IF I can think of someone who can best serve your car/van rental needs, then one man comes to mind…Siegfredo E. Ea or ‘Fred’ of Nyala Tours, the only accredited tourist transport by the Department of Tourism in Negros Island.

Nyala Tours has been in operation for the past 14 years and Fred does not merely rent out cars and vans, he has services from your home to certain points in Bacolod to the Silay Airport and vice versa. Going the extra mile has been Fred’s tagline which makes him a “mover and a shaker” in the transport rental industry. Fred will even assist check-ins of your tickets and other services related to the business. He is a hard working gentleman and through his own industry, he has built an empire.

But the story of Fred is most interesting. He is a registered nurse who moved from staff nurse to head nurse at the Bacolod Sanitarium. Then he took post graduate training on actual community development and public health. Driven by the desire to reach out and help, he applied as a missionary and became the clinic director of Gulisso SDA Clinic in Gulisso, Wollega, Ethiopia from 1982-1985.

The next four years, he was assigned to another clinic and again served as clinic director in the Ethiopian Adventist College in Kuyera, Shashamane. Despite the tribal wars going on these areas, Fred together with his wife Suzitta ‘Zitte’ Diaz and daughter Jazper weathered all storms. Son Charles was born in Ethiopia. Living in these sections of Ethiopia was not sophisticated country living. Water was scarce and food supplies not abounding. But Fred was dedicated and determined.

Until such time that it was considered absolutely a deterrent to their safety because the tribal wars were advancing to his area of assignment, then they finally moved to the capital city, Addis Ababa at the Kassa Clinic with the same title, clinic director.

During all these assignments, Fred also found time to work as acting health and temperance director in Addis Ababa as a relief nurse in Makelle SDA Clinic in Tigran, coordinating in the wet feeding program, clothes distribution to 21 kebeles and destitute and involved himself in dry ration program.

Famine is common to certain areas in East Africa so Fred established feeding programs in six sites at Sikie, Durame and Awraja in tandem with Oxfam. Children needed immunization and Fred acted as coordinator and implementor of the Universal Child Immunization Health Education for 10 kebeles in Arssi Negele.

One of the most noteworthy undertakings of Fred during his life in Ethiopia was to facilitate a well drilling project which resulted to the accessibility of potable water for the people in the surrounding vicinities of Kuyera, Shashamane.

There are so many other projects that Fred put his heart, mind, energy and efforts to best serve the Lord in Ethiopia as a missionary like initiating a fruit tree seedling nursery for community distribution and so many others. But then, it was time to come home.

Fred started his car rental with just one vehicle in 1991. With the success of one came another which led him to establish Nyala Lines. Nyala is the national animal of Ethiopia and its beast of burden. Nyala Lines became Nyala Rent-a-Car which today has grown and integrated into Nyala Tours.

As a guest in Negros, if you want to go around safe and secure, you can entrust yourself to the services of one man, Fred Ea. Having served the Lord in a far off land supposedly as a medical missionary, he went the extra mile and gave the people his excellent best beyond mere job description. That service continues today with his ordained mission of giving great rental services to locals and guests.