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Click here to go to page 1 in the narrative of our trip. Click here to go to page 2 in the narrative of our trip.
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The following pages will have pictures from our scouting trip to the Philippines.
To see pictures of Mindanao and our travel adventures, click here.
To see the video clips of our travels in Mindanao:
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Our trip to the Philippines, part 3
The rains made the airstrip so soggy that it looked like we were going to be stuck in the tribe…
Psalm 145:11-13 They will speak of the glory of Your kingdom and will declare Your might, (12) informing all people of Your mighty acts and of the glorious splendor of Your kingdom. (13) Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; Your rule is for all generations. The LORD is faithful in all His words and gracious in all His actions…
Mindanao… an incredibly beautiful area of the Philippines. As the 2nd largest island and the biggest island in the south, Mindanao seems to be a blended mix of the South Pacific island culture with the Malay-Asian culture of the orient. The tropical rainforest is still abundant here, as is the wildlife. Thankfully, we didn't happen to see any of the wildlife, since it usually comes in long, skinny, slithering black shapes. There is kind of a "laid back" island attitude that pervades the towns here, which made us feel very relaxed. We were able to see some of the sights in Cagayan de Oro, and then in Malaybalay, before taking a flight in to the tribal area.
Tribal flight
The Tribal Village The tribe we visited was at one time was a very violent tribe, with a continuous cycle of revenge killings for any death. One man, who is now an elder in the church, told us that he and his wife had had eight of their children die. He told us he was very glad the missionaries came, because before they had ever heard the gospel, they would have blamed all eight deaths on sorcery. He told us he would have gone to the witch doctor and found out who worked sorcery on them, and then gone and taken revenge by killing whoever the witch doctor told him was the guilty party. This was their way of life, and the cycle would continue, because of course most of the time nobody had worked any sorcery and an innocent person was killed. Then that family would have retaliated by killing another person from the first guy's family, and so on and on and on. We had a very good visit with the church elder and the missionaries that lived in that village. I was especially pleased that their children got along very well with Isaac, and he got to actually spend some time with them doing kid things. I think it was a nice break for him from constantly being around adults. But… it kept raining, and raining, and raining more. Rain, rain, rain. All those heavy rains that caused the mudslide in Leyte – you heard about that, right? Well, those rains were all over us, too. So what did that mean? It meant, "you'll have to be flexible!" And flexible we became!
The Hovel-Hovel When you don't have an airplane, what do you do? You ride a motorcycle with a wooden pallet bolted to it, of course! Everyone knows that!! So here is where we pick up the story I started with:
The pattern varied in some places, though. Like when we came to the river at flood stage. I remember thinking, "How will we get the motorcycle across that? We can ride the canoes, but surely the motorcycle will tip the canoe over if they try that!" Well, they not only tried it, they executed the problem very well, and we made it to the other side, people, motorcycle, and everyone intact! Another variation to the pattern (if you could really call it that) happened like this. Follow my thoughts for a moment… "Okay, we are coming up on another muddy area. Yep, it looks pretty muddy – I expect we will fall over again. Oh wait, this is nice – it seems like he found a nice solid trail on the side of the road where we can keep going fast… Whoa! Look at that! Those are the tops of banana trees 50 feet directly underneath me…" I looked down and could see that with the motorcycle tires on the edge of the cliff, my body was suspended over the edge! Fortunately, though, our drive along the edge of the cliff was fairly short. And the Lord kept us safe! We also took a drive along the edge of another cliff on the other side of the road, so Isaac got to experience the same thing. Ahh, it is good for a father and son to share experiences… So, 7 and a half hours after we started, we finally made it to the main highway where we could catch a bus into Butuan city. We were quite a sight when we finally walked into the resort hotel lobby, covered head to toe in mud and soaking wet! The clerk at the hotel looked at us and said, "Are you all missionaries?" The hotel was very nice, and once we got cleaned up it was good to relax. Some very nice friends of ours living in Butuan volunteered to wash all our clothes, so we were even able to get everything clean from the last few days in the jungle. It was interesting talking to some of the waiters in the restaurant at the hotel – I guess they all knew who the missionaries were that had just checked in. This one waiter asked us where we had been, and when we told him that we had come in from the mountains, he kind of turned pale and said, "I would never go up there! Never! Those are scary people up there!" This was kind of amusing, because the people we met in the mountains were about as nice as any you could ever meet! But that is the difference the Gospel made to the mountain people. The Gospel took cold hard people constantly bent on revenge and turned them into loving people intent on sharing the love of God with their neighbors; the same neighbors whom they formerly used to try to kill.
The Next Phase We are very thankful for the opportunity to go to the Philippines and share the Gospel of Christ to other tribal groups, just like the people we visited on Luzon and Mindanao on this trip. Please continue to pray with us as we embark on the next phase of our ministry, "partnership development." We do not go alone! God is sending us, and those of you who uphold us with prayer and finances are a huge part of our team! We are trusting that the Lord will raise up that which is necessary for us to be able to leave in October of this year…
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