Last Saturday, April 20, we said goodbye to Jose "Brother Joe" Ornias. He had been in poor health for awhile, and sometime early Tuesday morning in his sleep he passed through the portals of heaven. His earthly travail ended at age 65.
I had kind of a love-hate relationship with Bro. Joe. A lot of people did. He had a way of irritating even his friends, but he was full of charisma, a very compelling person. It was almost impossible not to like him, and then like him again after the next irritation.
I first met Bro. Joe almost 29 years ago. The day was hot and muggy when I stepped off the Flying Tigers 747 at Clark Air Base in Angeles City. A van from my new squadron was waiting to pick me and about six enlisted sailors up and take us to Subic Bay. We drove out of the city, across a wide flood plain, over some low jungle covered hills and then down a long straight section of road under an archway of tall trees. At the end of the stretch we crossed a bridge and I noticed to my left down the hill a house by the creek. Quaint, I thought and took note of it.
Three days later I went out to town looking for a particular church I had been told about, Bible Baptist. The roads were so full of potholes in those days and some of them could almost swallow a small car and as one of my squadron mates drove me out we passed right by the church and didn't see it for all the signs and marquees and holes. At the corner of tenth street, however, I saw a sign that said, Fundamental Baptist Church, Services in English. I said, that must be it, and I went in. It wasn't the church I was looking for, but it was a church that would be a part of my life until this day.
One of the first people I met at the church was Bro. Joe. Medium height, round belly, and a toothy grin from ear to ear. He talked loud and enthusiastically and told me all about the church. He wanted to show me his "farm." I didn't know what to think, he was kind of overbearing. Two weeks later I was back to the church and he set it up for me to sing a song while he played. (That was the day I met Lhey, my future wife, and she thought I was stuck up and said to herself, Lord, that man will never be my friend!) I still remember I sang "It Will Be Worth It All."
After church Bro. Joe took me in his old blue Tamaraw, kind of like a jeepney only smaller, over the highway known as the "zig-zag," because it went around several hairpin turns going over the hills, out to the farm. It was the house on the side of the road that I had noticed coming in. He showed me pictures of his adopted children, Arthur and Jackie. Later we went into town and picked up so many kids in the Tamaraw that they were hanging on the sides and brought them to church for a Bible club meeting. After church he took me and Lucy Delgado, one of the church workers, around the bay to the White Rock Beach hotel and resort. He said it was the best restaurant in town. I thought, how cool, he's buying me dinner. Then the check came. He turned and looked in the opposite direction and the waiter dropped it in front of me. That became routine with Bro. Joe. He was always scheming or scamming trying to raise money, and always looking for a way to get a free meal.
He seemed to know everybody. Every policeman on every corner was his friend. He told me he knew Mayor Gordon, but I didn't believe him. I learned today that he actually did know the mayor. He knew everything about the town, and he took me everywhere to see it all. One day we went to the police station and he introduced me to the police captain, Noli Tejada. He really did know a lot of policemen.
One time we climbed the mountain behind his home. He had a garden up there and a cashew tree. The cashews had been picked but there was one left and he gave it to me. I'll bet you didn't know the fruit above the nut is really quite good. You could see over the green forested hills forever, all the way to Subic Bay five miles away. In 2011 we climbed up there again. He said he wanted to build a youth camp. At the time he was using a cane, and the climb was harder because of a new highway that cut across the side of the mountain. To cross we had to go through a culvert that was about five feet high under the road and climb out on a ladder. He made it all the way up there, cane and all, and shared his vision to reach more young people.
Besides the church, Bro. Joe's passion was Bible Basketball. Every year he organized a league, and this time as they were getting ready to start he told me that I was the chaplain. He didn't ask, he just appointed me. Ten or twelve of the young college students at the church had gotten kids together from their neighborhoods and formed teams and they had a round robin tourney, but before they played every night they had to attend the Bible study. Through that I got to lead three young boys to the Lord. My first "mission" experience. The winning team was sent by the church to the Word of Life camp in Laguna.
About that time Bro. Joe decided I was right for his niece, and he brought her up from wherever to try and set me up with her. I wasn't interested. He had other connections that got him on the base, and he kept bringing her by my room. I told her I wasn't interested but I couldn't make her understand or him until at Christmas when she gave me a gift and I gave it back. She was hurt, and he was angry, and he started spreading rumors about me, and I was furious. It got so bad I almost quit the church, but one night I had it out with him. If we'd been in the States I'd have knocked him on his can, but US-Filipino relations were tense in those days and an American could get arrested for almost looking at somebody wrong, and I didn't trust Bro. Joe. Anybody who thinks I'm short tempered should have seen me restrain myself that night. But after we yelled and shouted, we prayed and settled our differences. We continued to hang out together and I continued to buy dinner.
In the Spring of 1986 our church young people had gone to youth camp in Masinloc, about two hours up the coast. Paul Fernandez, another sailor attending the church, and I had supported some of the young people, so on Friday we took off work early and Paul drove us up along with Bro. Joe and two others, Jimmy Agabon and Sam Abad. We spent the night at the camp, then drove up to the Coto Mines, where another of our church Bible college students, Boyet, was doing his summer internship at the church in the mining camp. On the way a big mining truck cut us off at a curve and ran us off the road. They stopped and helped us get the car on the road, but the steering was messed up and we couldn't turn full to the right. At some of the curves we had to stop and back up to make little turns to get around. At the mines they had a mechanic who fixed the car enough so we could get home. That night we all slept at the pastor's house on straw mats on a hard wood floor. Only slightly better than the straw mats on the concrete floor we'd slept on the night before. Bro. Joe, on his back, snored so loud I'd never heard anything like it, and I finally went out and laid down in the car.
Bro. Joe had family in Seattle and he lived there for a number of years and wasn't here when Mt. Pinatubo erupted. The roof on his house collapsed but he came back and fixed it up. There were too many people depending on him to leave it. He finally moved back here permanently some years ago, but we'd only see him occasionally whenever we passed through the Philippines on our way to Kenya or back. In 2005-06 we took a hiatus from Kenya and I pastored this church trying to help them find a new pastor. When we arrived back here again last August they were without a pastor again, and Bro. Joe began campaigning for them to call me. At first I said no, because we had other plans, and they were candidating people. But they didn't get anyone, so I said I would help on an interim basis if they wanted and in January the church called me.
Bro. Joe's health had been fading. His kidneys had shut down last fall and he was swollen twice his normal size. We visited him in the hospital. After they drained the fluids he was back home, but getting weaker. In January he was in the hospital again and really looking bad. We thought he might die then. One night we got some church members and we went to the hospital and anointed him with oil and prayed for him. He started to improve. They drained the fluids, his kidneys started working, and he went home again. He was in a wheel chair, but on our church anniversary he determined he would be there and he came. We carried him in and he sat right up front. We paid him a visit a couple weeks later and he was still unable to walk, but then at his birthday in February he invited us out. We were happily shocked to see him walking around and looking very good.
Our schedule has been so full the last two months and with my masters studies I've hardly had spare time, so we hadn't been back out to the farm. Just last week Lhey and I were talking that after Easter when things slow down we had to go visit him. And then we got the text message Tuesday. The vigil started that night. About forty people from our church went out. Al Bondad, who was a groomsman in our wedding, is a pastor and he spoke. Wednesday we couldn't go because of church services, but our "daughter" church that we started in 1991 in that area, held the service. Thursday and Friday we held the service at the farm. I had another pastor friend of Bro. Joe's, James Reyes, preach Thursday, and I did Friday. There were over 100 people at the house. At 7:30 Saturday morning we had a service at the church. They brought the body in. Over 80 people came and the former pastor, Jihan Senina preached. As we closed the service I led the congregation in the Doug Oldham song, To God be the Glory, and the church sang like there was no tomorrow. It was a rousing end to our celebration of his life before going out to the cemetery.
Bro. Joe was an enigma. He could be a scoundrel and somehow a humble servant of God at the same time. He always had a plan. He was always scheming some way to raise money, and he knew he could get it from Americans. I don't know where he had his connections, but every time the fleet was in he was finding sailors somewhere and bringing them to church and trying to talk them into supporting the work. I never trusted Bro. Joe when it came to money, but deep inside he had a big heart.
I think a lot of people don't know it anymore, but Bro. Joe was quite talented musically. He could play the piano well and sing. He used to play and sing solo specials at church. His favorite was the one we sang Saturday morning. "How can I say thanks, for the things you have done for me?" He would do a big arpeggio on the piano, and he was so expressive when he sang.
In 1975 Dr. Manuel Badar, who was president of the Baptist Bible Seminary and Institute in Manila and really a great man of God, preached a service at Bible Baptist Church in Olongapo. Lhey went forward in the invitation and it was Bro. Joe that prayed with her while she accepted the Lord. Later that year Bro. Joe, along with Lhey's Aunt Wilma, and another friend, Doctora Cacho, left Bible Baptist to start a new work. They struggled for a number of years, meeting in different locations, until Sam Butcher, the creator of the Precious Moments figurines and cards, donated money to buy property and build a building. Sam Butcher had a doll factory in Iloilo here in the Philippines, and I'm certain Bro. Joe got hold of him some how and charmed him into making a donation. It was a worthy gift as the church continues to this day. It speaks of Bro. Joe's vision, however. He was always thinking of how to reach and help people (after he padded his pocket).
Bro. Joe used the Bible Basketball ministry to reach the youth in the town, and he reached hundreds of them. One of them was Noli Tejada, who went on to become the police captain. Another was Ramon Reyes. You might remember when we were here in 2011 that I preached a funeral service for Ramon. He had been killed in a car accident. Ramon had been a gang leader. He was a rough and tough street fighting kid. Bro. Joe worked with him for three years before he got saved. Ramon brought his whole family to the Lord, went to Bible college, worked at the Word of Life camp, and pastored a church. And he was only one. Another that I know is Godfrey Santonil, who pastors a very large church today south of Manila. Bro. Joe's son, Arthur, had been a ten year old drug dealer when Bro. Joe brought him in. Arthur said at the funeral that he counted at least 60 young men that Bro. Joe had reached that had gone into some kind of Gospel ministry, some temporarily and some permanent.
Bro. Joe was never married, and I don't think any of his kids were legally adopted. He picked them up off the street, others had widowed mothers or very poor families. I think there are five that he considered his, and who all called him Papa, but there were many others he helped along the way.
Bro. Joe was always laughing and smiling. He saw humor in everything. One time I was flying out to Okinawa the next day and I was trying to learn Tagalog. So before I left church I said, "Ako ay babalik." I shall return. Bro. Joe started yelling, "Oh! MacArthur!" Then he had everybody laughing. How fitting it was when Jackie went into his room Tuesday morning and found him he had a smile on his face. No doubt when the angel came and said it's time, his lips turned up into a smile as he got up to cross the river.
All week long I've had a tune running through my head with a slight variation of the words. Anybody remember Hank Williams and Jambalaya?
Goodbye Joe, he gotta go, me-o-my-o. He gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou.
It seems appropriate. I can just see Bro. Joe standing in a flat-bottom scow with that great big smile on his face, waving as he poles his way into the mist across the swamp and on into glory.
Well, I've practically written his biography now, and if you've read this far, thanks for letting me take your time to reminisce about a very unusual character who has been a part of my life. I think someday up in heaven he and I are going to climb a mountain somewhere together and look out over the jungle-covered hills out to the ocean and eat cashews.
