Bogkalot Vision Trip

BACKGROUND:

When I was just a little girl, my parents worked with a tribal group called the Ilongot or Bogkalot people here in the Philippines. They live in a mountain range about 20 hrs north of where we live, and the tribal church up there is thriving. We are in the process of partnering with them to send some of their own down to partner with us to reach the Agta tribal group. An organization called Global Empowerment is working with us to make this happen.

(For more information on Global's strategy, see the post entitled "Partnership" from July 28 or follow the link to the right to check out their new website; I especially recommend reading their mission statement section to see how it all works.)

PURPOSE:

Well, the first step in mobilizing the Bogkalot church to send some workers down to partner with us here was the Vision Trip in August. The Bogkalot church chose 9 church leaders representing 5 villages and sent them down for a week-long trip. The purpose of the trip was for them to get to know the Agta people, come to understand the strategy challenges in working with them, and catch God's vision for how HE wants the Bogkalot to be involved in what HE is doing here. We orchestrated it so that they would visit villages from all 4 language groups as well as see villages at different stages of the work (some with no work yet, some with new believers, some with baby churches).

READY, SET, GO!

Steve traveled up to Bogkalot land to teach a seminar to the whole group, then accompany the representatives back to Bicol (my dad, who started Global Empowerment, was supposed to go with them but ended up needing emergency surgery in Manila). They drove the 20 hrs south to arrive here in Bicol. The first place they visited was the village of Ipil.

The language spoken in Ipil is Buhinon, and it is only accessible by boat.

The village of Ipil actually has several smaller villages as well. They visited the main village of Centro (down in the middle), Binarioan (up on the mountain to the right), and Pokoy (up the mountain to the left). Centro has a baby church with newly-appointed leaders. Both Binarioan and Pokoy are outreach groups of the main church, and they have a few new believers each.
In each village, the men spent time visiting with the people there, often splitting up and going from hut to hut. They also often did a small presentation for the village where they shared their testimonies...
...and sang.
One of the things that the Agta church is lacking is worship songs in their heart language. Since the Bogkalot have experience with this, we asked them to sing some of their own songs to give the Agta a vision for this possibility.
Since the Bogkalot also have their own Scripture translation, they also handed out a few Bibles as a "remembrance". Very few people have their own Bible here, in any language, so it was a valuable and cherished gift.
(The Bibles have their language as well as the trade language, side by side.)

We did a fair amount of hiking in Ipil as we went back and forth between the villages.

This is the whole group of guys just before we left for the next place. We stayed in Ipil 2 nights.

9 Bogkalot guys, 2 Agta who cooked for us and let us sleep in their hut, and Steve.

Hiking back down the mountain to get in the boat and head back across the lake. Notice that Steve is barefoot; his flip flops broke right after arriving in Ipil so he did all the hiking those first couple days barefoot.

Once we got back on the other side of the lake, we drove about 15 mins then hiked about an hour to visit the village of San Ramon.

The village of San Ramon is actually very spread out. In the the first area, there is an outreach group being led by the leaders from the baby church in Sta Justina (will see them later). In San Ramon, they speak the language In-Agta.

In addition to visiting with the people in the villages and doing a presentation, the guys also spent a lot of time just sitting and waiting. This is a very real part of the work here - nothing happens quickly! You need to be willing to spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting, showing that you are in it for the long haul so that you can break through the shyness barrier and develop relationship with them. As we sat and waited, we spent a lot of time talking with the guys and explaining various aspects of strategy when working with the Agta.
Some of the guys were better than others at connecting with the Agta. Taking the time to really talk with them, showing genuine interest. Taong Toyeng (on the left) was amazing to watch as he did an excellent job with this. He is one man I would LOVE to have move down here to work!

It was so cool to see Taong Toyeng trying to learn language everywhere we went. He would write down phrases for the heart language in that place.Taong Siklab was also really good at really connecting with them. He was the only one with the group who had actually been down here once before (see post on Feb 16, 2009) so he had some previous relationship to build off of and jumped right back in.

Visiting with Jose, one of the church leaders (the one who is leading the outreach group in San Ramon).

After a few hours in the first area, we visited some of the little huts spread through the mountains then started the 1 hr+ hike over to the other area of San Ramon.

In the next area of San Ramon, there actually at one time was another tribal group from another island who had come to try to plant a church amongst the Agta. Even though they aren't going to be able to come back, there is a very interested group of people there who would LOVE to have someone come teach them the Bible. One the believers from Sto Domingo (will see next) has family there and would like to start teaching there, but he needs some training and would benefit greatly from some Bogkalot partners to join him.

After spending a couple hours in that part of San Ramon, we hiked back out and then drove about 20 mins to Sto Domingo, a tiny village perched on the edge of an irrigation canal. Here they also speak In-Agta. We have some solid believers in this village, but they have been rejected when they tried to reach out to the rest of the village (a lot of baggage from a previous group who used to come there to "teach the Bible").

Their visit to this family was such an encouragement to them to press on in the faith, and they were able to meet some of their neighbors. Who knows what God is going to do through that?

The next day we set off early to drive 3 hrs around to the other side of the peninsula to visit the village of Mayong. In Mayong, they speak Bikol Albay. It is a beautiful drive, and we stopped to get some pics of the group.

Once we arrived in Mayong, the guys set off in smaller groups to start visiting people in their homes throughout the village.

The Bogkalot guy in the black shirt (Castillo) was really shy and quiet, but he pushed himself out of his comfort zone and shared his heart with one of the few believers in Mayong. Steve was so encouraged to hear what he had to say to Felipe about spiritual warfare.

There are several ladies and 1 man who are fairly new believers in this village. However, there is a lot of witchcraft that goes on here (the village chief and witchdoctor is married to the one man who has become a believer), and the believers there are struggling. The Bogkalot again shared their testimonies, but I think the time they spent visiting with individuals was the most beneficial - not only for the ones they visited with but also for the Bogkalot to get a better understanding of the challenges of ministering in this village.

After several hours in Mayong, we headed back - but we had to stop at the beach on the way. The Bogkalot live in the mountains and many of them have never seen the ocean.

Even though he is more than 70 yrs old (doesn't know his exact age), Siklab had never been in the ocean before. He jumped right in, then came up sputtering, "Why is it SALTY???"

They had fun hunting for shells and playing with seaweed. They even found this odd little sea creature that looked like a rock but had little tentacles that moved very slowly.

That evening, they spent some time visiting with a Filipino pastor who has been working with the Agta for many years. It was good for them to hear his perspective on the work here.

The next morning, we set out for the village of Sta Justina. In Sta Justina, they speak Rinkonada, and they are located just a few minutes walk off a main road. This little village is our healthiest church. It has ordained leaders, and they are actively reaching out to nearby areas. The church meets on this little porch, built onto the home of the patriarch of the family.

After a short visit there, we hiked back across the rice fields to go meet the family of one of the members of this little church.

Christopher is one of the leaders in the church in Sta Justina. He was one of the most shy Agta we had ever met (and trust me, that is saying something!), but after he became a believer, God laid it on his heart to start sharing the Truth with his family in a nearby village. He has been sharing periodically on his own, but this was the first time that we had ever been able to visit them. They also live in the village of Sta Justina - just a different part - and they also speak Rinkonada. It was about a 5 minute drive then a 10 minute hike.

It rained off and on while we were there, so we all spent several hours crowded into their tiny house and porch. Good bonding time! Again, it was so good to see the Bogkalot interacting with the Agta, getting to know their hearts, and sharing the Truth with them.

After a while the rain let up, so we started the presentation out under the bamboo trees.

But then the rain started back up so we all headed back into the porch to continue. Amazingly, even though it was the middle of rainy season, this was the only day we had any rain during the day - and it didn't affect any of our plans! It never once rained on us as we hiked from place to place! The only day it rained all day was the final day when we were in a building, doing a debrief session. Thank you, God, for keeping us dry!

After a couple hours with Christopher's family, we drove about an hour and a half to the village of San Pedro. In San Pedro, the people also speak Rinkonada. It was muddy when we reached the end of the road and started to hike, but we had NO IDEA how rough (and long!) the trail was going to be.

It was a HARD hike (even the seasoned tribal guys said so), but it was beautiful.

It was very steep UP and even steeper DOWN. :) There wasn't a trail on this part of the mountain. We were going to visit some of Jose's family (Jose is a leader in Sta Justina), but we had to change destinations at the last minute when we found out his uncle was not home; that is how we ended up forging a new trail. This worked out fine though because part of what we wanted to show them was that not all Agta villages are easily accessible by the road. We wanted them to get a feel for how large the area is as well as how spread out the houses are in some places.

Steve had only been to this place one other time. He is trying to help Jose find a way to get up there and start teaching since the people up there have been asking for someone to come. Since Steve was there last month, they built this little porch onto their house so that they will have a place to meet when the time comes.

We were all pretty beat when we arrived (check out how sweaty Steve's shirt is) so we sat for a while and visited with that family.

Then some of the guys took off to go visit some of the other families in the area. This area is an example of a brand-new area that is just waiting for someone to come and begin to teach. Their arms are wide open, and they are just waiting for someone to come.

Once we hiked back down, we headed to a friend's vacation home. We took the next day for a little rest and then to debrief their visit. We spent several hours discussing what all they had seen and heard and what strategy would be most effective with the Agta. It was cool to see THEM come up with what is on our hearts - that we need workers for each language group. They asked us what "our plan" for the Bogkalot is. We told them that we don't have a plan for them. They don't serve us, they serve God; it would be presumptuous of us to try to tell them what to do. They are experienced church leaders, and they have the same Holy Spirit that we do. However, we can tell them what we are praying. We are praying that God would raise up workers for each of the 4 language groups - hopefully from within the Bogkalot church. Then we would love to partner with them to reach the Agta. But what is important is for them to seek God's will in this and follow HIS direction when He gives it. They were all really excited by this, and there are already several Bogkalot who have expressed a desire to "go".

We definitely feel that God was at work during this Vision Trip, and that HE gave the Bogkalot a vision for how He could work through them down here. They returned back to their churches with a DVD presentation from their time down here, ready to share all that they had seen and learned.

Please pray with us and with the Bogkalot as we wait to see how God wants to use them to reach the Agta tribe. Steve and my dad will return to Bogkalot land in October to see how God is leading them as a church and how we can help them make it happen.