Balabac Medical Mission: Here we go again!

We were very excited to prepare for a second medical mission. We were going to the island of Balabac, which is an island just off the southern tip of Palawan. One of our newest missionaries, Roy Reyes, was actually a missionary on these islands for about 7 years and knew what to expect while traveling, for our living arrangements, and the type of medical help these people would require.

A couple of days before the trip Roy filled us in on the details of our trip. Trucks, boats, hikes, crocodiles.....wait what?? Allow us to explain: We were going to have to drive to Rio Tuba, which is the southern-most tip of Palawan. From there we would take a passenger boat for 3 hours till we reached the island of Balabac and then we would take a small, canoe-like, motorboat through crocodile infested waters (YIKES!) till we got to the side of the island that our medical mission was going to be on. From there it was a 1 hour hike through the jungle till we reached our homestead. Needless to say, we knew this trek would not be a usual one and after some crocodile self-defense classes we were ready to go. ;)

Friday morning we awoke at 5 am to a Monsoon of rain going on outside. Not perfect traveling weather, but we knew God would be with us. We packed up our medical supplies, hammocks, camera gear, etc. and headed off. Danny agreed to drive us all down to Rio Tuba. We were planning it to be a 3 hour drive, but surprisingly it only ended up being an hour. So we arrived at the port at 8 am, and our passenger boat was scheduled to leave at 11 am.

The boys had to ride in the back with a tarp over them to keep from getting soaked.

As we waited at the port, we decided to explore our surroundings. What we realized right away was: Rio Tuba is a very, very dirty city. The docks of Rio Tuba were some of the most interesting sites we've seen. Many houses are built on docks over the water, which at first, we thought was kinda cool. (Come on! Who doesn't love an ocean view) That was until we had to use the bathroom. 

<---When we found the C.R. we looked down to see it was merely a hole, cut out in the dock, that goes straight into the water. So...basically the people do their business directly into the same water that they fish in, bathe in, and swim in....EWWwwww. It was at this time that we realized that the floating brown things in the water below were not debris. While we were observing the nastiness in the water and discussing how gross it was, Allison swung her hand down by her side and happen to hit the front of her Nikon SLR camera and the lens cap popped off and fell perfectly between the slots in the boards of the dock and with a simple splash began to sink beneath the murky, poo polluted waters of Rio Tuba. After a blood curdling scream on Allison's part and the panic of our little missionary group we tried to convince Jam to jump in and get it, to which he replied, "Ewww! Yeah Right!" Suddenly there was a *Splash* from behind us. Two little boys, that had been fishing off the dock, had seen our panic and jumped into the filthy water looking for this little lens cap. 

After some searching they were successful. Hooray!! Afterwards they just climbed out and went back to their fishing. We literally had to chase them down to give them 20 pesos each as a reward. 

I guess jumping into the poop water was nothing for these 8 year olds. But nonetheless we were incredibly grateful. But this, of course, sparked a conversation between us missionaries, "How many pesos would it take for YOU to jump in that water?" Not enough, thats for sure! After drowning the cap in antibacterial for about 30 minutes, Allison was happy with her whole camera once again. 

After a delay in leaving the port, we finally loaded the passenger boat to head off. Which was kind of a scary task. The bridge between the dock and the boat was merely a little board that was not connected to either the boat or the dock. So as the boat moved so did this bridge. After some help from Jam we were all able to load that boat and we were finally off. :) 

Yay! The Adventure continues! We rode the passenger boat for 3 hours. We stopped at a couple different docks to unload supplies and passengers. After riding so long in the sitting area, we decided to have some fun on the front deck of the boat, to help pass the time. The weather was perfect and the sites were breathtaking!

"I'm the King of the World!!"....or so he thinks. hehe

When we were about 3 miles away from the next island, Roy said "Our stop is coming up here soon" So we just figured he meant the islands that were on the horizon. When all of a sudden the boat's motor stopped and Roy said, "Ok, Lets Go." We looked around to see no dock, but in fact two little boats, like canoes, coming up to the passenger boat. "Wait, What!!! We have to hop off this boat to those tiny boats IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA??" "Yep" said Roy. 

Oh dear....honestly the best way to describe these boats is like wooden canoes with motors. So they were extremely tippy; breathing wrong could send these boats tipping one direction or the other. After loading all of our stuff and ourselves into the boats, we waved goodbye to our passenger boat and set off on a scary, rocky, 1 hour ride to our next destination. Many prayers were said and Hymns sung until we felt a little more comfortable.

Follow the leader.

House in the middle of the water...I wonder where their C.R. is?? lol

Here is a video of our boating adventure:

We arrived to a small little inlet and were told to get out of the boat and walk through the water to the land.

"But didn't you say there are crocodiles" asked Sam. 

"Yes" said Arman (one of the Balabac missionaries) "and be quiet, cause they are sleeping right now." We must say that was very reassuring to hear. (Not!)

The inlet was very pretty and kinda looked like a set for a ride at Disney World. Except the crocodiles here aren't computer operated and could actually eat you. lol.

As we were climbing out, a caribou driven by a little, 12-year old, girl came and collected all of our stuff to bring to the mission spot for us.

We made it to land and started our 45 min hike to the missionary compound. After an amazing attempt by Allison to show us how low she could get to the ground without smashing her face into it (lol), we realized the mud was too slippery to walk with flip flops and decided to walk barefoot. We felt like real Palawanos :)

YAY!! We arrived to the church where we would sleep and set up our medical clinic. When we reached the compound we were greeted with Fresh Coconut juice straight out of the Coconut. Yum :) After discussing some things withe the missionaries at the compound we began to set up camp.

We sure were ready for a rest :) As we may have mentioned in earlier posts, two Christmas' ago, our Grandpa had gotten us these really awesome hammocks that have mosquito nets built right in. (Which is perfect for the Philippines since it is Malaria city!) Who knew 2 Christmas' ago that we would NEED these hammocks. The Lord works in mysterious ways. But we were so excited to use our hammocks for the first time! Since we were staying inside the church we had to tie our hammocks to the supports and the windows. So we set them up and climbed into them. We were a little scared at first, nervous not only of falling but of breaking their church. But after saying a quick prayer, we were finally able to fall asleep.

Phew...What a journey, and it's just the beginning. We can't wait to see what adventures and people we will be met with during this medical mission! Till then...

~Me and Her

Feeding souls...and stomachs

So right after being visited by David Gates on the 11th, we had another lovely visitor that joined us for a couple of days. Her name was Charinette and she is a Filipino-American nurse from California. It was so wonderful because we met her at PYC back in December, she was one of the workshop speakers. So we were excited for her to come visit us in Palawan.
So on Wednesday, when she arrived, we toured her around Brookes Point and took her to the Project. While she was here she told us of her family friends in the next town up that have a 'Feeding Program' ministry. Every Tues, Wed, & Thurs they go to the elementary or high schools in their area to talk about certain topics, give bible studies, and then at the end they give every kid some nutritious food. Charinette wanted us (the P.A.M.A.S team) to join so we could see their project. So we agreed and told them we'd meet them there.

We thought this kid's shirt was adorable

At 3 pm Rovelyn and Jam, Wendy and Roy, and Us set out on a convoy of motorcycles. Charinette told us to head to the Elementary School and she would meet us there. When we got there we met some of the local church leaders who are in charge of this project.

Then Charinette came and told us that today was the day when they go to the Maasin Highschool. So we got back on our bikes and headed to the High School. Charinette road with Jam and Rovelyn, and since she was wearing a skirt she rode side saddle; officially making her our hero, lol.

When we arrived we were greeted by some of the teachers and the principle, and other members of the Feeding Program group. Charinette had planned to give a discussion on "pure relationships" to the 4th year students at the school. As she got ready for that, some of the teachers were coming up to the rest of us and asking if we'd like to give a lecture to the other classes. At first we thought they were joking. But they kept asking, so then we started replying with "Oh, no thank you. Maybe next week." Then after more asking and then eventually pulling they got us to go to a room. They even seperated us. Ally helped out Charinette with the 4th years. Sam was pulled into the room with the 3rd years. And Wendy, Jam, and Rovelyn were talking to the 2nd year students. Taking a deep breath before walking into the room Sam prayed that God would give her something to talk about with these students for an hour. The first thing that popped in her head was NEWSTART, and so she went with it. It was very interactive and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Wendy, Jam, and Rovelyn basically did like a Q&A time. The kids asked them so many questions from "how to do better in school?" to "Can you sing the American National Anthem for us?"..lol. All in all our topics all seemed to keep the kids interested :) 

Afterwards, we all came together in one room and taught them some songs from our children's programs. It was such a fun experience. At the end of each of our talks the church group handed out Pancit with vegetables to all of the kids.

After school the marching bands go to the basketball court for practice. These marching bands only consist of drums, xylophones, and a color guard/dance team. But don't be fooled, these kids play everything from the Philippine National Anthem, to JLo, to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. After watching for awhile Jam gave his best attempt at being a color guard member. lol

Each classroom had a name. This classroom just happened to be named Wisconsin.  LOVE IT!!

 It was really great to be apart of this local church mission, and we're planning on working with them in the future. Till then...

~Me and Her

Uncle David comes for a visit!!

The days that followed New Years were a blur. We were SOO excited to hear that on the 11th, Wendy and Dwayne were coming to Palawan for a visit (since they have been working on starting their new project in Northern Luzon) and they were also bringing David Gates, the president of GMI.

Andrey made a swing for the backyard

Since we were receiving guests we all pulled together to make the Project look its absolute best. So we spent alot of time helping out with that.

I don't know it Haddie is helping or hindering....but she looks TOO cute doing it!

Also Sam was determined to master her breadmaking skills, and finally after only 2 failed attempts. Sam made the perfect loaves of bread. They were light, fluffy and tasted amazing. She was so proud!

Allison spent her time finishing up her first P.A.M.A.S. video. She wanted to have something nice to show Wendy and Dwayne when they came to the project. Due to a camera malfunction, this first video had taken longer than expected. She had originally brought her Canon video camera and had used that for the first 2 months of our stay in the Philippines. Unfortunately, the camera had decided that it did not like the humidity that the Philippines had to offer and without warning decided to die. With the camera dead, she couldn't take any video off of the tapes she had recorded on and was ultimately left with no footage. So she decided to use Sam's Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot camera (which she received as a graduation present from our Gpa) to start filming with. In the end, the footage taken from this little Nikon was WAY better quality than her Canon video camera. (PRAISE THE LORD!) So she was able to collect a lot of good footage once again and put together her video. This is the finished product:

Allison was very proud of it. Wendy and Dwayne like it as well and David Gates was impressed with it. Impressed enough to put a call into HCBN (which is the Adventist Hope Network in the Philippines) and ask them to have her come down for a week or two so that she could help them out in anyway possible. So that was very exciting.

Before coming to visit us, David Gates was in Indonesia and had received a donation. He decided to use that donation to buy our project a satellite dish so that we could watch HCBN and also transmit HCBN to all our surrounding neighbors. What a blessing!!

After sitting around talking and then eating supper, we decided to go up onto the roof of Danny and Rovelyn's house and have worship. The stars were gorgeous and it was a lot of fun to worship our Creator while under the beautiful night sky.

David showing everyone his video camera. Put that on Allison's wish list!!

P.A.M.A.S. team with Uncle David in front of the helicopter

The boys putting the helicopter to bed for the night

The next morning Uncle David and Dwayne headed out, which was really sad because they had just gotten here. But luckily, we get to keep Wendy for the next couple weeks. No doubt, she has some adventures up her sleeve for us to take part in. Till then...

~Me and Her