was another article about what we were doing and underneath was this tiny little piece. It said "Convoy of Hope bound for Bosnia.  Anyone wishing to join this convoy would they ring this number."  I rang them up hoping that they would be able to take all the aid that I had got. It was not with the intention of going myself, just hoping that they would take all the aid.  But they wouldn't, instead they said "We would love to have you join us." 

          It was a convoy of people who had collected all their own stuff and they were joining on to a convoy.  However when you voluntarily go into a war zone, all insurance is null and void.  Now, because, I've had cancer and nobody can still to this day understand why I survived and I am reasonably healthy, nobody will touch me with insurance.   But my husband is well insured, so when he offered to go and join the convoy, we were told that he would lose his insurance coverage.  I said, "If you stand on a land mine or if you're shot by a sniper or a shell lands on you, we will be in trouble because I will have the children to look after.  I just have this feeling inside that the Lord wanted me to go." 

           I couldn't explain it to anybody and I can probably explain it better now with hindsight, but I knew that I would be all right.  He wasn't too happy about it, but after a day of fasting and prayer, we came to the conclusion that this would probably be the best solution. One of my daughters, who was very adventurous, decided that she was going to go with me and drive a truck.  It was a big seven and a half ton truck, which was about 28 feet long, it was massive and she was going to drive it with me.  

          I phoned a lot of my friends, who had big trucks and vehicles, many of them came and supported me and they joined the convoy as well.  There were 110 vehicles that left on that first, humongous convoy.  There were 38 ton trucks, 7-1/2 ton trucks (which is the largest one you can drive on an ordinary license, and that is what I drove.)  There were also minibuses, small vans and even cars with trailers that went.   

          On that first convoy it took us 10 days to get through Europe.  It was a massive adventure for me and such a big decision to make, because the only pictures that I had ever seen of Bosnia were the ones of warfare. The whole time we were traveling I was wondering what I was going to see.  I am rather a compassionate person and get very involved with people. I was getting very nervous as to how I would react with seeing people in distress over there, because I don't cope with it very well. 

           I was feeling proud that I was driving this vehicle through Europe and I was doing ok.  It was a major accomplishment for me.  We went through some of the most wonderful scenery, right through Europe.  It was 2,500 miles.  We slept rough, in minus temperatures but it was a wonderful experience.  

          We arrived in Croatia, in the capital Zagreb. There was a large meeting held.  There were 400 drivers altogether.  We were asked if any of us would volunteer for crisis areas.  I suppose it was because I was very naive, having grown up in the Church, and we both looked at each other and thought, "Well, we've not driven all this way to stick our aid in some warehouse. We're off to a crisis area to give it to the people." We volunteered. 

          What we didn't realize was that it was a crisis area because it was under shell fire and no one else was crazy enough to go.  I looked around and there was only us and two other men who put their hands up to go into crisis areas.  I can still remember now the sinking feeling that came over me. I wondered if I had made a mistake.  But I was too proud to renege on the decision I had made. That was how it started.   I got into doing these convoys by chance really. 

          I think the Lord got me doing this in the only way He knew I would do it. There was no way I was brave enough to have actually made the decision straight away.  I just wasn't that sort of a woman at all. It was just a step at a time, which is the way He usually does things with me. 

          That first experience was unbelievable.  We went into an area where the Canadian peacekeeping forces were, in a place called Polinska Poljana.  The Serbian guns were only a matter of 20 feet away from us. We had to transfer all the supplies into the back of a big army wagon, so that they didn't know that there were any civilians there.  We had to go through a mine field.  I don't know whether you have ever been through a mine field or not, but it was quite an experience doing that.  

          We went over a pontoon bridge, which absolutely terrified me, because I couldn't swim. The river, with it being winter, was very badly swollen. The pontoon bridge was just big thick beams of wood that had all been chained together and then they were chained to oil drums that were floating on the side.  It was quite an expanse across the river. It was already lapping up between the wooden beams and we had to take our large truck over this pontoon bridge.  

          The unfortunate thing was that my eyesight isn’t great and though I was fine driving through Europe, I didn't fancy driving on this pontoon bridge.  I was worried about taking this heavy vehicle on to the bridge because it was only made for army vehicles.  When we actually drove on to the pontoon bridge, there must have only been a couple of inches from the wheels to the edge of the bridge.  My daughter is an excellent driver and so I had said, "You can drive the truck and I will stand in front of you and direct you over inch by inch." What I hadn't realized was that as the vehicle went on to the pontoon bridge it pushed it down below the water line. I was there with the water was just swishing round my legs and trying to direct the truck safely across the bridge, but I was terrified.   

          That was such an important experience to me because I immediately recognized that I needed help from my Heavenly Father.  It was very unnerving when I could not actually see what I was walking on in the water. It was quite murky and muddy and it was very cold.  My feet were freezing in the water.  I can remember just standing there and saying "Lord, you have gotten me into this."  My legs were stiff, they wouldn't move, I was petrified, and I said "Somehow you are going to have to work a miracle on my legs and get them moving because I cannot move them myself."  

          Immediately I had said it, all fear left, which was unbelievable to me. The fear was gone, and I was able to walk across with that vehicle. As the planks went under the water, so did the chains which were a guideline as to where the edge of the bridge was, but as a team we made it across to the other side.

         

          We went down through an area where 381 people had been just killed.   It just changed me completely when I saw that area.   What distressed me more than anything were the people.  Nothing prepared me for their sunken, hollow, lonely eyes.  On our journey back, I realized that I couldn't turn away from them. Having been over there, I could no longer stand by and do nothing.  I had seen the people, I saw what they needed.  I saw how lonely and heartbroken they were because they felt that the world had just turned their back on them and had allowed the most unspeakable horrors to happen to them.  That first trip really sealed in my heart a love for the people over there, which I have never been able to shake off. 

  

Carol Gray from the book "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" by Kent Miles & James N. Kimball, (Handcart Books, 2009)

Carol Gray 

Humanitarian, Home Maker

Sheffield, England 

          As a Relief Society President, it was not Carol Gray’s intention to become a recognized humanitarian leader throughout Europe and the United States. She simply proposed to her ward members that something be done to help bring relief to the war ravaged areas of Bosnia. Seven years later, over thirty truck convoys had delivered food, clothing and medical supplies to Bosnia.

          Carol has also adopted a school for the mentally handicapped near Sarajevo, several residential schoolhouses for children who suffer from dementia, a retirement home for the elderly and a front-line emergency hospital.  In 2001, after the end of the Balkan conflict, she founded an orphanage in Ghana. A mother of seven, Carol expresses her gratitude “to my dear husband, Stuart, and valued friends who helped me so much on the home front.” 

          “I did not plan on personally driving a lorry to deliver relief supplies into the areas of conflict.  When the agency we were working with failed to organize a convoy, I simply did what had to be done.”

          Carol passed away on July 3, 2010.  Her husband Stuart wrote “She had battled cancer for 35 yrs and suffered from the effects of chemotherapy so much these last 6 yrs.” 

*****

Part 1
Interview March 7, 1997 
©Kent Miles & James N. Kimball
Excerpted from "Mormon Women: Portraits & Conversations" Handcart Books, 2009

My parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was about five. I have always loved the gospel and my parents were wonderful examples of how the gospel teachings work in our lives. So I grew up in the Church and I was very happy.   I've held lots of different callings in the Church, and thoroughly enjoyed every one.

It's challenging to be a member of the Church in England.  We have built our own chapels and have to do so many other things.  We have to work hard for everything, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  It's wonderful.

I married my husband when I was 21.  Stuart has always been a wonderful support. Our home is always full. I have seven children there are four daughters, three sons and seventeen grandchildren. But apart from them, I have lots of adopted kids who come and stay at our home quite a bit.  It's a very busy household, we've always got people in and out all the time, but it's lovely and I wouldn't have it any other way.

When I had my patriarchal blessing, it told me that my life would be spared for a special purpose.  I never gave that any thought until I was a young woman of 28 and I was diagnosed with having cancer.  It was terminal cancer.  The doctors rushed me into hospital and they had to do an emergency operation on me.  They literally shut me up and sent me home and told my husband that I had about three months to live at the most. 

While I was being wheeled back out of the operating theatre, a gentleman was in the hospital who was a very well-known English surgeon.   He specialized in many forms of operating procedures and often worked in America. I didn't know this until later, but apparently as I was being wheeled out he just inquired what was wrong with me, and they said, "Oh, she's dying basically.  There's nothing we can do for her, the cancer is too extensive, so we've shut her back up and we're sending her home to spend her remaining time with her family."  He said, "But she's only a young woman.  She's too young to die."  I was 28, I had just the four girls then and my youngest daughter was only six months old. 

So he robed up and he said "Let me take her into the theatre and see what I can do."  He went in and apparently he did an experimental operation on me which has only been done twice since.  One gentleman died in the operating theatre and another lady died ten days later, so I'm the only survivor of this unique operation.  They did all sorts of things, but I'm basically a mass of plastic tubing and steel inside. I have to take tablets daily, which keep my body going because I am minus most of the things which regulate the normal functioning of the body.

I knew with the fasting and prayers of my stake, that my Patriarchal Blessing had come to pass, that I had obviously been saved for something.  I assumed it was for the birth of my three boys which followed a few years later.  I felt we had been blessed with a miracle when our first son was born, who was Jamie and then three years later we had twin boys, it was incredible. It actually hit all the newspapers because they couldn't understand how I'd actually managed to have them safely. I had the boys and I assumed that the reason why my patriarchal blessing said what it did was because I was to raise my boys. 

I've always stayed at home with my children.  I'm a blessed Latter-day Saint mother and I've never needed to work.  I have stayed at home and contented myself with looking after and raising my family and doing lots of creative things that mothers tend to do.  I enjoy gardening, painting, flower arranging and writing poetry, so I was perfectly happy at home and never went very far a field.

I have always tried to live my life very close to my Savior.  I think when you have been faced with losing your life and not knowing how long you've got on the earth, to put your life in order, it changes your attitude to living.  When you think that maybe you've only got three months left, you forget about things like getting cross with people or getting irritable or delay doing tasks until tomorrow.  You learn to pack so much into every minute.  I suppose that is something that has never left me from that experience.  I now had my seven children and life was wonderful for me.  I was very grateful to my Heavenly Father for the extra time which he had profited me. 

About five years later I was phoned by a local hospice.  It was because of my experience they asked me if I would go in on a voluntary basis and if I would like to do bereavement counseling for the families who were preparing to lose their loved ones, due to cancer. I jumped at the chance.  The boys were getting a little bit older now. They were old enough to leave with my family or with neighbors. I started to do it and I got know some lovely families. 

There was one couple in particular that I got very close to.  They were very old, they must have been in their late 80s, and she was dying with bowel cancer.  He was obviously distraught to see her virtually disappearing before his eyes and being helpless to do anything for her.   I spent a lot of time with them.  They had no family, so they were everything to each other.

I got a phone call one day and when I answered the phone it was him. He was obviously very tearful over the phone. He said “Carol can you come to the hospital please?  She's going to die."  I immediately got ready, sent the children off to the neighbors and I got in the car.  The particular house that we lived in at the time was a Victorian home.  It had a beautiful garden that was full of the most exquisite old English roses and the fragrance from these roses, the honeysuckle and the quince was beautiful. 

As I got into the car and I started to go down the drive, I had this really strong feeling inside that I needed to stop the car and pick a single rose.  I just put the idea to one side and said "Don't be silly.  The woman is dying.  There's no need for you to take her any flowers."  So I carried on down the drive.  But again, this feeling came, this time even more strongly. "Pick a single rose and take it to the hospital."  Again I just pushed the idea away and made the usual excuses that there wasn't time to do it as he needed me there now because she was dying.  As I drove out on to the road I knew in no uncertain terms that something unusual was happening, because the feeling that I had seemed to reverberate right through every part of my body and it just said (this time it was very specific.) "Turn the car around and go back and pick a single yellow rose."

I knew that I had been chastised by the spirit.  I turned the car around and I went back into the drive, but all the time I was thinking, "But I don't have any yellow roses in my garden."  I have pink and red and white and peach and every colour you could imagine, but no yellow roses.  It was the only colour I didn't have.   I stopped the car in the drive and I got out. There facing me on one of my pink long-stemmed roses, was the most beautiful yellow rose.  It wasn't pure yellow, it was fringed with pink bits all around the edge, but nevertheless it was yellow.  I just stared at this rose in total disbelief, because in the eight years that I had lived there that plant had never produced a yellow rose for me before.

I rushed into the house, totally bemused by what had happened. I fully expected that when I got the scissors and had gone back outside again, it would disappear because it was a figment of my imagination. It was still there when I got back, so I snipped it off quickly and popped some maidenhair fern with it, wrapped it up and put a nice bow on it.  I put it at the side of me, this remarkable rose that I couldn't take my eyes off.

I rushed into the hospital, still not knowing what the rose was for and I quietly went into the ward where they were.  The curtains were pulled around the old lady.  She was obviously very close to dying.  As I peeked through the curtains I noticed that he had got hold of her hand, but his head had fallen onto her bed. He just sat there with his head on the bed near her hand.   I just felt it was a very tender moment and I didn't want to intrude. I just laid the rose by the side of her and tiptoed out.  I was about to go to the matron’s office to explain that I was here and if he needed me to come and fetch me.

 But before I got there, he came shuffling down the corridor after me, and he had got tears streaming down his face. He shouted my name, and I turned round, then he said, "Carol, how did you know?  How did you know today was our wedding anniversary?" Every year on the day of their wedding anniversary he had given her a single yellow rose.  I had no idea, absolutely no idea whatsoever.  He had never mentioned that to me before.  But it made me realize that the Lord knows the desires of our hearts and He had obviously listened to the heart of the old man who was so distressed about losing his life-long companion and it was their 70th wedding anniversary that day.  That was a special experience for me and I will never forget it.

The feeling that prompted me I know has prompted me many times in my life, but because of that experience I was more aware of it.  I recognized it when it came.  It was that same feeling that came one day when I had been watching the events that had been unfolding in what was then Yugoslavia.  We were watching awful scenes of what was happening there day after day and night after night. Although I didn't want to see it, I was compelled to put the TV on every day to see how the situation was unfolding. 

(To be continued)