MOUNT VERNON — Allen Stockberger, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Hill Church, recently returned from a mission trip to the Galapagos Islands. It was his ninth mission trip; and his first to the islands.
“This was a bit of a different trip,” said Stockberger. “We went on a cruise for three days and three nights. To combine a cruise with a mission trip was pretty interesting. These trips are for spiritual enrichment, of course, but also to enjoy another part of the world, explore the local culture, and the cruise gave volunteers an opportunity to learn more about the Galapagos Islands.”
The trip was a project of Maranatha Volunteers International, a nonprofit organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which offers many such trips all over the world. Stockberger’s past trips have been to South America.
“The Galapagos Islands are one of the most popular destinations for eco-tourists,” he said, “and I wanted to see what that was all about. The islands are 600 miles into the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of South America, just south of the equator, but on Central Time. I thought it would be a tropical paradise. But we landed on the little island of Baltra, where during World War II the U.S. had a military base, to protect the Panama Canal. I was, frankly, quite appalled ... it looked like Nevada or Arizona. I was taken aback.”
But, he explained, a mere 10 or so miles away, the landscape changes to tropical rainforest.
“It was 85, 90 degrees during the day,” Stockberger said, “and cooled down to 75 at night.”
The Galapagos Islands are famous for wildlife, many of which have no predators, and Stockberger saw frigate birds, hawks and blue-footed boobies, iguanas, giant land tortoises and penguins. Docile sea lions were everywhere, even lounging on benches.
“They’re kind of like the deer around here,” he said. “When you first see them, it’s exciting. But for the people who live there, they’re almost a nuisance.”
Stockberger learned firsthand how species evolve, the study of which drew Charles Darwin there long ago. For 150 years, he explained, non-native goats overpopulated and overgrazed one of the islands.
“But those goats had adapted to the point that they didn’t need a lot to eat, and they had adapted to drinking salt water,” he said.
He pointed to a photo of a 300-pound tortoise with a sort of “saddle horn” at the top of its shell, and explained that the feature evolved because those tortoises needed to stretch their necks upward to graze on vegetation. Over generations, the shell above their heads had risen to accommodate their stretching. However, he explained, tortoises that live in the highlands of the island didn’t adapt in the same way, because they graze on low-growing vegetation.
Stockberger’s project group of 104 people helped construct a steel and concrete block building that would become an education and evangelism center. The Loma Linda School has 275 students, but only 20 belong to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Stockberger’s job was to mix mortar for the blocklayers.
“I was slinging mud for a good cause,” he quipped.
The official language of the Galapagos is Spanish, he said, and the main island of Santa Cruz has a population of about 20,000. The country uses the U.S. dollar, and charges an entry fee of $100 at the airport. Perhaps because Galapagos has its own oil sources, gasoline was $1.43 per gallon and diesel $1. There are cultural differences, too.
“Our first reality jolt was these street children,” he said, displaying a photo of sleeping little boys, their arms wrapped up inside their shirts for warmth, lying on the sidewalk, on a piece of cardboard, in front of his hotel. His group woke them up to give them money.
Stockberger was amused to discover Act II popcorn in the grocery store, as he grows it on his Knox County farm. He enjoyed speculating that “his” popcorn might be on the shelves of Galapagos stores.
Once his group’s project was finished, he and a friend took on two projects of their own.
“We saw this swingset, but only one swing remained that could be used. So we fixed it. I was the designated welder,” he said.
Once the chains holding the swings were repaired, they painted the swingset red, white and yellow.
“It was great,” he said, holding a photo of a little girl seated on a swing.
A 10-year-old named Elizabeth befriended Stockberger’s group, and they learned that her grandparents, with whom she lived, might not have the money to send her to school the following year. In less than a day, Stockberger collected $995 from the group, enough for the next school year. His friend, John, committed the group to doing the same for the next seven years.
“To see her all the way through school,” Stockberger said.
He held up a hand-carved wooden tortoise.
“I do move a little slower than most people, and John nicknamed me ‘turtle.’ So Elizabeth called me ‘tortoise.’ The night before we left, the little girl and her grandparents were sad to see us go, and they gave me this wooden turtle. It was really a touching moment,” he said.
