Today the Evascos and Dizons took time off from their work so that we could spend the day fellowshipping and discussing the work in the Philippines with us, while we made and interesting and educational visit. Early in the morning we started what turned out to be a rather adventurous journey to the island of Corregidor. Corregidor was the island fortress to which the American and Filipino forces retreated during the Japanese invasion in 1941. In early 1942 General Douglas MacArthur was ordered to leave Corregidor and break through the enemy lines to Australia. It was during his arrival in Australia that MacArthur uttered the famous words "I shall return."  Corregidor eventually fell to the Japanese in May of 1942 and was recaptured by Allied soldiers under MacArthur in March 1945.  
 
Yesterday, when we had tried to purchase ferry tickets to the island, we were disappointed to find that due to scheduled maintenance, the ferry to Corregidor was not running on the one and only day we had available! We decided to persist and look for another route, eventually finding that the ferry to the Bataan peninsula was still running. Our eyes weren't fully open when we boarded the 6:00 am ferry for the hour-long ride across gigantic Manila Bay. On our arrival on Bataan we squeezed into motorcycle taxis with sidecars to continue down to the tip of the peninsula. The road we traveled was the same one used for the forced "death march" of the Filipino and American soldiers who had finally surrendered to the Japanese. The brutality and callousness of the Japanese soldiers was shockingly horrible, many weakened soldiers who fell and could not rise, were simply bayonetted where they lay.

In a little village at the tip of the peninsula we hired a small motorized outrigger canoe to take us across the two miles of sea to the island of Corregidor. There was a bit of wind and the sea was a little rough so we had a few tense moments on the crossing, and arrived thoroughly wet. However what began as an inconvenience, turned out to be a blessing. Many tourists normally visit Corregidor each day, but with the ferry not running on this day, we only met two other tourists on the island. We had the whole site to ourselves. Our guide turned out to be a former Plain Truth subscriber and remembered the visit of former church leaders to the Philippines. He requested a subscription of the Good News magazine. After visiting many of the sites on Corregidor, we had lunch at the Corregidor Inn overlooking much of the island and the entrance to the famous Malinta Tunnel, which we also toured. After lunch we began our journey back to Manila, first boarding our outrigger and returning to Bataan. On arrival we again hired some motorcycle cabs that raced along the "death march" road back to the pier. We arrived at the pier just in time to board our ferry for the return to Manila, where we taped interviews with Rey Evasco and Eriz Dizon about the Work on the island of Luzon and the challenges that they anticipated facing in doing the work of the Church in this fascinating part of the world.