This was a two week long missions trip with the primary goal of assisting in the launch of a satellite campus of Saddleback Church in Davao, Philippines. We also had a number of side secondary goals as well which I'll discuss as I go through a recap of the trip.
Tuesday 10/14
Travel to the Philippines. Direct flight from LAX to Manilla. 5 hour layover and then short flight to Davao. We left late Tuesday night and flew over the international date line, so Wednesday came and went during the flight even though it was only 14 hours. We arrived Thursday about 5AM in Manilla and about 1PM in Davao.
Thursday 10/16
The only thing we did Thursday was travel to hotel, check in, eat dinner and go to bed.
Friday 10/17
First we went over to the local church offices. We had each brought an extra duffel bag of supplies with us from the main church and we went through those supplies there.
Then we went by the location that the church is renting for the next 6 months for it's worship services to take a look and it and access any operational issues we might need to address.
There was a fire in Davao on October 2nd that burned 150 homes and displaced 800 people. The displaced people were being temporarily housed in tents in basketball courts and given food by the government.
There was also a doublet earthquake on October 10th (a 7.2 and a 6.8) in the Philippines. That was followed by a 5.7 on the 12th (all three of those before we arrived) and by 5.4 on the 18th, a 5.2 on the 19th, a 5.8 on the 20th (while we were there). The doublet caused quite a bit of damage and an number of deaths.
So our next stop was to visit one of the basketball courts to see what needs the people being sheltered there may have.
What we found is that although the government was providing them with temporary housing and food, few of the families had the resources to prepare it, as they lost everything in the fire. We spoke to the governmental official in charge of the location and indicated that we wanted to provide the refugees with those supplies.
We then went by an area where a burn occurred and the government was rebuilding the homes. In this area of Davao, people who can not afford property build shanties on stilts above the water on the coastline.
Next stop was a department store to pick up the supplies we had promised for 62 families. We picked up gas camping stoves with several canisters of gas, pots, plates, utensils, cutting board, pitcher and glasses.
Saturday 10/18
We met with the local church staff and volunteers and provided training on how to run a worship service.
Afterwards the local church staff and volunteers sorted out the supplies we had purchased for the refugees for distribution.
Sunday 10/19
We did a "soft launch" worship service at the new church location in order to work out any issues we hadn't anticipated when we did the earlier walkthrough of the facility.
Monday 10/20
The local church volunteers distributed the supplies we had acquired to the refugees.
Tuesday 10/21
A "culture day". This allows us to get some rest. It also allows the locals to introduce us to their culture. One of the members of the local church invited us to her home/farm where we had the opportunity to sample some of the local food items, including most notably: durian. The locals indicated that it "smells like hell but tastes like heaven". I can only agree with them on the first half of that statement. 😀
Next we went to the Philippine Eagle Center. The Philippine Eagle is, like the American Bald Eagle, the official bird of the Philippine nation. And, like the American Bald Eagle, the Philippine Eagle is an endangered species. (Incidentally, the American Bald Eagle didn't become the official bird of the United States until late 2024, prior to that is was unofficial).
And then the Malagos Chocolate Museum. It's the first interactive museum in the Philippines, where you can learn about how they harvest and process chocolate and, if you're so inclined, make some of your own. I was so inclined:
Wednesday 10/22 and Thursday 10/23
We distributed flyers around the location of the rented worship center inviting people to come to the launch of the new location on Sunday.
Friday 10/24
The local church hosted an event on preventing dementia, bringing in an expert on the subject from Manilla to present.
Saturday 10/25
We went to the local church office and provided Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) training for other team members, the local church staff and the local church volunteers, as we will be doing a TBRI event after the service on Sunday.
In the evening, church staff and volunteers from the Santa Rosa, Philippines church and church staff from the Lake Forest, California church arrived to assist with the launch and we had dinner together.
Saturday 10/26
Launch day. I was assisting in the Children's Ministry (which was in a different building) rather than in the worship services, so I don't have pictures. What I was told is that we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 people attend the launch event. I do know that the launch made the local newspaper, and they do have pictures.Monday 10/27
Another "culture day". This time we and the key volunteers from the local campus (at our treat) went to Paradise Island Park on Samal Island in the Davao Gulf.
Tuesday 10/28
Return flight to the United States. Basically the reverse of how we got to the Philippines. Local flight to Manila and then an international flight to LAX. As we're passing the International Date Line going the other way this time our 12 hour flight that left Manilla at 10:30 PM arrived at LAX at 8:00 PM the same day ( 2.5 hours before we left 😵).
Summary
Overall, I think the launch went well and was pleased that the local church had a couple of other opportunities to server their local community (assisting the fire refugees and the dementia seminar).
When we did the soft launch the Children's Ministries was set up in a cordoned off area within the worship center (an approach I've seen the Saddleback Berlin campus use). Moving the Children's Ministries to another building was an adjustment made after the soft launch, but that resulted in some other logistical issues. About the only way that could have been averted would have been to have two soft launches prior to the official launch (which I believe the Saddleback Whittier campus did when they did their official launch). However, I don't know how many (if any) of our team could be involved for an additional week.
Also, the dementia event could have been better attended. It didn't get the level of promotion that the launch event did. I don't know that trying to promote both events at the same time would be practical either. It might be something they might consider doing another time when there isn't another event near the same time so they could focus on just promoting that event.
Odds and Ends
We took a collection within the missions team and bought a washer/dryer set for the Davao campus pastor's family. They're a young family (one infant) and they're currently doing laundry by hand.
One member of the mission team also bought a refrigerator for the Davao church office.
Traffic in the Philippines (or at least Davao) is definitely different than Los Angeles. There are few street lights or stop signs in Davao. Instead, drivers just negotiate intersections on their own. There is no angry honking of horns or road rage.
They do honk their horns, but only light taps to let other drivers know of their location (e.g., when passing). The only accident and road rage I saw (same incident) in the two weeks I was there was when two taxies touched bumpers on the road leading into the airport.
If you're like me and don't like it when the malls start playing Christmas tunes right after Halloween instead of waiting until after Thanksgiving, then the Philippines will drive you nuts. Apparently the malls start promoting Christmas in September. There were Christmas decorations everywhere.
The Philippines runs much smaller electric utility lines down roads, and instead uses a lot more lines. It becomes particularly noticeable at intersections, where you often see something like this:
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