Mike Garner Writer Poet Theologian

Banner Photo

 Occasionally the Aeta people can be seen on the streets of Olongapo selling assorted handmade products like a bird whistle, a bow and arrows, or food they have grown in the mountains. These mothers were out on the street in front of McDonalds asking for food. We took them inside and had them choose all they wanted. Nympha, Craig, and Ty are also in the picture. Ty looks astonished to be meeting these tribal folks, the indigenous people of the Philippines. Their average height is 4’6” and they have Afro like hair. On occasion some will have blonde colored hair.

Aeta Photo Collection

2007 Immersion Team

The students traveling with me on this trip are on their second trip. Their first trip in 2006 was as ‘interns’ the following trips are all ‘immersion’ trips. Immersion teams are students who have decided to serve a select region or country. Our organization was working in Uganda, El Slavador, India, and the Philippines.

This immersion trip was a month long journey across four different Islands; Luzon, Leyte, Mactan, and Cebu. During their trip they visited numerous ministries. In Luzon they visited the Asian Center for Biblical Studies in Majayjay, Faith Hope and Love Kids Ranch in Sariaya, several churches, the Aeta tribal people, and Shay Cullen’s PREDA Foundation. In Leyte they worked with King’s Chapel in Palo. We had Rina (a Filipina girl we had met at Zion Bible College) join our team. In 2006 they had begun supporting Rina to attend college and earn a degree in social work. She would eventually marry one of the boys from a team on a later trip. As of 2023 Rina and her husband Clark Miller continue to live and work for G.O.D. Int’l in Palo, Leyte and have three children together.

Rey German (a Filipino) worked for my friend Bob Haase. Bob let me use his passenger jeep and Rey worked as our driver throughout our time on the island of Luzon. Rey was accustomed to working with Americans and a blessing as we advanced our trip. Rey picked us up at the airport in Manila and we stuffed all the bags and students into the rear of the passenger jeep. Students on these trips bring one carry on bag for their belongings and two duffle bags full of donations such as clothing, books, toothbrushes, first aid kits, and other toiletries. Our first stop was ACBS the school of Linda and Ver Jacinto. They were very kind to allow me to bring this group of young Americans to stay at their place and experience the challenge of running a Bible College in the Philippines.

Ver and Linda have a beautiful campus of walkways lined with tropical plants. Linda also operates a piggery to supply meals for their students. The animals waste is placed in a large digester tank where it is turned into natural gas. Linda used the gas to cook with and light up the walkways around the entire campus. One of my students (Nathan Cameron) would return for six months to teach at ACBS and enjoy a working vacation in Boracay with Linda and Ver. In time, Nathan would become one of the teachers at The Institute for G.O.D. Int’l.

While at ACBS, I required all of the immersion team members to eat the Filipino culinary curiosity balut; a duck egg selected for boiling after about 18 days when the partially developed fetus is on full display as you consume this tasty street food. It is common to hear the morning food criers with their prolonged melody of ‘balut’ inviting the roosters to crow and folks to purchase their early morning wake up food along with cheesebread and other treats. Well, needless to say my palate spoiled kids from America had a challenging time eating their balut.

During our stay my immersion team members sat in classes, sang for the students of ACBS, and on Sunday visited local churches. One of them who was with me preached his first sermon at the church we visited. Prior to departing for Faith Hope and Love Ranch (Orphanage) we had a rest day at Taytay falls, a short hike through a rain forest and nice cold water to swim in.

Rey drove us to FHL Ranch in Sariaya. Our hosts were Lorraine and Celine Lamar. Lorraine married her husband Celine in the Philippines, together they run FHL kids ranch. Lorraine was 18 when she went on a YWAM trip to the Philippines; she didn’t return home. She is a fascinating person with a story of faith built on her love for saving orphaned children. Lorraine wasn’t present during this trip but her husband Celine (a Filipino) was very gracious and educated my immersion team members on the challenges and blessings of working to serve others in the Philippines. Celine took us to visit a couple small Barangay churches and eat from the local roadside food stands. He even took us to a local resort to swim with some of the kids from the ranch. My immersion team were assigned class times to teach the kids, they sang for the kids in the evening and prayed for the kids.

After our time at FHL Rey drove us to Subic Zambales (Olongapo). Along the way in Manila Rey was pulled over for driving on a certain road on the wrong day because his license plate ended in an odd number. Fortunately, we were able to continue our trip after a 750 Philippine peso gift. In order to limit traffic and avoid severe congestion vehicles were allowed on certain roads only when their license plate ended in an odd or even number for certain days.

We stayed outside the city of Olongapo with Pastora Tarcela an older AG minister who worked with the Aeta peoples in the mountains near her home in Cabalan. I had met her in 2006 traveling with Nympha and Joel. This would be the first time any of my students from G.O.D. Int’l would see Aeta people (excluding Joel). Tarclea had a very nice home and church. Pastor Joven lived in a smaller home on her property. Joven’s ministry was to serve the Aeta people full time. Humility is often lacking in those who lead others but Joven was a truly humble servant to both God and the Aeta.

If the river was not running high then the older folks (me) could ride a jeep within a 100 yards of the Aeta village. However, the students took the trail over the mountain and crossed the river on a small bamboo bridge. I had purchased a pig in advance and the Aeta prepared the pig (lechon) roasted on a bamboo pole for us to enjoy along with all the Aeta. Our team nurse ‘Jaimee’ attended to immediate health needs. We swam with the kids in a swimming hole where the river flowed wider and less forceful. We had to wash our clothes by hand. I joked with the team that you’re a real missionary when you have to dry your underwear on the pulpit. We slept inside a small concrete church at the base of the Aeta’s location. The benches were only six inches wide and so you had to place two of them side by side to be able to lay down and attempt to sleep. Unable to sleep, Rina kept singing throughout the night. Her singing was comforting. She said, “When sleep comes I will sleep”. We departed in the morning.

After returning to Tarcela’s home and church we took a couple of jeepnees from Cabalan to ride into Olongapo City. I showed the young people where Nympha’s boarding house was and the Hansen St. Church. I talked with them about the realities that once existed in Olongapo on Magsaysay St. We went to the market to eat and also fed a dozen of the street kids there seeking a meal. We bought some fish and rice and made our way to the Police Department to visit the holding cell in the Police station. The immersion group members prayed and shared their faith with the prisoners. Rey preached a brief sermon inviting them to change their lives through the grace of Christ.

On another day we spent our time at the Preda Foundation where the team members danced and sang songs for rescued kids in Shay’s recovery program. Shay practices ‘primal therapy’ allowing the children to talk about their abuse and cry, scream, roll on the floor and release their pain in a cathartic moment with God present. The atmosphere is one of faith for the children and the Lord’s Spirit touches them in their freedom to release their trauma. Shay also shares about his children’s homes, his rescues of children, and his efforts to see traffickers of children arrested. In cooperation with local police Shay would pretend to be a pedophile and with hidden cameras film his bargaining with those who sell children for sex.

We left Cabalan for the domestic airport in Manila where we would take a flight to Tacloban City Leyte. We connected with my former Yaya (helper) LynLyn who had married Pastor David Pica. Lyn had attended Zion Bible College and was pastoring a church plant in Samar while David was pastoring a church plant also, but with another group. The two of them met, married, combined their churches and eventually left to work in Palo Leyte outside of Tacloban for King’s Chapel group out of Hawaii.

While we were at David and Lyns place Gregg would arrive with his wife Tara, his first two kids (Genesis and Justice), and a group of interns to join us. They had flown into Cebu but took a ferry to Ormoc and visited the church of James Balista’s brother. They took two packed family vans and drove to Palo, I met them on the roadside to lead them over to David and Lyns church. We would work with David and Lyn for another week before heading over to Lapu Lapu with Gregg and his interns. This increased our group size!

David and Lyn held some children’s crusades and our immersion and intern teams participated in these events through singing and performing skits. In the evening the young men all went to play basketball at the local Barangay basketball court. They were playing with some rough Filipino boys and calling fouls was not their practice.

I went to the bus depot and managed to reserve an entire bus to transport my immersion team and Gregg’s intern team to the city of Ormoc where we would board a sea cat fast ferry to the island of Cebu. When we arrived in Cebu my friend Pastor Ray Nemenzo had arranged for a flatbed truck and another vehicle to transport us all to his church on Mactan Island connected to Cebu via one of the old bridges.

The immersion team and intern team members all slept on bamboo mats laid out on the concrete floor of Ray’s church. After the first night it was apparent that the many dogs in the area were allowed to roam freely into the church all week and the stench of their urine required a good scrub down of the floor.

One eventing we went out with Pastor James Balista who, like Pastor Ray Nemenzo, I had known since the eighties. James had been with us on our first trip driving the bus. He also was pastoring in Cebu. That evening we visited Colon st. and spent some time at the Capitol building in Cebu city late in the evening where James brought food for the children of the poor who came out to play on the spacious grass in front of the Capitol. We listened to their stories and how they lived. There was a small exhausted child who found comfort in the lap of our oldest female traveller who wondered why this child was all alone on the streets late in the evening. My son told her, “I’m sure someone from her family is in the group standing behind us watching over her”. Her older sister spoke up and to identify herself as the young child’s sister.

Ray’s church was on Mactan Island his ministry also provided meals for people in impoverished areas and at the Lapu Lapu dumpsite on Mactan Island. We took both the intern team and the immersion team to the dumpsite. The site supervisor allowed us to send our team members into the dumpsite to dig in the trash alongside the poor scavengers who survived off searching for anything of value (including food). The scavengers covered their body with clothing, wore a rag over their face, and suffered the tropical heat while working in the smoldering stench of the city’s refuse. Our kids from the U.S. endured but a couple of hours before the experience became unbearable.

I remember walking through the area where the small shanties built by the scavengers for their families sat alongside the dumpsite. Their little shacks had been decorated with flower pots on each side of the doorway (often the door entrance was only a piece of cloth). The smiles on the face of the poor is indicative of a grace and strength beyond my experience, I relate to their expressed sorrow better, it is easier to understand. Over the years I would visit the Lapu Lapu dumpsite many times bringing gifts, food, and occasionally a little cash. Those dear souls are always in my thoughts.

While at Ray’s I visited a small internet cafe and wrote a piece on the Lapu Lapu dumpsite for the Global Voice (the G.O.D. Int’l newsletter/magazine). Shay Cullen also posted it on the PREDA Foundation website. Later, Shay told me it had been read in Great Britain’s parliament while discussing the Philippines.

Ray conducted a baptismal service for recent converts from the dumpsite. They all rode to the beach in the back of a trash truck sporting big smiles. Ray has always been one of the most precious pastoral souls I have ever met.

A Poem to Express my Feelings at the Dumpsite

More than Tears

 

Often, all I have are tears

O that tears could heal the world

If only, we sought the welfare and flourishing of all

I see the gilded dwelling of the rich

Devouring the world as though it was theirs

 

Unfed, unschooled, poor and forgotten, thrown away

- refuse - they scour for a pittance

We dispose of trash

We dispose of human beings

Can tears do anything?

 

Tears of sorrow

Tears of pity

Tears of mourning

Tears of joy

Tears of pain

The world is filled with tears

It is human to weep

Jesus wept

 

Disposable people

Left to live with our trash

Stench, flies, lice, parasites, boils, scabies,

little caskets, wailing mothers, eyes glaring with loss

 

Broken fathers, red eyed, defeated, waiting, crushed,

incarcerated for living

Aged – their right to take from the world – removed

Caged – their crime – being alive

Surely, we have more than tears?

It is our story

The following day we all loaded up in assorted vehicles and went to an SM mall over in Cebu. We watched a movie and ate at the food court. My son was not too happy with the entire group. They took a long time to decide what to eat and acted like spoiled children who had quickly forgotten the people at the dumpsite, people who some had witnessed eating food torn from a trash bag in the sweltering heat and buzzing flies.

The next day Gregg and his interns departed for the U.S., the day after my immersion team departed. On the day my group was to depart they all complained the flatbed truck was too small for all of them with their baggage. I laughed and told them to sit in one another’s laps or on the bags because in the Philippines there is always room for one more. They should have learned this just from riding in the jeepnees over the past month. After all, it was 4:00 am and we were not going to find another vehicle in time to arrive at the airport for our departure.