Philippines: A recap

I first met Zach Hamilton in 2002 while we both were attending TSTC in Waco. Since moving to Indiana, we get to see each other more often than we did while I lived in Waco and he was in Austin due to a large amount of his customers being in the Midwest.  In March of 2014 while Zach was in Indiana we were having a conversation about a Vision Trip to Toronto that I had signed up for and later that evening he asked if I’d be interested in going to the Philippines on a mission trip with him in April.

I took it initially as idle chit chat but the next day he was adamant about me joining him.  Zach's church  was sending a small exploratory group to visit three specific sites, two churches and 1 orphanage to see how they could help and serve moving forward. So, MaryAnn and I prayed for discernment and wisdom on navigating this trip with such a short preparation time.

In 3 short weeks I was aboard a plane to Seoul South Korea and then on to Cebu City in the Philippines. A total of four of us were going on this trip Zach, his father Keith, and their Pastor Robert which I met up with in San Francisco. We landed at midnight and had an eventful cab ride to our hotel. We spent the next day in the city meeting with a Pastor of the Anabaptist Church in Cebu City. They had been hit pretty hard by the storms earlier in the year and getting an unexpected gift from the Church in Texas was an answer to their prayers. It was very sobering to see many street children roaming in the city, wanting to help but not being able to do much.

We next took a taxi across Cebu island and boarded a ferry to take us to Negros Occidental. Once we arrived on the ferry we boarded a large very crowded bus to Escalante City on the northern tip of Negros. We had planned to stay with Zach’s friend who owns a hotel on the beach. We arrived at our destination with the plans of meeting David Hess and Texan now living in Danao and Pastoring a Church there in Old Escalante. My sleep schedule was out of sorts so at 3 am the next morning Zach and I were up, drinking coffee and watching the local fisherman put their sails up and head out to fish while we sat on the beach.

David Hess was a very good resource for us to meet with, to get a feel for the needs of the people we were trying to help and how best to do that, he then gave us a ride to Joyland Orphanage in Salay on the other side of the Island. We spent the next day playing and getting to know the children at Joyland, it was fantastic to see all of these children getting the love and care they need and desrve but alos the nagging feeling of those on the street in the city. Unfortunately sex tourism is a big problem in the Philippines made me realize that not only was the orphanage meeting the basic needs it was more than likely saving most of these children from the predators prey on the least of these.

After meeting Rick Sutcliffe the Director of Joyland we realized how dire their financial needs had become, Rick and his wife are Australian and many of their partners and donors are as well. The recession had hit their donors rather hard and they were close to having to turn children away. Our group was able to give a sizable donation to help keep them afloat with a recurring donation from the church in Texas. It was bittersweet to load back into Davids truck to head back to our hotel.

The next day we spent helping David build on their new church and doing whatever we could to serve. Our trip back to Cebu was relatively uneventful although it was long and a few times there wasn’t transportation and we had to think outside of the box and our comfort levels. Made it back to the states safely after the exciting trip.