September 2015

September 1st Jenee and I met with the Cebu Philippines Temple President, Pres Pagaduan to be set apart as ordinance workers.  The blessings he gave to us were absolutely wonderful and I cannot think of a better way to start our temple service.  We will be working on the Thursday morning shift to start with.  However the President asked if we might be willing and available for a full day shift if necessary and could we help out of Friday mornings.  We indicated that Friday is our travel day to other islands for Self-Reliance business.  But, we did inform him that if we are not traveling we would give him prior notification that we would be available to fill a Friday morning shift. 

We left the temple elated and so look forward to being back in the House of the Lord to serve the Filipino saints like we did for the saints in South Africa.

September 3rd & 4th were our first two days serving as ordinance workers in the Cebu Temple. We  spent both days from 7AM - 2PM.  It was beyond wonderful to once again be serving among fellow temple missionaries. Jenee and served in almost every area during these two days giving us opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the ordinances and procedures again. After being away for a couple of years it came back to us quite easily.  We both agree that this addition to our mission was a good decision on our part and will certainly add to our mission experience while here in the Philippines.

After our Thursday shift we were invited to go to dinner with some of the Temple Missionaries: the Deckers, Mannings, Knorrs and Schofields. It was great being among other Senior Missionaries, the camaraderie was superb and it filled a void that we have been missing. The Chinese Restaurant, Majestic served Delicious food! 

September 11th & 12th we made a special trip to BOGO to visit two organic pig farms that we hope will be a model for the church members to use in our venture to start organic piggeries. 

We arrived in BOGO at 10 AM and met up with Elder Bock. We transferred into his truck as the drive to the first farm was about 45 minutes away from BOGO up in the mountain area. After finding the access road we drove about 10 minutes up dirt and rocky roads to the Anapol Christian Group Organic Farm.  We were greeted by the director immediately and welcomed into their home where we were offered an organic breakfast of creamed rice, sweet potatoes and bananas, along with calamanci and lemon grass cold tea.  After that we were taken on a tour of the farm and it was beyond our expectation.  They are growing vegetables everywhere there is space.  Even on the fences they hang 1 liter bottles with holes cut into the sides filled with dirt and then a plant of some kind.  These bottles were hanging everywhere.  They had plant tables, gardens of every sort and of every kind throughout the farm which was so impressive.  We then went to see their pig operation as that was our reason for being there. The cleanest piggery we have see!  The pens were filled with sawdust to keep the grounds clean which in turn kept the pigs clean.  We then saw their vermin boxes where the ground cover from the pig pens is deposited and infused with nightcrawlers.  This is a by-product of the piggery: the worms are then sold to farmers to put in their grounds.  Next was the goat area - just as impressive at the pig area.  Everything we saw was made from the elements of the earth.  The goat and pig pens were made of bamboo which not only looked great but keeps the cost of building to a minimum.

 

Main Home at Farm



Plants in 1 liter bottles

Mary Ann, Jerry & Elder Bock

Elder Bock, Jerry, myself, and Jenee 

Vermin Pits

 



Free range chickens

 

We spent about an hour there and were so impressed with what we saw.  We were invited to come back and the director offered his place as a training center for our members if we so decide that direction to go.

After lunch we met up and headed out to see the second organic piggery the Pagtambayayong Foundation located about 10 minutes from the Medellin Chapel where we were later on going to hold a meeting for all those interested in pig farming.

This farm was not nearly as clean as Anapol but it was still something to behold, especially the program they are using to help the poor people who were hit the hardest by the Typhoon.  We met with the manager of the farm  and spent about 40 minutes with him seeing not only his pig operation but his dairy cows and agriculture vegetable grounds. The pig pens were nothing but mud, far from what we earlier experienced.  However their operations structure is what set us afire.  It was just the model plan that we were looking for with a potential to really open up our piggery plans.

We left there just in time to get back to the chapel to meet up with Tony San Gabriel, Mary Ann, and Sister Darby who had just arrived in time for the meeting.  We gave them an enthusiastic short versions of our discoveries and Tony immediately grabbed Elder Bock and the four of them returned to the pig farm nearby to get a firsthand view of what we found.  When they arrived the manager had left for the day but they still had a good tour of the place and got enough about their operations that put Tony on cloud nine - we just found our model farm and program!  He was so excited he could not stop talking about the potential.  In fact he is so excited that he is returning Saturday to get further information on the operations and to meet the manager and to make arrangements to meet with the owner.  Tony wants to work out an arrangement where we can use their facilities as a training center.  They had a building where they do a 3-day organic pig farming training.

After they returned we held our meeting with the members who had shown interest in pig farming.  Tony did a great job introducing organic farming and piggeries but was hit with some opposition.  The opposition came from a member who had previously visited the pig farm we were all excited about and was told they would not assist anybody except the very poor  in the area who were hit the hardest by the Typhoon.  Unfortunately for this member was the fact that he drove his nice truck to make his inquiries, so the manage had told him flat out that they couldn't help him.His negative attitude I think caught Tony off guard but in reality I think it made him even more anxious to return and work out a deal with the assistance of the Church Welfare Department.

On Saturday morning bright and early I got an e-mail from Tony outlining his plans to return to BOGO again on Saturday to see what kind of arrangements he can put together with the manager of the operations and to get all the organizational information so he can meet with the owner who resides in Cebu.  He is going to then develop a presentation which he will make to Brother Benson of the Welfare Department on Monday and hopefully make arrangements to return to the farm with him so he can see what we are so excited about.  I hope to go on that trip if and when they go.

On Wednesday, Mary Ann, Jenee, and I returned to Bogo to visit both farms again so Mary Ann could see Arapol and  ask questions.  We spent all day visiting both farms and gathered a tremendous amount of information that will help us are we move forward.  The excitement even got higher after this visit.

Before we headed for home we went and visited one of the beneficiaries to see just how this operation worked with the very poor.  This was certainly an eye opener at the ground roots level.  This particular lady is now on her second level and has started to generate income she has really never experienced before. These home-managed pig farms are 10 X 10 pig pens housing 10 pigs from piglet size to sale at about 4 months old. Some of the beneficiary farms have grown to 2 pens which means they are doubling their income.  Their only drawback as of now is they are not entirely organic farms because they are still using commercial feed.  We have a plan to solve that problem and will be presenting it to the organization.

Now that this whirlwind weekend is over I think we feel much better about the direction we are headed.  Tony San Gabriel, the Area SR Director who is heading up this project will be meeting with the President of the Pagtambayayong organization this coming week to see just what he hopefully can develop between his organization and the church.  We do have options and hopefully with what we can produce through the Welfare Department we can meet somewhere in the middle and get our members into this operation.

Saturday September 19th we took our first trip to the Island of Camotes.  This is a two hour boat ride out of Danau which is about 1.15 hours north of Cebu City.  We have been warned that once we get there and see how beautiful it is we will not want to come home.  After our two-hour ride in the air conditioned compartment we arrived at Camotes.  We drove off the boat only to discover that Camotes is a quaint little island with only one narrow road going around.

Ferry to and from Camotes



This is some of the country side we saw as we drove to our beach resort.  Green and beautiful everywhere with the side of the road just array in flowers and greenery.  The majority of homes on this island were lovely.  We never did see the poverty that we see in Cebu, no dilapidated huts or squalor residence, just beautiful homes with green open fields in between.  Yes we did see some huts that were not as  magnificent and they resembled what we would see in the Samoan Islands.

Here are some of the nicer homes with the one that reminds of the Polynesian  Islands.

 

 



  

We finally arrived at our beach resort: Santiago Bay Beach Resort.  It was recommended to us by Mary Ann our manager and some of those who have visited the island.  We got there just in time to check in and have dinner before turning in for the evening.

 

Sunday morning we were up at 6 am to take a leisure stroll along the 100 yard deep beach (tide was out) that we saw the night before and were so impressed by it. The sand was so very soft, like walking in powdered sugar.  Church did not start until 9am and only 15 minutes away so we had plenty of time to spend the morning relaxing together.

 

Sun Set

Mid Morning

Early sunrise

From the beach you could see the resort where we stayed.

 

 

  

After an egg-bacon-pancake breakfast we headed for the chapel.  We had heard that this branch was doing well with over 130 members in attendance.  We had seen this "small" kind of chapel before, but it was not until Sacrament Meeting that we were astounded. The chapel was entirely filled, and the two smaller class rooms opened up at the back sides of the chapel which were also filled to capacity.  They then put chairs down the narrow hallway going back to the front door of the building, but with many of the children hanging around outside. The restrooms are out back in a separate little building.  It was just so disheartening in my estimation that such a strong and faithful branch had such inadequate accommodations for holding meetings. They have been promised a new building next year!

 

And to make things more difficult especially for us they spoke only Visayan so we understood absolutely nothing that was said.  This of course has been our pattern here in the Philippines when we travel; little if any English is spoken We keep laughing that we were told this was an "English speaking mission".  Some people do speak English, some of the time.  :  ] 

After Sacrament meeting was over we were to hold a PEF-TOF meeting to talk about organic pig farming.  Well, after about 10 minutes into the meeting we discovered that less than half were new to the program to start classes, so we hurried and conducted a My Path Devotional for everyone for them.  The other half of the members were there to see how they could get their loans since they had already taken EFBW and SGMB back in November of 2014.  Some had received the PEF-TOF loans while a majority were still waiting.  It seemed like a circus just trying to decipher who belonged where.  While Jenee worked with the new group I tried to understand all the concerns from the others. The language barrier made things a bit difficult and I am still wondering if we made any headway.

 

I discovered that many of the members are already raising pigs, in fact the second counselor in the branch presidency has 30+ pigs!  I also found out that there are two commercial organic piggeries on the island which we knew nothing about.  So I met with the 2nd C. to see if we could do some investigations into the piggeries and see if we could meet with them and develop some kind of workable co-op.  I will just have to relay our findings to the stake pres.Tony San Gabriel and take directions from there.

 

After all that fun we said our good-byes to a wonderful group of members who showed us such love and affection.  It was like we were the first white people to visit them and perhaps we were, who knows?  We had to be at the pier by 4 PM to catch the 5PM ferry departure.  We got there at about 3:45PM only to discover that the scheduled departure had been cancelled and would not leave until 6:30 PM.  So we sat around playing Gin to pass the time. We finally departed at 7:30 PM getting us back to Danao at 9:30, but from just the dock it took us 40 minutes to go 400 yards to get past the construction sight and a festival going on with hundreds of people, try-cycles, jeepnies and motor bikes everywhere!  You just cannot comprehend what it is like to travel at night here in the Philippines.  The jeepnies, tricycles and motorbikes do not use their lights at night.  Along with that the people are standing everywhere on the road wearing black clothing so you just do not see them until you are right upon them.  It makes driving a nerve-racking, white-knuckle adventure. After a  long and exhausting day and night we arrived home at 11:30pm, had a cold cereal dinner before hitting the sack.

Saturday the 26th. Bohol. At 5 am  Sister Balen, Jenee, and I headed out to the pier to catch the 6 am boat to Tagbiliaran to attend their Self-Reliance Graduation.

This graduation has been our focus and in the works since we arrived back in March.  With trying to complete the various groups in the various branches it has been a real task.  Then among all that the District was made a Stake and everything was put on hold until such time as the Stake got completely organized and settled in.

This was the largest graduation so far this year in Cebu totaling 102 graduates.  Some of these graduates completed their SR group studies back in May, while others just completed them the middle of this month. The majority of the graduates came from Starting and Growing My Own Business which is the most popular SR group in the SR program here.

This graduation came off beautifully and was really a miracle after all the time and effort that was put in by the Stake SR Specialist Florida Ferrer, the Facilitators, and the Stake SR Committee. As Missionaries, all we did was to continue to urge them to move forward and plan.  That in and of itself was a major accomplishment for us without being pushy, condescending or demanding.  This SR program is really about the people in the wards and branches, their accomplishments.  We are just spectators helping where we can and then  just sitting back and watching the entire program develop and come off without a hitch.  See for yourself!

Graduate Speaker

Graduate Speaker



                                                  Pres. Galotera, the Stake President

Graduation class of 2015

                                       

Here are some of the products from the various businesses that these graduates have started.

The MLS Missionaries serving on Bohol joined us for this occasion, Elder & Sister Bell (on left) who just arrived from Hooper Utah.  He is a retired plumber who owned his own business, selling it before they left on their mission. They will be serving in Calepe and our friends the Halladays have transferred to Tagbilaran for the reminder of their mission. The Halladays have been so good to us, picking us up and taking us wherever we needed to go. We have become such good friends and cherish their support and friendship. Now with our concentration turning to Tagbiliarian it will be good to have them nearby once again.  The Bells have offered their assistance when we are in their area as well.  They are going to be great missionaries, enthusiastic and eager to get involved with the members and the work for the next 2 years.

All in all this was a long but most wonderful day, not just for the members, but for the Stake and especially for us as Self-Reliance Missionaries who have waited and been encouraging for some time to now see this event take place. What a blessing.