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Click here to go to page 1 of the narrative. Click here to go to page 3 of the narrative (Mindanao).
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The following pages will have pictures from our scouting trip to the Philippines.
To see pictures of Manila, click here.
To see pictures of our time with the Kankanaey on northern Luzon, click here.
To see the video clips of our trip to Manila, Luzon and Kankanaey:
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The link above will require you to set up a yahoo ID and password. If you don't want to do mess with a yahoo ID and password but you do want to get the group newsletter updates, email me by clicking here. Then I will send you an invitation, and there are instructions for joining the group without a yahoo ID by following the links. |
Our trip to the Philippines, part 2
As I reflect back on our fact finding trip to the Philippines, there are several things that stick in my mind. The friendliness of the people, the availability of fresh fruit, the laughing kids that kept rubbing my beard and telling me I smelled good. But I also remember some difficult moments. There was this fellow carrying a machete at one place where we stopped on our way out of the tribe in Mindanao. He had a hardened look in his eyes, and when he saw 2 white men and a kid, he stayed near us but would sort of hide behind trees and posts in the village. Knowing that was an area controlled by the communist guerrillas made me feel a little uneasy. I have to say, though, that we never felt scared. There was always the sense that God was protecting us, and I don't know any other way to describe it! I had mentioned that in this issue I was going to talk about some of the tribal groups, or ethnic minorities, in Northern Luzon. (I sometimes like to use the phrase ethnic minorities because it identifies the distinction made in the scriptures. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus said "Go ye therefore and teach all nations…" The original Greek word for nations is ethnos, from which we derive the word ethnic.) We will go into that, but first I must tell you a little more about the Kankanaey villages, with the pictures that are posted on our web site.
Kankanaey villages Our visit to the Kankanaey was excellent! Our first impression was that we were glad to have gone through our ruggedness/survival training at jungle camp in Oregon. Even though this is a civilized tribe, the villages are remote and hard to get to, and there are not any stores or anything like that in either of the villages we visited. They were farming communities, and living there would definitely make one feel somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. These villages would not be too difficult to live in – they have running water, electricity, sewage, and you would get to know your neighbors pretty fast. However, living here would be somewhat difficult because of the isolation, in addition to the transition issues of going and living in a new culture. Even if you had a heavy duty 4 wheel drive vehicle, getting in and out of the villages would be a challenge (but not impossible). There are lots of very slippery mud holes and wet spots on the roads. Consequently, if you want to go to the store a lot, you're going to have to get used to disappointment. The villages themselves are in a beautiful area. The houses are all close together so that there are no streets inside the villages; there are only footpaths. On the outside of the villages are the terraced gardens, which you can see some pictures of on our website. The spring from the hill above irrigates the rice terraces, and they also have other terraces where they grow cabbages, potatoes, and other vegetables. Inside the village, most people have gardens for growing taro, pineapples, and other foods. Most of the people keep chickens, and there are still a few pigs penned up for when people want to get together and have a feast.
Tribal works on Luzon I had said I was going to talk about some things we learned about the tribes. I will have to say, I did not realize what a great need there was here. We were under the impression that in many tribal works in the Philippines you can just get in your car and go down the street to some kind of market or grocery store. This is not the case. The new tribal works that are ready to be opened up have all the following characteristics: remoteness, strong animism, syncretism, and large numbers of totally unreached people. For example, there are the Atta people up in the north, a small group with their own language and culture. Thanks to the faithfulness of some Wycliffe translators, they have a new testament and a few believers. I have not yet heard if they have a church in the tribe, but indications so far are that they do not. As of this time, I am hoping to get some more information about them soon. And these are only one example. We heard that there have been evangelists through their area, sometimes trying to teach them in the trade language, but that really is insufficient for getting them to understand the gospel. This is typical of many of the tribal areas in the Philippines – there has been some limited evangelism in a trade language here and there, but little or no concentrated effort to establish an indigenous church. We identified at least 5 different areas, just like the Atta mentioned above, where there is an immediate opening for missionaries to go in and begin a ministry. There are several other areas where the missionaries could really use the help to have someone come in and join their team. Beyond this, there are several language groups in the north central area that still have a great need for western missionaries to either establish churches or strengthen existing churches so that they can fully stand on their own. We had 2 prayer items on this trip. The first was that the Lord would direct us to the right place to begin. We believe he has done that. Our time everywhere was fantastic, and our time on Mindanao was quite amazing. However, it seems clear from every angle that our team would be better suited to study Tagalog and go to a ministry on Luzon. I can't go into all the reasons right now, but we have confidence in the Lord's direction on this particular point. Our second request was that the Lord would give us more specific direction about a tribal ministry for the future. This is more of an ongoing prayer, and we are not yet looking for a one-time answer. However, we now see the possibilities of working in a particular location on Luzon – one of the areas that our leadership would like to open up. We intend to press forward with this, praying that if it is not the Lord's will, that He will somehow let us know. For now we would prefer not to give the name of that area on the website, but will let people know in private emails and conversations.
Next time – our trip to Mindanao! The rains made the airstrip so soggy that it looked like we were going to be stuck in the tribe, unless we were willing to go out over old muddy logging roads on a "hovel-hovel." Now a hovel-hovel is simply a motorcycle with half a wooden pallet bolted on each side so that it can carry some cargo. In this case, the cargo it would carry would be people – us! Furthermore, the river was at flood level, and there was no bridge, which meant getting across it would be a real challenge…
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