Not just a fairytale

For in truth, Cris Albert has a fairytale life. Beautiful, rich, happily married and blessed with two beautiful children.

But instead of just reveling in her good fortune, Cris is spreading it around. As head of her own company, iSport, which is the exclusive franchisee of FILA products in the Philippines, Cris sets aside 10 percent of company earnings for a Christian ministry headed by her husband Butch. iSport has about 350 employees and the ministry, which has around 40 volunteers, has several outreach projects — for children, for disaster victims, for the poor.

"For Christmas we did a special ‘Buy a Sole, Feed a Soul’ project that’s specifically for poor kids. We gave P20 to the ministry for every pair sold. But the ministry is not only for children. We have the Operation Compassion. It’s post-trauma work in areas like Marinduque. We stay there until the victims recover. It’s not a touch-and-go thing. Until now, in disaster areas in Quezon, we have people there and they teach them how to plant and harvest the goods. Because a lot have been traumatized because of the death of their loved ones, there’s a lot of counseling going on. We support the Mother Teresa Foundation."

"We also support a stand-alone church that built 70 house churches. We set up house churches because we realized that the reason why a lot of squatters don’t go to church is because they can’t afford to even go to church. What we did is we created homes to represent the church so that Bible studies could be done inside the home. We give support through free food and then we assign a pastor to go there rather than them going out of their area. There are two kinds of poor, the extreme poor and the borderline poor. It’s like 70-30. Seventy percent of the people there are extreme poor, 30 percent are borderline. Borderline are those who are able to do entrepreneurial work, buy and sell. Extreme poor are those who really don’t eat."

It amazes me to see how the well-coiffed lady in front of me could talk about the demographics of squatter areas the way she can dissect the sportswear market.

Although Cris works full time, her husband devotes only 30 percent of his working hours to their business. Seventy percent is focused on his ministry. Butch Albert is also the pastor of the Christ the Living Church in Mandaluyong and his flock includes the residents of Welfareville.

"If the ministry needs more money, we’ll fund it," says Cris, pointing out that she does not limit their support to 10 percent of the company’s earnings. The company carries four brands: FILA, Tiva by FILA, Everest, which is the technical footwear brand that is high-end and Kenya, another footwear brand.

Cris has extended FILA’s Valentine’s promo — a sale of up to 70 percent — to March to thank consumers for the 250,000 pairs of shoes they sold last year, "making FILA the biggest selling imported athletic footwear brand."

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The Alberts, who have been married for 13 years, have been practicing Christians since 1992.

Cris says it was a deep need to have a purpose in her life that made her committed to the ministry. To jump-start the ministry, she put in P2 million of her own money.

"And also, my relationship with the Lord. Before we became Christians, life was so empty, no reason for being. I felt empty. I would say that there must be a higher purpose why I am here. My husband and I really searched for the Lord and pursued Him a hundred percent. We realized that, you know, we were gifted with this business for as to be able to make money not only for ourselves, not just for our family, but for the stakeholders."

I asked her if her business was blessed a thousandfold after she began sharing its earnings.

"Actually no, it’s the other way around. I would say we did not go into the ministry in the hope that we will be blessed by it. You reap what you sow, yes, in terms of that biblical principle. But I do want to emphasize that it’s not about being filled up by the fact that we’re giving. It’s being filled up because we have a relationship with God. I think that’s very important. Sometimes they use that emptiness to fill themselves, that’s a very selfish motivation. It’s still about you when in fact, it’s about Him. And then in the end, it just comes automatically that you see, hey, the world needs some help. You’re not made to just take care of yourself, of your family."

When she dies, she wants her epitaph to read: "More than just a fairytale."

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Charity begins at home, and Cris and Butch Albert give meaning to that.

They take in babies who are about to be adopted by couples from abroad, providing the "halfway house" between orphanage and the baby’s new parents. It’s another of Cris’ projects, and she calls it "Bright Lights."

"The orphanages cannot afford too many kids. And they actually reject some of the children. So it’s very important that they are brought into homes so that they can get more care," says Cris. She admits it becomes difficult to part with the child once the adoptive parents come along, but "it’s better than not providing them a home. I cannot say no, when they come and say, oh, meron kaming newborn."

But there was one baby — a girl — that the Alberts couldn’t let go of, and that baby is now part of their home. They named her Isabella.

It’s a fairytale life indeed, and Cris wants to make it a fairytale life for others as well.

Like Isabella.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])