DAY 9 - GIVING & RECEIVING IN CABANCULAN

Cabanculan City 65 Sports Ambassadors 91
Cabanculan Church 50 Sports Ambassadors 63

A wonderful Monday morning had been planned for us. The culmination of months of fundraising, planning, purchasing and packing came down to today.

Before the main event though, we made an early morning stop at a church school set up entirely from donations. Donations of equipment – books, desks, and classrooms. Donations of time with all teachers working on a voluntary basis.

Sounds crazy, right?

This fanciful concept is made even more difficult when the local history of the area is taken into consideration. For more than twenty years this mountainous area was controlled by communist rebels. These tyrants allowed no education for the people at all. A generation of people who cannot read or write with no appreciation for anything more than daily survival are all that is left behind from this recently-toppled regime.
As such, the new church school has classes of mature age adults learning in the same kindergarten classes as their young children!

All of the donations since the inception of the school just three years ago showed what true community means to these people – each Sunday 150 people travel by foot through the high altitudes to praise and worship God on the grounds of the school to thank these volunteers for this new opportunity – some hiking up to six miles for the service!

A small presentation of donated funds and a tour of the school set the tone for a day of giving and receiving. The short bus ride to the main church building at 9am for the food distribution gave us time to reflect on what we were about to take part in.

Filing into the same church building that had resembled a small factory the night before, we were greeted by 800 people who sat excitedly for a service that would see them receive food to last them for a fortnight.

As guests of honour, we were reserved seats in the front and the lull of the crowd when we entered was akin to the arrival of the bridal party just minutes before the bride.

After opening addresses from local Pastor Ely and Pastor Gary, who again fired up the crowds with Tagalog phrases like ‘Balak Bak’ (clap your hands) and ‘Amen Huber?’ (don’t you agree) we made our way to the stage and thanked the people for the opportunity to come to the mountains to distribute this food.

We pointed out that this money is not from us personally, but from the donations of churches and individuals in Australia who wanted to see the Filipinos thrive and survive in calamitous surroundings. The concept of the universal church united by Christ really crystallises when you are standing before this many people knowing that this is only possible from donations abroad with all parties looking to God for the glory rather than individual motivation.

The packages were handed out to the four lines of people lined up and the joy and thankfulness on the people’s faces alone was worth the flight to this part of the world. Sighs of ‘Salamat’ (thankyou) and old women staring at each other in disbelief as they received their packages was something that our players will never forget.

An exhibition match was scheduled after the food distribution just down the road from the church. Not only did the crowd of 200 make their way down to cheer on the food-giving foreigners, but the local elementary school was let out early to allow the young children to see the game. This filled the outsides of the court about three-deep and made retrieving the ball or moving around the outside of the court quite tricky.

Reaching our end of the court we realised that the rings were only 9 and a half foot high, as opposed to the regulation 10 foot. This changed the usual layup drill for warmups into a slam-dunk fest as almost the whole team could comfortably throw down a dunk by this part of the trip. The roar of the crowd after each dunk only inspired the team to try more outlandish tricks until Danny Cook threw down a monster dunk and almost pulled down the ring, prompting Pastor Gary to start the game before it ended prematurely.

The local selection were entertaining but not overly talented and Conan Prince proceeded to continue his three-point theatrics from outside, knocking down three long-range bombs before taking two giant steps on his next layup and hammering home a heavy dunk for the crowd. His preparation for this trip by training on the bitumen courts of the City of Gosnells had paid off this afternoon and his muscle-man celebrations after each dunk further cemented his cult status with the youngsters of Cabanculan.

Danny Cook shared his testimony at half-time and the crowd, mostly unbelievers who believe in the gospel of food and shelter, listened intently to what he had to say. The usual 3-4 minutes reserved for Christian tract distribution had to be extended to 15 minutes because of the large crowd that was now gathering from far and wide to see an exhibition match which had become something for the local people to treasure for sometime.

The highlight of the second half was Hedley ‘The Thickness’ Taylor taking the ball coast-to-coast and attempting to dunk over the opposition’s largest player! He succeeded in grabbing the middle of the net and coming down in a crumpled heap! After checking that he was not fatally injured, the crowd went wild at his heroics. High-fives on the bench now became a long affair as our team now had 27 children sitting amongst up jumping up and down at every opportunity and slapping players on the back just for the fun of it.

Subsequent dunks from Danny Cook, Giles Creelman and tip-dunks from Andrew Stock and Conan Prince kept the crowd oohing and aarghing as coach-cheerleader Fletcher Creelman roamed the court like a mascot without a uniform, imploring fans to ‘scream louder’ and ‘For goodness sake! Balak Bak!’

With the conclusion of the game and handshakes and formalities aside, the court became a time for the young children to be lifted up by Fletcher and Stocky to experience a slam dunk of their own. This was great fun for everyone to enjoy. The local pastor then had a great surprise for us – a postgame trip to a pure spring up in the mountains.

The photos of this spring have to be seen to be believed. 98% pure water direct from the earth’s core made the water perfect for swimming and enjoying for an hour or so before our second match. This was very enjoyable and a great way to relax.

The second match was a lower-key affair played in the church against the church team selection. With the pastor’s son starting for the Sports Ambassadors, it was a fun game which saw Giles Creelman speak to the half-time crowd about ‘Something Bigger’ in their lives. Having been a stronghold for communist rebels just ten years earlier, the introduction of churches and westerners who spread a positive way of living is something that the locals really seem to appreciate here.

Our final night’s stay in the pastor’s retreat will then see us head off early tomorrow morning for La Carlota – a large city an hour north of here.

Today has been a great day for international church co-operation and the positive style living that a Christian faith can instill within a people.