How could you not love a place where basketball is the national sport? My heaven would lie somewhere in between a wierd mixture of Camiguin Island and Colorado. This place is breathtakingly beautiful. I am starting to learn that, more than anything, the people are what makes your experience memorable not the place. And with this experience, I have met people of the best kind and I have received a memory that I will never forget.

Camiguin Island is a small island in the Philippines. Everyone is friendly here. When we are seen driving down the people wave and say hello and when we stop we are, sometimes, swarmed by curious children. English is no problem here as many people speak it and most of the signage is in English.

We had come here to work with Sea and Sun Ministries; which is a mission started by two amazing women: Wenke and Edith. Wenke is from Norway and Edith is a native of the Philippines from Cebu. Seriously, this place is special, miracles happen here. Something special happens when people unselfishly help and unconditionally love people. And that is exactly what Wenke and Edith are doing down there at Sea and Sun – they are changing lives, families and even the community for the better. These women are inspiring servants of God. (Wenke in the middle on the left, Edith in the middle on the right).
They had a vision from God to create a church and a self-sustaining community where the Filipino people could work and earn a living. Sea and Sun was started in 2001 and has since nutured an amazing amount of Filipino people both economically and spiritually. We are the 7,8, and 9 Americans to come to Sea and Sun and we followed a reputable bunch; including Pastor Jim Walters. Whom they all speak very highly of. Several Norwegian churches had a big hand in making this possible and they still continue to support in various ways the most basic of which just visiting. You see, by visiting Sea and Sun you put people to work and the mission is able to make money to fuel its various projects in the community. This place is putting kids through school, sometimes, all the way through University. It is giving kids opportunity and hope that might have not otherwise had it before.

Well the first day we got there, they were working on a big project: pouring a huge concrete slab for the floor of the new building they were constructing. With Jamie and Koye’s construction expertise and my brut strength (kiddinng) Wenche asked us to lend a hand. So we began in the late afternoon, carrying very heavy sacks of rocks and sand about 50 yards to the mixer. Now us Colorado boys are used to the dry climate not this brutal heat and humidity and after about an hour we gained a whole new respect for the Filipino workers who do this all the time. But not to worry, once the sun went down we got out energy back and earned the respect of our fellow Filipino workers. Now most of them didn’t speak English, so they began saying the few English words they knew as a means of communication or a way to say good job. The funny thing is that they were shouting ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Congratulations!’ to us. So we decided to use a greeting that was made popular by our good friend, Zach Chicione, back at home: ‘HEY BOSS’!! (which I guess means hey friend of you had to translate it). So everytime we passed a fellow Filipino worker we would shout ‘Hey Boss’ and they just thought it was the funniest thing, so they started saying it back. Pretty soon, all you could hear at 11pm while we were still working was ‘Hey Boss’. (Here is a picture of us with allthe workers).

But seriously this ‘Hey Boss’ thing spread through the island like a virus. A couple days later we having a sports camp with the local kids and (unprompted – I swear) they starting saying ‘Hey Boss’. We figure that some of the workers were their parents and had went and told them about some crazy Americans saying this ‘Hey Boss’. I got a really cool video of all kids saying it, I will try to post sometime soon. I thought we might have a problem when we were traveling on top of the Sea and Sun bus, when we were passing some construction on a steep embankment in the road when, literally, a kid in a fishing boat barely within earshot and way out in the cove started to screaming and waving ‘Hey Boss’ when he saw us on the top of the bus.

Oh yeah, the food was amazing. I have hands down ate the best pineapple and mango ever…in fact I couldn’t stop eating it. At night I got real addicted to a Mango split with 2 scoops of Mango ice cream and one scoop of strawberry.

Perhaps more than anything, we were blessed by the people we met. We met quite a few Norwegian people. I don’t know if you have ever met anyone from Norway before (I hadn’t until now) but these people are awesome. Here is a picture of some of our Norwegian friends.

And just as impressive were the Filipino people we met. We met many of young men and women working at Sea and Sun to help put themselves through school. They have so much talent and ambition, it is really neat to see them so dedicated to improving themselves and they are so much fun to hang out with. :

Oh yeah, back to the basketball. Basketball is immensely popular here. Wenche organized a little international basketball tournament and rented out the local court in Yumbing. It was to be Team USA (even though we had two Filipinos on our team) and Team Norway and Team Philippines. It was crazy Team Norway and Team Philippines brought their country flags ( we didn’t have one) and we all took turns in singing our national anthem. There was more than 150 people in attendance. Let’s just say that the Filipino team was second place and Norway was 3rd. But it was great fun to play with everyone.

Now this is something you will not believe. I gave the sermon on Easter Sunday at church. Wenche asked me to and would never say no to Wenche. I had to speak with a translator which was difficult to get used to but I think I did a pretty good job. Jamie video taped it and we will see if we can post it on the blog here. Meantime, here is a picture:

Sorry for the long post, I had a lot to cover and this isn’t even the half of it.

Love and miss you all.

Ryan

PS – Check out the photo page for more great photos

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