Mission Cebu 2012 (6 of 8)

A STORY I JUST HAVE TO TELL

I was fearful to come home without a few souvenirs for my family.  I had planned to go Wednesday night, but Pastor Juval wanted us to surprise his dad by attending the church he pastors.  I asked the pastor if we could shop after our medical mission on Thursday.  He said we could because we should be back in CarCar from Cuaming by 2 PM and then they could drive us to Talisay for shopping. Well, it didn't quite work out that way.  We left late for Cuaming Island and stayed on Cuaming longer than originally planned.  Therefore Pastor Galera decided he would sail for Talisay.  He would drop us off and continue south down the coast to CarCar.  The van would pick us up on the beach in Talisay.

The sea was very rough and I was afraid that a few of the swells might capsize.  The old version of Rescue 911 capsized with the tsunami resulting from the Japanese earthquake entered the Philippine Sea.  Juval assured me that although the sea was much rougher than normal, it was not nearly as bad as the day he capsized.  I sat at the bow and enjoyed the ocean spray.  It was more than a spray.  I was more or less baptized by the Philippine Sea.  It took a couple of hours to travel west from Cuaming to Talisay.  As we approached the coast, John Rayburn said, "Eric, do you see those breakers crashing on the shore?"  I turned to Juval and said, "Bro. Juval, please turn around.  We don't have to do this!"  I could now see we were going to land on a beach that was about 150 yards wide and sandwiched between a rock breakwall and a concrete breakwall.  We were going in.

Bro. Juval had them drop anchor at the last possible moment so we could hop off.  It was very dangerous because there was a bad undertoe and the bow was bobbing violently.  One by one we disembarked, some more gracefully than others.  Steve Beevers pulled Mrs. Zenny Galera head first into the sea.  She did not look amused : )

They handed us a bowline about 7 of us played tug of war with the raging sea to keep Rescue 911 from veering toward the breakwall.  None of the Filipinos on the beach was laughing at us until John started laughing.  At that point they all joined the laughter!  After we were all safely on shore, Bro. Juval did a masterful job of commanding the ship and navigating safely back out to sea.

As soon as the pumpboat left, I turned to the north and so a sculpture.  You guessed it!  It was a memorial to the Americans who liberated the Philippines from the Japanese on March 26, 1945.  That's correct, they landed on the very beach we landed on.  If you will look at the picture, the sea was tranquil on the day the GI's landed.  I believe our landing was much more heroic, although I suppose we didn't have to contend with landmines and bullets.

We were quite a sight.  Were were all wearing swim trunks, t-shirts, water shoes, and we each carried our backpacks which we had to protect at all cost because our passports were with us at all times.  We were sunburned, wet, had the worst of bad hair days, and our legs were covered in black pumice.  And now it was time to ride to the fancy mall in Talisay.  When we arrived we looked as if we had just been shipwrecked.  I wonder why!

As we came to the entrance of the mall, we noticed an attendant working a stack of cubbies for people to check there bags.  Apparently backs are not permitted in the mall due to shoplifting.  None of us communicated with one another, but we must have all had the same idea.  We each entered the mall, single file, with our packs as if we owned the place.  Once in we all started in different directions until I was stopped and questioned by a female security guard.

"Sir", she said.  "Where are you coming from?"

Still dazed from our long day and heroic landing, I replied "We came from the water."

Puzzled she said, "I don't understand.  With such large, full bags, where have you been?"

Still dazed, I responded, "We come from the sea."

Fortunately, Mrs. Zenny intervened before the guard had to resort to calling Immigration!

John later told me, "Eric, when the guard questioned you, I thought of different things to say like, 'We come from the sea.', then I shook my head and thought, 'No that's no good'.  But, then you said them.  I think the only response worse would have been to look from team member to team member then shout, 'RUN!".

Rescue 911 (in calmer waters)

Talisay Beach Landing

Talisay Beach Landing

Memorial to U.S. Beach Landing of March 26, 1945

U.S. Beach Landing of March 26, 1945

MISSION CEBU 2012 (5 of 8)

GEOCACHING

One of our multi stage geocaches brought us to the largest shoe shoe in the world.

Many of you know that my family has a hobby we really enjoy.  It's called geocaching.  If you don't know what geocaching is click here.  We had very little free time, but when we did, our team and the Filipino pastors seemed to enjoy my hobby.  We found 3 geocaches that week.

On Saturday, we were on the way to see the people who were impacted by the earthquake on Negros Island.  I took my GPS so I could see where we were while on the sea and while on the islands.  As we traveled from the ferry port to the Jollibee restaurant, I noticed that we passed a cache.  I had loaded all of the caches within 100 miles of Pastor Juval's house.  Bro. Juval said, "We will get it after breakfast because we would pass it on the way back.  The following three pictures were from that cache.  We passed by a young security guard without being stopped.  We later learned that he got a tongue lashing from his commanding officer.  Steve Thompson ran interference with the officer to keep him distracted and to prevent our arrest.  There was a ROTC drill going on a Silliman Universtiy.  We walked behind the bleachers to the cache hiding spot.  In the second photo, Colin is searching for the cache.  The 3rd pictures is a group photo after we found the hidden cache.  This was the first cache for each of them and my first.  This was also the largest group of muggles (non geocachers) I ever had to evade.

On Monday, June 25, we had the afternoon free between sessions of the Pastor's Conference.  We decided to fill the time doing the "Discover CarCar" 6 stage multicache.  This took us on a tour of the city's landmarks.  We took "Flat Ethan" (that's a whole other story) along for many photo ops.  We learned that CarCar is a major manufacturing center for shoes.  We saw a monkey (very cool).  We could not have done this without our Filipino interpreters.  John said we ought to schedule time for geocaching next year as a way of getting us into the community so we can witness while we cache.  I think that is a brilliant idea! We found the cache at a local business.  

On Wednesday, we had most of the day free.  We decided to do a 5 stage multicache called Valladolid, CarCar that took us to the pastureland surrounding a prawn farm.  We had to to all of this one by foot.  We were dependent upon our translators as we had to ask permission to pass through private property several times.  We took one picture of a guy making coconut milk liquor.  I suspect that it is illegal, but he permitted me to take his picture.  We were to first to find the cache at a family cemetery.  The owner of the cache is from The Netherlands.  This one meant a lot to Bro. Juval because it was less than one kilometer from his home!

Mission Cebu 2012 (4 of 8)

LA LIBERTAD, NEGROS ISLAND


On Saturday, June 23, we left at 2 AM and drove 2 hours south to ride a ferry to Dumaguete.  People and vehicles of varied sizes (motorcycle to 18 wheelers) rode.  After eating breakfast at Jollibee's (Filipino McDonald's-type restaurant), we took a very rough 3 hour van ride north to La Libertad.   We were to visit a tent city that was created because residents had been displaced by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake and resulting rockslide that buried their village in February.  A mountainside destroyed the village and the church.  The location essentially is a mass grave as most who perished could not be found.  We met a 28 year old man who lost 2 children, his wife, both parents, and a grandmother in the catastrophe.  Two of his children survived.  Caring for his 3 year old daughter makes working nearly impossible.  We spent some time encouraging this young man and we were able to pray with him and leaving a love offering.

Boarding the mother ship.  This is the ferry we took to Negros.

I took this shot off the stern.  This is the view to east of Cebu as we were
leaving for Negros.  None of us noticed the cross reflection of the sun
on the Philippines Sea.  I thought this was  stunning shot!

I had hotcakes and coffee at Jolibee

The team minus Steve Beevers at the Port of Dumaguete

These bridge near the epicenter is still out.  The other bridges have been "repaired"
for one lane of traffic at a time.  It was a rough trip physically.

La Libertad land slide.  The back side of these mountain sheared of just
as the front side did.  A church was destroyed on the back of the mountain
and a village on the front.

Martial law is in place by the Philippine Army to keep order in the tent city.

Survivors have set up a make shift market place

The man in yellow lost 6 family members in the disaster

People are resilient and have begun growing small gardens next to their tents

We went away sad that we could not do more to help the people here.

Mission Cebu 2012 (3 of 8)

MEDICAL MISSIONS


On Friday, June 22 (CarCar City, Cebu Island) and Thursday, June 27 (Cuaming Island) we held two medical missions.  Our funds we paid helped provide medical supplies .  Vital signs were taken on each person who attended and each person was also interviewed to determine health risks.  Participants were also  given basic medicines to take home: antibiotics, analgesics, nasal decongestants, vitamins, etc.  Pastor Juval wanted to be sure that each person was introduced to the Great Physician before meeting the earthly physician.  Praise the Lord that of 261 who attended the medical missions, 125 were professed Jesus as LORD!!!  Friday's medical mission was held at Eastside Baptist Church in CarCar (where we stayed).  Thursdays event was much more work.  It involved a 3 hour pumpboat ride.  Cuaming is a very poor island of 4,000 residents.  There are no toilets and there is no running water.  The land is so small that a person could walk the perimeter in less that an hour.  We saw very few elderly people here.  When a person gets ill, there is no hope and no help.  How critical it is that we introduce these beautiful people to Jesus.  Despite the deplorable conditions on Cuaming, the people were very friendly and seemingly happy.

The beautiful children of Cuaming Island

Mission members prepare the medicines for distribution at Eastside Baptist
Church, Cuaming.  Supplies for this church we transported piece by piece
by Rescue 911, the church's pumpboat.

People hear the gospel message before receiving medical attention

Pastor Johnny Galera share his faith with a visual aid

A Filipino pastor follows up with children who made a decision to follow Christ

John shares the gospel on Cuaming

Colin shares his faith with a large group on Cuaming

It was amazing how each mission member grew during the week
Here, Peter shares the plan of salvation.

I was preaching Jesus on Cuaming with the help of my interpreter, Leonardo.

Cuaming looks beautiful from a distance.

Upon closer examination, one can see the effects of 4,000 people living on
a tiny isle without sanitation.

All food and medical supplies had to be loaded and unloaded by wading
about 100 yards over the coral reef.

The children loved being photographed with the Peter and the other Americans

Steve Beevers made some new friends.

The children loved seeing their faces on the LCD screen of the digital camera
after each shot was taken.