Travis Housley's visit to The Philippines Project

Travis Housley is Vice President of Special Projects at Big Rivers Electric Corporation and team leader of the Philippines’ Project – recently returned from his 14 th trip to the Philippines. An abridged trip report is below.

“Each trip to the Philippines seems to present a new set of opportunities and challenges. Trip 14 was no exception. Since the Philippines’ Project, a village development effort of electrification, livelihood projects, and education inputs, was an answer to my prayer for personal meaning of Matthew 25: 31-40, I continue to pray the Lord will open doors of opportunity for service, and He does.” - Travis Housley

In 2006, the Philippine Project had expanded to an additional Philippines electric cooperative, the
Davao Oriental Rural Electric Cooperative (DORECO), located in Mati.

DORECO representatives, Mary Ann Santos (Ann) and Bailey Austria, had developed an itinerary and accompanied Travis and NRECA representative, Gil Medina on the tour. The itinerary included visiting five prospective new missionary villages, participating in an energization ceremony at the village of Batiano, developing an agreement for an icemaker in a fishing village, and instituting a house wiringloan program in the village of Magum, which was energized six months prior to their arrival.

Through the selection of “missionary villages” by the host cooperative to be recommended for energization, the DORECO team and Travis visited each village and accepted 3 into the program. The criteria of acceptance is set by interviewing the villagers and developing a profile of the residents, such as their source of income, average income level, and how they would use electricity – all for the purpose of determining if the proposed productive-uses activities would be self-sustaining.

During one speech at a ceremonial turning on of the first light, Travis established his new all-time favorite quote as one Barangay (Philippines’ co-op) official quoted: “Our friendship with Sir Travis is not like the flower that blooms only in summer, but like the ‘Big Rivers’ that flow forever.”

Travis’s most challenging trip to date was when he visited the remote fishing village of Tumoaw. With no access roads, the team decided to walk and boat into the secluded village. When the group finally arrived to the village, Travis had the privilege of meeting one of the lieutenants of the chairman of the Eastern Davao Provincial Committee of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The first thing the lieutenant said was “I want peace. I am tired of fighting.” After explaining the project’s purposes Travis said to him “Sir, we are looking for a few starfish,” and proceeded to tell him the following story:

A father and daughter were walking along a beach full of thousands of stranded starfish that lie dying in the sun. The girl periodically stopped to throw a starfish back into the water where it can live. Finally the father asks her, “Why do you keep doing that? Can’t you see that there are too many? What difference does it make to throw a few back?” His daughter replies, “To the ones I throw back in, it makes a big difference.”

A new successful alliance had formed between DORECA and the fishing village to identify areas in which to develop energization projects.