The Earthquake

       When I write and share some of my stories, I often experience deep-seated reluctance. This is so because my stories are a result of my choices and my life, which is but one amongst the myriads of human beings who have lived and died. I am sure that God watches the unfolding drama of humanity each day and is ever seeking signs of faith mixed in with the struggles of being human. The raw personality holding to faith with unwavering conviction often matures into a different person than when their journey began. Such persons possess a faith that brings God into the world and are unfamiliar with a world where God is only silent, or where nature replaces God.

       Prior to the day of the earthquake - the day that set my life firmly in place and affirmed my choice to be God’s choice - was a series of profound experiences where God touched hearts on my behalf and honored my faith with favor. It is this series of events that make the earthquake more than chance, and so it became a pivotal moment in my faith development.  The entire event is built around experiences that occurred while I was a young man in the Marines, a young man appalled by the abuse of power evident in the exploitation of the Filipina and the Philippines. 

      My squadron was leaving to return to Okinawa and I received permission to remain in the Philippines on two-day rest and relaxation orders. My C.O. (commanding officer) told me to stay as long as I needed. I was still suffering dysentery, after a couple of months but I did not return to the infirmary because I knew they would keep me. I had experienced fever and blackouts but I kept going, believing God was with me (and watching).

     It was a typical hot day in the Philippines and I had an appointment with the American Embassy to turn in my wife’s visa application. The U.S. embassy required a $40 waiver fee because Nympha had worked in a bar. The hypocrisy was strikingly evident for me because the system of women and bars was governed over by the U.S. military and my own government required $40 from me, a young enlisted man.

My faith and determination to bring her home with me was immovable. We stood before a woman sitting at her desk. I placed the papers on her desk and asked when I could expect to have the visa approved. She informed me that I had married a foreigner and that it would be months before I heard from the embassy on the visa application. I informed her that I had married this woman and that I was going to bring her home with me. So, I asked if I could take the papers over to the foreign affairs office and to the labor department to be signed rather than wait for some bureaucrat to mail them across town.  

      She placed her hand on the papers and said, “Young man it is against the laaaaaa….” at that moment an earthquake shook the Embassy. The woman looked at me as if I was responsible for the earthquake and handed me the papers. I’m not sure why I wasn’t surprised. Perhaps I had received enough divine favor from God through human beings that the extraordinary was closer to my experienced reality than at other times in my life. For me, this moment, the earthquake, makes believing that Elijah called down lightning an event within my own personal experience. Raw, innocent, uncomplicated faith ready to receive God into the world often belongs to people from the backwoods, the small community. I grew up in a small town near a condor sanctuary and spent a lot of time alone in the mountains and working an orange orchard. I had come face to face with a large cougar (stared it down with a hoe over my shoulder until it ran off) and numerous black bears and other wild creatures; I was not a city boy. I was a Pentecostal with a radical pursuit of God's Spirit melded into my religious training. In my faith God acted on behalf of his servants who walk before him, knowing that God is watching. 

      As a young man, I thought God had provided an earthquake solely for my wife and I. As I grew older, I questioned whether the earthquake was only felt by us and the embassy employee or if God had timed our meeting. Regardless, there was an earthquake and because of that earthquake our visa process was expedited beyond any normal experience. I also recognized the voice that silently shears the human heart had been at work in the people who helped me along the way. Today, I wrestle with the two, the power and the voice. Who God is can be hidden by acts of power, yet God longs for us to know who he is and to hear his voice. God longs to be known for his nature (holiness) not for acts of raw power.

      I quickly took the papers from her hand and went across town to the foreign affairs office where I walked to the front of the line and asked to have the papers signed. Then I went to the Labor Department office, walked to the front of the line, paid a fee and had the appropriate papers signed. No one objected or questioned my actions when I walked past numbers of people to insist my papers be signed immediately. I returned to the U.S. embassy in Manila the same day. I talked my way in to see the woman who handed me the papers. When she saw me she asked how I had fared. I responded that I had the documents signed. She said “Great, when do you want to return and pick up your wife’s visa?” I left that day with an appointment to pick up the visa on July 8th.

   I had to return to Okinawa for two weeks because I was scheduled to rotate back to the U.S. Upon arriving in the U.S. I had ten days leave to drive from California to Camp LeJune in North Carolina.

   A couple of weeks had passed since my squadron had left. I walked out on the airfield to board a C-130 headed for Okinawa whose flight schedule was written on a chalk board. I approached the plane captain and talked my way onto the plane; my two-day R&R papers were obviously outdated!  When I arrived at our squadron offices to inform the C.O. (Major Mitchell) that I had returned. The squadron’s security officer wanted to lock me up, but I walked passed him to the Major’s office. Major Mitchell had told me long before that anytime I needed to talk to him just knock on his door and skip the chain of command. Needless to say, those who outranked me were not happy about this ability to bypass the chain of command.

    Major Mitchel had advised me to get a U.S. Passport and fly back to the Philippines aboard a commercial flight and purchase tickets for my wife and I to fly from the Philippines to California. He also told me to report in at Norton Air Force Base after arriving at LAX.

    I flew in from Okinawa to the Philippines at midnight, it was the era of Ferdinand Marcos’ rule and martial law was in effect. When I arrived at the airport in Manila, I was given an international traveler’s pass to travel at night to Subic. The taxi ride was a wild trip. The driver sped along the pothole filled dirt road, desiring to make the trip as quickly as possible. Somewhere along the stretch through Pampanga a PNP (Philippine National Police) officer jumped out from the sugar cane with his shotgun pointed at us. The PNP officer was not familiar with an international traveler’s pass and the conversation with the taxi driver was loud and intense. He eventually let us continue our journey to Olongapo City. The following day Nympha and I left for Manila, went to the U.S. embassy and picked up her visa. 

    My orders were to take a military flight from Okinawa to Norton Air Force base in California. When I arrived at the counter at Norton (a few days later than my orders) the check-in officer was disturbed and had lots of questions as to how I got from Okinawa to California. However, I was on leave and just told him what I had done, so technically I was not AWOL.

   I had married Trinidad on June 4th 1976, obtained her visa and flew out of the country with her on July 8th of the same year. This is not a normal timeline for obtaining a U.S. visa for a Filipina in 1976. My wife and I flew to the U.S. aboard a commercial flight. One year later, on July 8th, our son was born.