{FECA Vision Choir} Report 13

Saturday, July 26
We woke up around 4 AM to go eat breakfast at 5 (the hotel kindly opened early just for us) and got picked up at 5:45 to go to the pier and catch the boat to Bohol. Carlos, Tessie, his wife, Pastor Joe and Julie, his wife, Alex and seven more from TLCC also joined us. By the way, Alex became a grandfather for the fourth time yesterday morning! The boat is quite nice and the trip took an hour and ten minutes. We arrived in the town of Tubigon, Bohol, and two vans drove all of us to the Christian Gospel Church where we were served (another) breakfast, (delicious omelet etc.). There was an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 in Bohol last October which damaged many of the structures in town, the pier, buildings, etc. The back of the church collapsed and is just being repaired. We sang a couple of songs to thank the church for hosting us for breakfast. Pastor Gary is the pastor here and also of a second church started by brother Carlos six years ago in Barangy Bugang, a village about 40 minutes away. Mari is a nanny hired by Carlos and Tessie who comes from this village. Mari was concerned about her patents' salvation which prompted Carlos and members of TLCC to plant a church here. There were about 40 at their service (held on Saturdays since Pastor Gary preaches in Tubigon on Sundays and about 30 children. Worship was entirely in Visayan, but we could feel their passion for The Lord. We sang four songs and Pastor Gary preached from Mark 2 about Jesus healing the paralytic. The church is currently meeting in a bamboo framed structure covered on the top and side with plastic. They are praying to find a piece of land to build a permanent building using prefab'd structures. We learned that starting the church here was very hard, with new believers facing persecution from the Catholic Church, being threatened with refusal to burial in their cometary, to the children being bribed to not attend their VBS, but the church has grown and they have baptized about fifty believers in the last six years since starting the church. After service, we went to Mari parents' home where we were served local crabs, shrimps, red rice, fresh coconut juice and young coconut meat (which we also had at Basili last weekend). The seafood was outstanding, so firm and fresh! Marshall ate five (smallish) crabs but Josh only ate two, claiming there were too much trouble to eat. After lunch, we were taken to two tourist highlight places in Bohol, Sanbayan Peak and Chocolate Hills located in Carmen, mountain tops where we could view the valleys and even the ocean in Bohol. At Sanbayan we got to see some tarsiers, tiny primates with huge eyes which live in these mountains and also many butterflies in a tented area. We then drove to the hanging bridge at Sipatan, originally made of bamboo but now reinforced with steel cables, but the walkway is still made of woven bamboo which sways with each step we take. We left Sipatan about 4:30 but the road was unpaved for a good portion so it took us almost two hours to drive the 40 or so kilometers back to the pier, but we made it in time to catch the last boat back to Cebu at 6:45. Thank God. We got back to Cebu and brother Alex invited everyone, Vision plus all the TLCC members to a wonderful BBQ dinner. We returned to our hotel to pack and clean up and sleep.

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