St. Mary’s Hospital in Taitung sells a famous cake called Sister’s Blessing Cake. It is often reported in the media. It is also recommended on the Internet again and again. St. Mary’s Cake is made by a group of Catholic nuns according to their hometown bakery cuisine recipes for the purpose of raising enough funds for the only hospice in the Taitung area so that the hospice can continue to be in existence far into the future.

I have tasted Sister’s Blessing Cake and it’s really delicious, crisp, refreshingly sweet, and very nutritious. But for me personally, from being the person in charge of the orders for these famous cakes, I know more about the long story of the foreign Sisters. In the past, people in Taiwan were poor and the Sisters received financial contributions foreign countries when the hospital was short of money. Nowadays, Taiwanese are getting richer and richer. But still St. Mary’s Hospital is still lacking in fund to manage the Hospice. It’s as if we can’t do anything about it! But for the Sisters, they insist on trying to do their bests -despite the costs- to continue the service of the hospice to the local community. The Sisters no longer convince their fellow countrymen to raise funds for the hospice in Taitung when the Taiwanese people themselves should take on this responsibility of raising funds. So the Sisters will do what is necessary to raising funds for the hospice and the service it offers.

In the very beginning, the Si s te r s got a wa r m response and there were lots of orders of the cakes. They had to bake about seven or eight kinds of cakes though it was almost beyond their power. Anyway, the Sisters themselves were in their 70s and 80s and older. Accordingly as the orders for the cakes grew more and more, greater pressure was put on the Sisters. On the one hand, they had to hurry up the process of making the cakes and on the other hand, they were afraid the cakes wouldn’t be good enough. As a result of being so busy, some of the Sisters fell ill. They were scared to death. They were forced to cut down the amount and to set a limit to the dates – not an ideal way of running a business. One of them is Sister Matilde Sansolis Serneo, a winner of the 12th Medical Contribution Awards. She is seventy-seven years now. She has been in Taiwan for forty-four years. When she went on to the stage to receive her medal, she asked the organizer whether or not the medal could be changed for cash because St. Mary’s Hospital is always in dire need of financial assistance.

Though they are aware of the need for financial help, their spirit is impressive and touching. Their contributions to Taiwan have made us all feel ashamed. Another Sister in the hospital Shi, Ya-Pu is also a winner of the Medical Contribution Award. She went back to America for rest because of an eye disease. When it was time for her to leave Taiwan, she said: “I came to Taiwan to help the Taiwanese. Now I am getting old and I do not want myself to become a burden to the Taiwanese. The best way is to choose to go back to the place where I came from. I can be well taken care of by my family.”

Wow! They really have taken good care of our countrymen by offering their own lives. They are old now and don’t expect us to take care of them in the golden years of their lives. What they do hope is that we can take care of the needs of our own countrymen and women. At present, the Sisters are out making their annual retreat, so I can’t see them. I think we can help them think up some better bakery procedures. I do not think it is harder than the doctors who cure the sick.