Hi, I am the BLYRO author.  Call me Lynn.  This is my story.

Before going to college, I dreamt of becoming an Architect, a dream I owed from my father who was an Architect himself.  We are a family of artist.  Wishing to be an Architect someday, I assured my self by taking drafting class in High School, designing houses and learning the basics of Architecture.  But when I told my father that this is what I wanted in college, he said, “No, it’s a man’s job.  You cannot climb over tall buildings when you needed to.  That is part of being an architect.”  I guess my father was wrong.  In the western world, I found many successful women architects.  On one hand, I guess he was right.  In our country (Philippines), women architects are not that recognized.

I am a good girl, so I followed his advice.  I took a degree that I did not expect to love when I was in high school:  Agriculture.  Who wants to dig in the dirt and stink under the sun?  Who wants to bend their backs during the harvesting season and please people to buy their products?  Who wants to clean after those pig poops, cow poops, chicken poops, and whatever kinds of poop you see in the farmhouse? Agriculture was to me, a dirty job.  Will I ever wear high heels with my office vest was a daily question that gave me hesitation. And why did I go on?  I didn’t know.  I just went on.

Somewhere in between, I realized Agriculture is not that plain.  It’s all about the science of growing and nurturing life for mankind to survive.  It’s all about the challenge of making things possible so that every family will have nurturing, healthy foods on their table everyday.  It’s all about selflessness.

It’s all about socioeconomic and political fight between the poor farmers and rich and unforgiving producers.  It’s all about fighting over the commercial substances that poison the environment and the people, and finding a strategy to eliminate this problem and save the health of the future generation.  It’s all about heroism.

There was a time when I contradicted the architects from building houses over healthy, arable land. If my father seriously continued his career and I continued my profession with justice, we could have been ‘enemies’.

But time changes.  My idealism died.  I fell in love, got married, and got a child.  However, my experiences in being an Agriculturist molded my soul to continue helping the needy.  This time, as a mother with a child and lost our home, my new dream is to reach out to less fortunate children by empowering myself to make a children’s picture book that is easy to read and understand and with your help, give them this book for FREE.

You see, you don’t really need to have something to give something.  Just do something and this will enable you to give anything.

I hope this story inspires you.  Help me make my dream come true and let’s sit and be happy together.

Love,

BLYRO

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the support of the following people who made this book and its mission possible:

To our daughter Ronalynn whose love of learning never ceases.  You are the reason why I have become a children’s book writer;

To my husband Ben for all his support;

To my parents-in-law Mr. & Mrs. Gordon for sharing us their home and their daily blessings;

To all the Graham families (brothers/sisters-in-law) who help this mission go through;

To all my friends and sweet strangers who support this mission/cause;

And last but not least, to my family in the Philippines (Gabutin-Janubas clan) for understanding why they could not see us back yet – for having them missed to see their second grandchild/niece the moment she was born.

I love you all!