Warning: This is not one of my orations. It is a tirade, more like a pamphlet or, as Rex says, a mini series of a five week saga. He insisted that I write it down and share it whether it turned out well or not. I promise this a summation. Living it has been a monster roller coaster ride, worse than New York, New York in Las Vegas!

Helping the young BYU Hawaii girls to get their Visas extended on June 22, got us to the right place at the right time. On the way back to the truck, we met Joana, one of our young single adults who has a special place in my heart. She was excited. She had just talked to FNU, and, even though she dropped out of school after Form 5 (Grade 10 US), she can start school in Hospitality July 27. She asked us to get her a PEF Loan. If only it were that easy.

We told her to go right back into the school and have them give her a letter of acceptance and an invoice that listed classes, how long the course will be, and total cost. She went right back to talk with them. They asked her to come back the next morning, and bring us with her. We all arrived at opening. They sent her to get a birth certificate and passport size picture while we waited for over an hour while she walked to get both. When she returned, they told her the lady who could give her the info she needed was not there. Joana had to come back that day at 4 PM. Still not there. Come back the next morning. Still not there. Come back next Monday. When she went Monday, they said they needed a sponsor letter attached to her application guaranteeing payment. They needed us to come back and talk with them.

This was a bad start. The PEF  loan application process usually takes about three hard months, and we had just one. We warned Joana there is an intricate “process,” and we were basically trying to do the impossible. We knew things had to go smoothly and expeditiously for this to happen.

Things have gone anything but smoothly. The first challenge was that the school would not give the acceptance and invoice unless a sponsorship letter was attached promising to pay for the course in full before classes begin. If not she couldn’t attend. They thought we were the sponsors. We explained Joana would be applying for a loan from the LDS church, and we needed the info before we could start the application. They said it was impossible. I kept insisting. After returning and talking with them a couple more times, they finally asked us to call one of the heads of FNU in Nadi on the big island. He stated policy demanded they have the sponsorship letter first. I explained more and more, looping a bit. He finally said he would see what he could do. I think it was, “…lest by her constant nagging she weary me.”

A few days later, Joana called and said she had the invoice. The man had come through. When she came to scan it, we were surprised and delighted to see they had given her a letter of acceptance, also. Tender mercies.

Then the real fun began.  We called the new Self Reliance Manager Ned Taito in Suva and told him she had previously taken all the classes for the PEF Loan, but he maintained the old classes didn’t count. She had to take all 24 new classes again. We spent 3 days solid teaching her the classes back to back. She is such a sweetheart. She didn’t even complain or act bored, and she did everything we asked. She is just so grateful.

At one point in one of the last lessons, she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong. She just shook her head. I asked her what she was thinking. She finally shared that she was thinking of the PEF loan and just hoping she could get it.

At that point I had tears in my eyes, too. We had done all this before with two other girls, and the gears grind slowly. It had taken the full 3 months before the school received payment.

I asked Joana if she had thought of going on a mission. She said, “Oh, yes, Sister Woodward. I would love to go on a mission more than anything.”

“Well, do you think you should go on a mission instead of taking this course.”

“No, my father won’t let me go. He says I am too cheeky, and he is afraid I will embarrass him.”

Back to the drawing board. Finally, we had filled the requirement to apply online using her LDS account and password, but she couldn’t remember it. We tried to recover it using her membership # & birthday. They said it didn’t match. We waited until Sunday and had an ordinance sheet printed out. Everything was correct. We called Salt Lake International help, and they gave us a number to call, but only during certain hours. It was two more days before we could get someone to answer. They helped her get a new name and password, and we were able to sign in.

We were not expecting what we found there. She already had a $150 PEF loan she had never even paid on. She insisted she had never gotten PEF before and had never gone to school. They had just kept calling her to pay off the loan, but she didn’t know why, and she kept insisting she didn’t have a loan. We called the Self Reliance Center in Suva. They verified she had a loan and sent us two documents with her signature committing to pay it back. It was mandatory she pay off the old loan before she could even begin to apply for a new one. She had no job and absolutely no money, and her parents couldn’t help her. Her father makes $3.50/hr ($1.75 US). The mother works in the fish market, and they can barely pay the rent and put food on the table. Joana takes care of the large family by doing all the cooking, cleaning, washing, etc., but she doesn’t get paid anything for it.

The issue is, if she couldn’t even remember to pay off a $150 loan, how could she dream of paying off $3550?  We were done. After all the hard work and all the obstacles we had faced, and the fact that Joana had put her whole heart and soul into this to make it happen, could it just be over? I had to cry a little. I could hardly sleep. I just couldn’t accept it. The next morning I asked Rex if we could pay off the old loan and have her work for us to pay it back. Yes, I am the world’s best enabler. Joana was so excited at the prospect. She happily accepted for us to pay her in advance.

We called Foki and asked how to make payment. She said we needed payment vouchers from Suva. Was there no other way? No. We didn’t have time to wait for them to be mailed. Mail is painfully slow in Fiji. Then Rex had an idea. Missionaries were flying to Labasa the next day. Could they bring them? We asked Foki. She said she would run the vouchers over to the mission office. Wow! That actually worked!

We felt blessed. We met the missionaries at the airport, but no vouchers. Now what? It seemed I had seen somewhere on the PEF documents that we could print out a voucher. I was searching frantically, but I couldn’t find it. Again, tears.

Rex came to my rescue. He said to get onto Joana’s PEF account. There it was. We printed out the voucher, raced to the bank, made the $136.45 reduced payment for paying it off early, and sent a copy of the receipt to ReNee, one of our leaders in New Zealand.

As we got on to start a new loan, somehow they had noted that Joana had asked to be her own mentor. It said that the mentor could not be changed until after the mentor interview. After a few e-mails, Renee found she had to check a box to accept the conditions of the new loan. We were able to make the change in mentor and start the application, but more days had passed. It was now July 7. Joana still had to fill out papers for her aunt to be her mentor, and have an interview with the Branch President to get his priesthood endorsement. Many documents had to be uploaded. It was intensive. We were doing it as quickly as we could.

At one point, I asked Rex, “With so many road blocks being thrown in our way, does it mean this isn’t the right thing to be doing?”

He replied, “Nothing comes easy. Anything worthwhile takes effort. It isn’t the Lord sending the road blocks. That’s not how He works.”

The first Foundation class we had taught Joana was on Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. As Joana was teaching it to her family, her father said, “If you had faith, you would already be on your mission.”

Surprised at his statement, she reminded, “But you told me I can’t go on a mission.”

Joana then had a heart to heart talk with her parents, and they gave her permission to go. She told us, “I will take the course first, and then I can go on a mission. But wait, I can’t. I wouldn’t be able to pay the loan off if I’m on my mission?”

We asked the next day; and if she sends a copy of her mission call, they will defer payments while she is on her mission and for 3 months after while she looks for a job. She can do both, or if the loan doesn’t come through in time, she can just go on her mission. It made us all feel a little better. There was an option. Maybe that was why we were trying the impossible. If we hadn’t, she would have never known going on a mission was a possibility.

We kept going. We got to the point we thought we had done everything required. A few days later, we were told that before she could get a new PEF loan, she had to send a transcript from the class she had taken with the old loan. Are you kidding me?

Joana said she had a certificate of a class she now remembered she had taken when she lived on Taveuni, but she had handed it in with a job application. When she didn’t get the job, she went back to get the certificate, but they didn’t have it.

Suffice it to say, it took more days and more people helping us to track down the name of the school and get a phone # to talk with them. Service Pro said they didn’t give transcripts for short courses, but they could print out a new certificate for $20 and mail it to her. I expressed that there was no time. I asked if I could pay over the phone and have them print it and scan it and e-mail it to us. No.

Finally, in passing, they mentioned their office was in Suva, not Taveuni as I had thought. That made a big difference. I wish I had known that before. Now I was planning a whole new scenario of how I could get someone from the Self Reliance Center in Suva to go pay them, and have them print out a new certificate; then take it, scan it, and e-mail it as an attachment. However, I felt prompted to ask the sweet lady if instead she could just use school letterhead and write a letter of verification saying that Joana had indeed taken the course, listing when and how much. Later that night, as I checked the e-mail, I had to cry again. I was so grateful! Este had stayed an extra half hour after work on a Friday night to write a letter more beautiful and more complete than I could have ever dreamed. She even listed the topics and skills the course had covered and stamped it with the school’s official stamp. I forwarded it onto the PEF people stating that the school didn’t give transcripts for short courses, and I asked if this document could be acceptable. Evidently, it was.

When checking status, a few more issues with documentation came up that I won’t list; but, with the help of ReNee, Dallas, and workers in New Zealand, we addressed them.

Friday, July 17 Joana and her mentor were interviewed, and finally the loan status says “APPROVED!”

We were rejoicing; however, now Joana had to make a payment of $10 before they would pay the school. Rex, reading my thoughts, said, “No, Betty, she has to pay it herself!”

 I asked Joana if she had the money. “No, Sister Woodward. I will go right now to the market and ask my mother for the money.”

I called later and Joana dejectedly said, “They won’t give me the money.”

It was down to the wire. Classes started a week from Monday. If we wanted the school paid before then so Joana could attend, we had to make the payment as soon as possible.

I told Rex, “We haven’t come this far and done this much just to let $5 US stop us.”

Without even waiting for his approval, I called Joana back and told her we would go pay it, but she would have to work for us more hours. “Oh, thank you so much, Sister Woodward!” She was crying and laughing with happiness.

We got to the bank at 3:55 PM, 5 minutes before closing. Rex took a paper with a number that was sitting on the machine. The door was chained shut, but evidently they would service those of us who were inside with numbers. We sat there watching the screen with E 702 report to teller 4. Our number was E 703. We would be next. We waited about 20 minutes before we realized that we had the wrong kind of number. It was for talking about loans, not general telling.

Rex said, “They’re not going to wait on us. Let’s go! We’ll come back Monday.”

I just sat down and showed my stubborn streak, “I’m not leaving. We’ve got to try.”

My thought was to wait until the last person had been waited on and then plead my case and see if they would wait on me. There was a good chance they wouldn’t.

Rex knew at that point it would do no good to argue. He went to stand over by the machine that prints out the numbers whenever someone pushes the button. For some reason, a new number had printed out. It hadn’t been there before, and no one was near the machine. Rex tore it off and showed it to me A1, but since the last number of the day had been A298, we assumed A1 was for Monday morning.

The last person was just finishing up when the automated service announced, “A1, go to teller 11.” We just looked at each other, made the payment, and said a prayer of thanks when we got home. Call it a tender mercy or a miracle. We know the Lord is playing a hand in this. Almost there. Yes, almost there!

Joana was invited last Monday to orientation, and she loved it. She is so happy at the thought of going back to school, she is giddy. She deserves this.

The fight wasn’t won yet. Even though the the PEF Loan department had a copy of our bank slip saying the previous loan was paid of July 3, it had never been acknowledged on Joana’s account. The day before the payment was due to be paid, her account still said, “Not Current.”  It was causing headaches for those in New Zealand who were trying to complete the process to get the school paid on time. They had me take a screenshot of Joana’s account page. On their end, they were seeing different numbers than we were seeing for an early payoff for the old loan.

In the meantime, I called FNU to see what we could do if the payment didn’t reach them on time. They didn’t give us an answer of whether she could attend. They just told us to come in with Joana Monday morning before classes were to start, and they would discuss it. We have been praying this will actually happen if it is the Lord’s will.

Since New Zealand is long distance, we could not call them. All of this has had to be done by e-mail. We received one status email sent at Midnight. Overtime is an understatement! I have expressed to Joana that many people have gone above and beyond to make this happen for her. She says she is so grateful, whether she gets the loan or not.

Friday, I received word from ReNee that she had called the finance committee. Even though we had given the bank teller a voucher with Joana’s PEF #, the teller had neglected to put her # on the transaction. Since the early payoff amount was different on their end, they had no idea who had sent the money and no way of knowing which account to credit. With ReNee’s authorization, they were happy to credit it to Joana’s account. With that being done, they were finally able to make payment Friday to FNU.

It will be received “in a few days,” but that will be after classed start. ReNee offered to send a letter of verification if needed. I tried to call the lady again at FNU, but she didn’t answer so I texted her with the status. I also forwarded the e-mail from ReNee and sent a screenshot of Joana’s account that showed details of the payment that was made.

Sunday morning I received a text that Joana can indeed attend class Monday, July 27, which is today! She is so happy! Her parents never believed it could happen. Her father has changed his tune, and now seems to be ready to support her more. With everyone intensely working overtime, and with the Lord’s help, we accomplished the impossible! Now it is all up to Joana to work hard and take advantage of this opportunity and remember to pay this loan back. All this was to open her door to education.

I am grateful for President Hinkley’s vision of the Perpetual Education Fund that will help lift her out of poverty and help her succeed. If all goes well, and if she does her part, it will change her life forever!

P.S. After all this, Joana’s account still says, “Not Current!”