Dear Friends,
Peak International Missions is a group of devoted dentists, hygienists and dental assistants from Alaska that use their time off every year to reach out to those who need it the most. Some of them are seasoned travelers and have done this for years. For others, this was the first time they had gone on a mission trip. None of them expected to experience some of the things they did on their trip to our island in the Philippines.
Torrential rains had turned the dirt roads into swamps and thick, impassable mud. Before they even reached the mission house, the vans carrying them and their supplies got stuck and everything had to be carried by hand to the house. Every day that week, the road remained impassable by truck, and we had to carry all the supplies out to the main road.
For the past several months, the power plant that supplies our electricity has been doing exactly the opposite! Every day we have been having blackouts that last an hour, or five, or ten hours…. You just never know when it’ll come on again!
On the first day, it had rained the whole night before and into the early morning. We were worried that this would prevent the people from being able to come for dental care. We all prayed silently as we set up the dental clinic in the town’s covered basketball court. Just as we got ready, the rain stopped, and people started coming in. Right as the sun poked its welcomed rays out of the clouds, the power went out. Then the rain started again. My son Von and I quickly went back to the mission house to get the generator. We dodged puddles as we dashed to the generator house. The generator is a very powerful, and very large Honda 5,000. It’s great for construction projects, but it’s not very portable. Since the road was impassable, we somehow managed to put it in a wheelbarrow, and, slipping and sliding, wheeled it through the mud and rain to where the truck waited on the good road.
The week quickly progressed with so many stories that we could write a book. We will share a few more in the next edition of Airways, AWA’s magazine. Through it all, we kept seeing God’s hand at work as skies cleared when the radar showed it was raining. We had a road washed out on the way to one site, and a bridge was washed out on the way to another. We had to haul supplies to all of these, including walking out about a fourth of a mile in sand/mud to get to boats to go to an island in need. But, through all of this, not one person complained! Everyone chipped in and helped and had smiles on their faces. The people who found relief in dental care were so grateful for all the work that was done. The dental team was able to see a total of 337 people during their time with us!
We also have some good news that the AWA office has recently contacted us about; we now have enough funds to start building the road! We are so excited! The contractor has already put in his bid, and because of the rains, his start date will be March 1, 2019. We want to thank you so much for making this possible! We continue to need funds for the next phase: to build the runway. The third phase will be to build the hangar.
We want to say thank you for all your support and prayers to make things like generators and roads possible. We want to thank the Peak International Missions team for coming and helping so many people! If the people could tell you, they would say, in their language of Tagalog “Maraming Salamat Po!” (Thank you very much!).
Edgar Espinosa
