Redeeming the Spoiled and Unspoiled Beauties

Spending a few days in Cagayan de Oro has been so worthwhile in our adventure. Rudy has been a modern day Jesus-guide in this wholly unholy land. But in taking us to visit the fatherless, the imprisoned, the cast out and the poor, he has not only showed us the people that Jesus would be ministering to in this city, but also showing us where he and his YWAM staff hang out each week.

We spent the morning in Boys Town, an orphanage that fits its name; a campground outside of town for about 50 boys, unwanted, unloved and mostly untouched. So we sang our happy songs and did our energetic hand motions but the boys kind of just stared. This was a tough crowd and required an extra special kind of weapon, so we unleashed Stacyann. It took her a moment to get past her own hurt and fear and then she broke through. She stepped out of the semicircle of students towards the boys. She acknowledged her own pain of loss and hurt and then shared about the hope of restoration and the joy of new family. She had the boys attention and hearts. She held our admiration and support.

Others of us haven’t known the same kind of abandonment. Some of us in the group come from great homes and families that have cuddled and coddled us. We don’t have Stacyann’s story to share so we did the next best thing- played basketball. Basketball is sacred in these islands. We visited a village on this trip that hadn’t had an American male in it till Andrew fell into their rice field, but it already had a basketball court.

These boys lit up when the Americanos picked up the b-ball. We made a couple of teams and started playing hoops. Our sweat mingled together and the boys got the touches that are often so neglected by Boys Town visitors. Rudy explained to us that other groups show up and feed these kids, but never meet the boys’ real hunger. He told me that he was proud of our group because once we had handed out the cookies we shared names, smiles, held hands, and gave hard fouls under the basket. Apparently most groups just get back on their bus, having chalked up their good deed for the day, and head back to the good life in the city. These boys would give up rice any day for a genuine hug or slap on the back.

The next stop on our adventure tour was harder still; the windows in this facility included bars; the campground was a compound. This was a prison for pickpockets, perverts murderers and mutineers. Unfortunately it was still a center for young boys. It also housed the elderly and insane that no one else wanted anymore and had been left on the side of the road, so we brought the love of Jesus to them too. They let the boys out into the yard to engage their guests. We gave them snacks and put on a basketball clinic for them that left them laughing, pointing and shouting our names. We mixed and mingled and made friends in the short time that we were there.

The next prison we visited had no walls. It was a dump. Literally. We toured the mountain of trash and the people that call it their home. They rummage and recycle like the best of God’s Green Earth disciples, but then again, their dinner requires it, and sometimes comes from it.

We met Pastor Wilbert and his wife Ruth and they took us through their neighborhood. They don’t live outside this place, their church is right in the middle. They live in the parsonage assembled next to it. They introduced us to their church members, almost 80 of them now as we walked the littered path. He showed us the three expansions of the one-roomed church building, 200 square feet at a time, to make it larger for their meetings. They told us the story of the fire from the week before that had burned down 39 shelters in three minutes. Someone’s candle found a fuel that exploded into an inferno from the afternoon heat and wind. No one was injured, just displaced. Wilbert showed us the new huts being built on top of the ashes of the last ones.

I visited a dump like this in Manila when I was 18. It left an impression, especially when I had to contrast it to living back at home in Boise a few weeks later. Our students didn’t have to wait long to make their own comparisons and they didn’t have to go to America to do it. Since the YWAM staff had been along with us, no one had prepared us dinner. It was decided that we would just get some food, fast. Cagayan didn’t have a mall when I was last here, nor did they have a McDonalds or even a stop light for that matter. But now they have all three. I don’t think I saw the tears form in the students eyes while we were in the dump, or even when we drove away from the amazing, dirty little children who had clung to our arms and legs and held our hands so tight. It was when we pulled into the mall and one of students said, “Do these people even know what is happening just 10 minutes away from here?”

Not everyone is called to work in a dump. It is a calling. Rudy told me he had to ask Pastor Wilbert not to offer any food or drink to the visitors he brings, even though it is the Filipino culture to do so. Rudy, who is a rough and tumble Filipino through and through can’t stomach the food or the smells in this place for very long. No, not everyone is called to stay here, but everyone should visit and never ever be allowed to forget. Our students won’t. That there is a church here of almost 80 Bible-believing Christians should make you pause and wonder. And if you wonder about it long enough it should challenge any prosperity doctrines that you have picked up along the way, because I don’t believe they are a part of the Way.


If Saturday was a day of spoiled beauties, Sunday was our day of unspoiled beauty. One of the points to our short term mission is to encourage those that are here for the long haul. We look for ways to bless them and give them whatever affirmation they need.

The road adventurer in Rudy from our Mobile Team days has never gone away, even though he has settled down to one base with his wife and kids. He related the story to me of going from Mindanao to Camiguin island on a ferry to do some evangelism work in 1997. He saw another small island in the distance and asked about it, figuring it must be uninhabited. He was wrong. Mantigue Island is a small fishing village, unspoiled by any power lines or modern conveniences. The people get up at three am each morning to catch their food and then enjoy the sand beach that extends around their island paradise.

Rudy got permission to visit Mantigue. He met with the people that lived there, and then brought back a team with him. The team built relationship with the people and shared the love of Jesus with them. Each family now has a bible in their home that Rudy provided for them. He asked if he could take us there…



Once again this school has been blessed with opportunities that most human beings only get to visit in their dreams. We took a jeepney for two hours, a ferry for one, and then small fishing boats for the last hour to this fantasy island. It is small, just the size of Winstead Park near my house. Upon arriving I set a workout goal. I first walked around the island, feeling life Jeff Gordon in a constant state of veering left. Then I jogged around the island, much to the amusement of the locals, in five minutes flat. Then to raise the bar a bunch of us swam around the island for the final, glorious lap.

Lunch was a local delicacy. We ate fish that had been caught a few hours earlier, two kinds of seaweed, sea urchins, and clams. Matt started out with only a plate of rice but got cheers from the others to try the other items. He was a champ and proved he could eat whatever was set before him. He didn’t like the sea urchins (the locals will still be laughing about the face he made for years to come) but he put it in his mouth, chewed it, swallowed it and lived to tell the glorious tale.

After saying our goodbyes and getting back to Camiguin island, Rudy thought we needed a shower. We dropped by Katibawasan Falls and enjoyed bathing under the gorgeous water cascading on us from high above.

Is this missions? You bet! Enjoying the riches of a place are just as important as visiting the impoverished ones. Nourishing the Rudy’s, their families and their staffs and paying for their transport and food for a day of rest and fun is important, cause tomorrow we will be gone from this place and they will be back in the orphanages, the prisons and in the garbage dumps.