Chapter 18
My First Trip Abroad: Ecumenical Studies in Bangalore & Bombay, India
In 1980-1984, Dr. Johnny Gumban was President of the Baptist Convention. Dr. Domingo Diel, Jr., was the General Secretary. These were the times, when the two contemporaries, where in the top leadership of the Baptist Convention.
Under their leadership, I was involved both in the leadership of the Convention and in the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. I was involved in the Faith, Worship and Service Committee of NCCP. It was during this time that I was invited to attend a 1 month ecumenical training and exposures trip in India. The training was sponsored by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), thru the NCCP. It’s office was in Singapore.
CCA involved pastors and church leaders from Hongkong, Philippines, India, Taiwan, Bangla Dish, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar. There were some visitors & Resource Persons from the USA, Europe and Australia.
An NCCP officer told me that CCA will hold training that year. He asked me, if interested to write a letter of intent. I wrote CCA, thru the NCCP office, requesting for study exposures under the CCA training. I was accepted. Rev. Tosh Arai, who has some hands in Urban Industrial Mission works in Japan answered my letter. He told me, the CCA training that year will be in India. He gave the date of the training and exposures dates. I prepared for the trip to India.
Rev. Tosh Arai wrote me. It said like these. “Pastor Rudy Bernal, your trip to India was prepared. You get your two-way ticket from PAL in Iloilo Airport. You will be one of the three CCA participants from the Philippines. CCA group will come from different countries in Asia.
"There will be about 50 participants who will attend. But several hundres from Asia, Europe and US, will be in Bangalore to attend the CCA General Assembly in Bangalore, for about a week.”
It was my first time to be out of the Philippines. It was first, of some 25 trips and trainings, seminars, exposures and invitations to different cities – in Southeast Asia, Sweden, Germany and Australia. It was a great opportunity for learnings, for trips abroad were great educational adventures. The day, I first went to Singapore for the trip to India showed me the wide avenues for the future.
I felt some fears going abroad, alone. I was already at Manila International Airport. Fears seems to be gripping on me. I prayed for God’s help and guidance. While I was waiting in the passenger’s area, a young man, quite tall and handsome came. He sat beside me. We started a conversation. I told him, I will be going to Singapore and then to India.
He said, he will go also to Singapore and India. He introduced himself. “I am a pastor of a UNIDA church in Manila. I am a preacher and singer. I play guitar. I am a member of the Board of the UNIDA. An I am a member of an NCCP commission.”
He will also attend the CCA conference. We will be going on the same trip and will be involved in the same exposures. We will both go to Singapore and stay there for two days. My new friend, whose name I cannot recall now, also said: “ I have two member of our church in Manila, who were now working here in Singapore. He and his wife were Accountants.
"They were inviting me for a dinner with them tonight. I will asked you to join me. My friends will be happy that you will be with us tonight.” I told him, I will be happy, if I will be incited by his members.
That afternoon, at 5:00 PM, his members, a couple met us at the airport. He invited me to go with them and see some places in Singapore. And his friends, asked me to join them for dinner that night.
I have seen, God’s way of anwering prayers. It was always specific answer to specific needs. He answered my fears of travelling on a plane alone. My first trip to a foreign land. The loneliness of being alone travelling to a foreign land. I asked God to help me. And He answered my prayers. It was a simple but right answer to my prayers.
That night we’re together for dinner in a flash restaurant in Singapore. It was a time for sharing. They shared with us their lives in Singapore. And I learned a lot from them. I learned life in Singapore from their sharing, a small but very progressive and prosperous city in Asia.
They shared with us the church the worship in Singapore. The iron leadership of President, Lee Kuan Yu. The cleanliness of the city. The discipline of the people. The honesty of the taxi drivers.
One reasons for advanced life of Singaporeans? The strong discipline and deep honesty of the Singaporean, which was taught and practiced by there political leaders.
They told us, they would be staying long in Singapore. For business and living, it was much, much better, tiny island city, called Singapore, than in the Philippines.
We stayed two days in the Singapore. More delegates arrived from all over Asia. There were also visitors and Resource Persons from the USA and Europe. And the following day, we left for India.
We were in 6 teams in the exposure programs. Each team with 6 to 7 members. Each team go to 2 two or three provinces. Our team was assigned to Bangalore City and some towns in Kartanaka province. After the CCA Assembly, we will proceed to other areas in Kartanaka Province. After that, we flew to Bombai (Bombay), the biggest province/ states of India.
In Bangalore City, we first attended the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) General Assembly in Bangalore. It was held on May 18-28 in one of the Christian Colleges in Bangalore. The Assembly theme was, “Living in Christ with People”.
I think, more than 600 delegates and visitors attended the CCA General Assembly in Bangalore.
The Philippine delegations to the Assembly was headed by Rev. La Verne Mercado, General Secretary of NCCP. There were Philippine delegates who came from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, the Iglesia Philippine Independente, United Methodist Church, Convention of Phil. Baptiist Churches, UNIDA and other member churches.
Our group, those attending the CCA Education and Exposures Project were observers for the General Assembly. But we were encouraged to participate in the discussions. I tried to asked some questions during the General Assembly. That was my first time, to attend a Asian Assembly of the CCA. It was my first time to attend an International Conference. There were heavy discussions. But they were all cordial and educational.
One of the speakers of the Assembly was Fr. Edicio de la Torre, a Catholic Priest and known for his fight against Marcos dictatorship. Fr. De la Torre spoke to the CCA General Assembly one evening. The assembly was full. Many, from the churches in Bangalore and from colleges and universities attended to hear Fr. Edicio de la Torre. He did not have prepared speech.
He spoke from his heart. It was one of the eloquent presentations of the assembly. When he finished, many delegates and visitors came to greet Father de la Torre, congratulating him for his message
We were send on exposures trip in the farming area of Bangalore. One of our exposures area was to visit village, where it was said a ”Holy Man” was living and ministering. We went there to see how a “holy man” was living and working. But he was not around when we visited his home and church.
We visited a farming village. It was a very big farming area. More than 200 families live in the area. The farmers’ homes were concentrated in one area. Here, in their homes, the farmers have their chickens. They have cows in their homes. Almost all families have cows, about 2 to six cows, which each family tended and cared. The “cow houses” were adjacent to the rooms in the homes.
We learned that the farmers, every day, took the fresh manures and brought them to their farms on the other side of the village. There, we saw different vegetables growing vigorously verdant. I learned, before 1981, the farmers there were already planting what were called (GAP), “good agricultural practices”. The planted fruits, bananas and vegetables, using composts as fertilizers, combined with some commercial fertilizers.
They have concocted pesticides from Neem Tree leaves, garlic, unions and some other plants.They mixed it with brown sugar for several days, and spray to their plants –rice, vegetables and fruits. Indian farmers have started to go natural farming technologies.
By this time, Filipino farmers, have maximized use of commercial fertilizers, poisonous pesticides and fungicides on farmings – using the deadly farm chemicals like Indren, Malation, etc., destroying most living things in the rice farms –native fresh fish, almost all fresh water shells.
It was also the start of decline of rice farmng in the Philippines – making importation of rice, continuously from that time until today, 2017.
The cows, considered holy among Indian residents, provide the daily manures the farmers need to make composts fertilizers for their fruit plants and different vegetables the whole year.
In another area of the province , we went to a quite high mountain area with verdant trees and vegetation. At the top of the mountain ranges, kilometers away, we were told, the bodies of some of the dead in the family were carried and left in the mountains. And the birds eat the bodies. Dead bodies were not buried. That was part of the culture and religious beliefs in the area during that time.
But I only heard of that story. I have not seen, bodies of dead person, left by their families on the rocks on the mountain sides.
We also visited a slum residential area in Bangalore. Our guide, who was a pastor and teacher, brought us to the center of the slums. There, the young people gathered that afternoon. They have Sunday School lessons. They students just sat on the floors. There were no seats. After the study and prayer, the young people left.
The following day, we were brought to one of the big restaurants of the city. We will stay there in the hotel.
We will have our studies. Every day a resource person/ lecturer will provide us different studies of life, works, challenges and possibilities among Indian people. We will stay in the hotel.
And for five days, all our food in the restaurants will be “vegetarian foods”. No fish. No meat. No pork. No shrimps. No crabs. All will be vegetables, during the whole week, cooked different ways. It was great. Just eating vegetarian foods.
One afternoon, in the slum area, a big residential area, some young people and adults came carrying some bottles. We learned, they bought liquors. There was a group in the slum area that produces and sell liquors illegally. Some people buy these liquors. They were told not to buy these. These were dangerous for their health. But people bought the liquors. There were reports of some poisoning. And many got sick that day.
The following week, in July 1981, after we left Bangalore and Kartanaka, we received news of more than 308 people died consuming illegal liquors.
Spurious alcohol, known as “hooch”, was rampant around Tannery Road area of Bangalore cantonment, with dwellers getting addicted. Notorious bootlelleges who were also officials in the town, were running the racket. “Hootch” is brewed from industrial alcohol, by separating Methyl alcohol and adding water – which was known, as a dangerous process that leaves traces of poisonous Methyl Alcohol.
The brew was a slow poison, damaging kidney and intestines, leading to slow death. We have seen this during our Educational and Exposures studies in Bangalore.
Then, we also saw during our exposures studies, the ongoing the 4-months strike in prime premier business sector that severely affected business in Bangalore. The fall-out of the four-month strike in the five premier public sector in Bangalore was still felt, several years after the end of the 4 months strike.
After about 2 weeks, we went to Bombai (Bombay), the biggest city of India. We travel by plane to Bombay. It was one of the biggest and crowded cities of the world. We tried to learn about Bombay during our studies and exposures in India. Bombay is a very big city. It has big slums where thousands live in the most difficult kind of life.
One thing I will always remember of Bombay. There were so many crows and hawks. Thousands crows flying and setting on the tree branches all day. They were not shot and killed or eaten by the people.
But I learned, that India has started to develop a pharmaciatical industry that were indigenous and not dependent from the American medical researches. Even then, India has started their own medicinal research and medicine production. Medicine costs were much lower in India. I was told, cost of medicine was nearly 10 times lower in India than in the Philippines. American branded medicines were very, very expensive in those times.
It was from these experience of high medicine costs, that the Generic medicine were produced, at costs much lower than Ameiican branded medicines.
During that time, beggars in Bombay were just too many. The beggars .lived in slums and small huts, about a meter wide and 2 meters long, with sacks as roofs and walls of the huts. These huts runs for nearly 2 kilometers long, on one sides of the roads. I have not seen these kind of poverty in the Philippines, despite our country known as one of the poorest countries of Asia.
But India in 40 years, since 1981 has transformed itself. Many descendants of families living on those huts and slums, were now in the Philippines. They were mostly entrepreneurs and salesmen, providing loans to Filipinos in most Sari-sari stores in the barangays and small businessmen in the town markets all over the country. They provide loans to Filipinos at high interests, sometimes, 200% interest annually.
They made collections daily, to insure getting paid for the loans the gave to Filipinos all over the country.
Part of the series The Ministry Years (chapter 18 of 48)
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