Man on Mission to Help Victims of July Tsunami

When Joaquin Gutierrez first traveled to Papua New Guinea in 1995, he met a village of children who opened their arms to a young Ventura resident on a mission of hope.

During that visit three years ago, Gutierrez distributed reading glasses to the needy and spent time in schools with students he considered little miracles for their endurance in a poverty-stricken corner of the world.

When the now-21-year-old returns to the area next week, many of those he met won’t be there to welcome him, and he will instead spend his time feeding survivors of the recent tsunami and supplying them with medical aid.

Gutierrez leaves Wednesday for the seaside communities in and near Papua New Guinea. He will take with him money, dozens of toys and medical resources to help those who lived through the July 17 tsunami, which killed 2,000 people and caused mass contamination from bodies that went undiscovered for weeks.

The pilgrimage will mark his second trip to a village called Sissano, which he visited for three months in 1995 with Youth With A Mission, a nonprofit Christian ministry in Australia that is sponsoring this trip.

His return will be bittersweet, Gutierrez said, because it will be an opportunity for him to help a village he credits for his decision to seek a career involving children. He has postponed taking classes at Ventura College pending his return, he said.

“It’s going to be very hard,” Gutierrez said. “I’m doing this because before I left the last time, a little kid came running up to me and was pulling on my shirt. He was crying and begging me not to leave. I was in tears, but I told him that one day God would allow me to return. Now I feel this is it.”

He will head one of three 15-person missionary teams that will fly from Sydney, Australia, to Papua New Guinea’s capital of Port Moresby and then on to Lae, where food supplies will be bought for villagers before the group boards an American Red Cross ship to sail to Sissano.

Qantas Airlines is shipping at no cost dozens of small toys donated to the mission by McDonald’s, Gutierrez said.

The Southcoast Fellowship Church and Solid Rock Christian Fellowship, both of Ventura, and cash donations dropped off at Gutierrez’s workplace will help pay for his plane ticket and for two doctors and a certified nurse who will come to Papua New Guinea to treat the injured.

“They are going to work with the children because a lot of them have legs that are [badly] twisted . . . and a lot of them have scars and stitches,” he said.

Asked why so many people came forward with donations ranging from a few dollars to several hundred, Gutierrez said: “I explained the way the country was and how the people were and how warm and loving and caring they are. Then I spoke about the tsunami and told them what I was going to be doing. It really touched people’s hearts.”

Also during his visit, Gutierrez will don military-issued anti-contamination gear and visit seaside areas destroyed by the tsunami.

Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 115, Kinko’s Copies, 4360 Main St., Ventura 93001. Gutierrez, who works at Kinko’s, said the fund was established by the owners of the store.