The Widow Might

(The title was my dad's idea - you'll have to read to the end for it to make sense.)

We headed back up into the village for the last stretch.

 The next couple pics are ones I caught of everyday life in the village.  The last day we were up there, they were able to install a cable (donated by the government) to help them in getting their stuff across the river despite the ruined bridge.  I wonder if the government knew that they would send motorcycles across on the cable?

 Much of their life up there revolves around the corn crop.  They have just harvested, so on any sunny day, they are busy drying their corn - wherever they can find space to do so.  The roads in and out of the mountains are covered with drying corn.

 Every family has at least one corn shed for storing the corn that is waiting to be dried or hauled out.

 The kernels also have to be removed from the cob - by hand.  We got to help quite a bit with this process...

 ...but we learned the hard way that your thumbs go numb so you don't notice that you are wearing a hole in your skin until it's too late.  Both Ben & I discovered this fun fact.

 There is more to life in the village than corn processing.  Here is a picture of our little campstove.  Everything had to be cooked from scratch, but we were SO very blessed by a friend in the States sending us bisquick mix, some meal mixes, and canned chicken to help make the cooking more manageable.  We found out that biscuits do pretty well in a skillet, and we were SO thankful for that canned chicken to break up the monotony of canned tuna and corned beef (no refrigerator so canned meat is the only option).

 We also kept going with school.  I love this pic of the boys reading their science book in the hammock - with a headlamp.

 The kids also got lots of play time of course - they made some great friends up there.

 The girls spent a lot of time doing beadwork - making necklaces and bracelets, etc.

 Because of that destroyed bridge, we had to leave the car several miles from the village where we stayed.  So we did a LOT of hiking while we were up there.  In this picture, we are on our way to their conference which was held in another village.

 I would love to know what Zach was thinking here.

 Ben getting a ride across the river.

 Headed down into the village where conference will be held.

 There were about 250 people who gathered for conference; they represented 8 tribal churches spread throughout the mountains.  The focus of the 2-day conference was God's desire for every people group to have a chance to hear the Good News and the opportunity that every believer has to be involved in what HE is doing.

 The 2nd day of the conference was a day of prayer and fasting, asking God to make it clear how each person, each church could be involved.  We spent time in individual prayer, then they gathered as individual churches to spend time in prayer and discussion.

 For nearly everyone, this was their very 1st experience with fasting.  It was a wonderful time of fellowship and seeking His heart; afterwards, dozens of people came and told us how clearly they heard His voice, how He had moved their hearts.

 After a while, Steve & I noticed that one of the churches had finished their prayer time; but this group of young men and separated off from the rest of the group to keep praying.  Watching them moved us to tears; it's not often that you see young men so fervent in prayer.

 After giving each church ample time for prayer and discussion, we asked them to share with the group what God had shown them.  Well, after each church had reported back, a total of 12 units (a unit being either a single or a couple) were standing up front to signify that they were ready to be sent out.  There are a few missing from this picture, but this is the majority of the group.  The 5 young men on the left were part of the ones praying so fervently above.  And see the woman towards the right who is holding the baby?  She is a widow with 5 children and 1 grandbaby, but she has a burning passion to be involved.  We aren't sure yet if it will work for her to go, whether or not her family would thrive in that situation, but our hearts were encouraged by her passion to be involved in spite of so many obstacles.  So we are not sure, but the widow might! :)

 The really exciting part to us is that it is not only the ones who want to "go" who have caught the vision; each of the churches is incredibly excited to do whatever it takes to make this happen.  Here the church gathered around to pray over those who are ready to go out.  Thank you, Heavenly Father, for answering our prayer so mightily!  Thank you for raising up laborers for the harvest!

 After a very emotional celebration with the group - we concluded with almost 2 hours of precious worship time - we all headed home to our respective villages.  Well, it had rained throughout conference, so the river was flooded again.  This time the guys rigged a harness off the bridge, and everyone crossed the flooded river that way.  Steve used to work as a tree trimmer, so he knows ropes, knots, and harnesses; he made sure it was safe, then we went for it.  No problem for Steve - he loves that kind of thing.  Thankfully, we made adrenaline junkies out of our kids early on in life, so they were fine with this too.  Me, on the other hand...let's just say that rappelling 50ft off a bridge is NOT my preferred activity for a Friday afternoon.  But I swallowed my fear, and we all made it just fine.  I wasn't the only one freaked out by this though - several of the other ladies felt the same way, and 1 even passed out from the fear!  This pic is of Ben making the descent onto the rock.

 On our final Sunday in the village, the church honored us with overflowing gratitude and love.  They smothered us with hugs, and hung their special bead necklaces around our necks (see them on Kayla below? also on the boys 2 pics below).  Mikayla also got some last snuggles in with this little sweetie.  Her parents were some of the ones who have decided to come down to Bicol to partner with us, so we are going to get to watch little Mutya grow up.

 After church, we headed back to the bridge.  Thankfully the river was back down, so we were able to just wade across.  :)  Then we loaded up the car and headed out.

 While we are very encouraged in spirit, we are all beyond beat, both physically and emotionally.  We will spend a couple days in Manila getting caught up on life (emails, paperwork, etc), then we are headed to the beach for a couple days of R&R.

 As we drove out of the mountains, our hearts were full to overflowing with thankfulness for all that God did during our time up there, and all that He is continuing to do in hearts.  We praise HIM for the way He is moving amongst the Bogkalot tribe.  To God be the glory!!!

TOP TEN

Top ten ways you know that you teach in a tribal village:
(all of these experienced personally or by our family - feel free to leave a comment and add to the list!)

1. You had to take a boat and/or hike on muddy trails to get to church.


2. In order to be heard, you have to compete with roosters crowing, babies crying, and other animals making indistinguishable noises. But you have to pause the teaching whenever the rain gets hard – there is absolutely no competing with that noise on a tin roof.

3. A high percentage of the people are multi-tasking by chewing/spitting betel-nut and picking lice out of each other’s hair while they listen.

4. You are repeatedly dive-bombed by a bat while you teach.

5. You have to take a spontaneous intermission for laughter when a woman ties her husband’s loincloth to the floor so that when he tries to stand up, he VERY promptly sits right back down.

6. The service has to be stalled in order to deal with two amorous dogs in the aisle (and now under the seats) who are desperately trying to go in opposite directions with no success.

7. Many of the women are openly breastfeeding – while many others are very obviously ready to breastfeed at any moment. (hate to put the equipment away when you are just going to have to get it right back out, right?)

8. The teaching stops so that people can help – and of course laugh at – a small boy without a diaper who got a very sensitive area stuck in the split rattan floor.

9. A toddler has been wandering in circles around you – normal. He stops and pees on you. You don’t miss a beat but just keep teaching.

10. There is no place in the world that you would rather be than in this little village, worshipping God with these precious people, in their heart language.

Life in the Mountains

Early Sunday morning, we headed up into the mountains, and Steve spoke at one of the 1st villages in Bogkalot territory. There we found out that it had been raining non-stop since we left for the weekend, and they didn't think we would be able to make it to the village where we live since the river we have to cross is up. We continued on anyway, just to check it out and make sure. Well, instead of finding this quiet mountain stream...

...we discovered this:
Instead of this...

...it was this:

So we turned around and headed to a nearby village to crash with one of the pastors until the river went down. But then the car started acting weird so we decided to go down to the nearest town with a mechanic and get it looked at while we waited on the river. That mechanic couldn't fix it, so we headed a couple hrs further out to a bigger town...and we are still here 3 days later. :( However, we are SO THANKFUL for God's protection in this because while the mechanic was checking out the one issue, he discovered that our steering linkage was about to go out! Now, I don't know much about cars, but I do know that having steering is important on the tiny mountain roads we have been driving! We are HOPEFUL that all issues will be fixed by noon tomoro, and we can head back up - PLS PRAY WITH US!!!

Ok, while we are stuck here, I decided to post a few more pics from our time up in the mountains. The first few are just some random shots I got around the village.

When was the last time you took your pig for a walk?

Love this pretty little house - they have used river rocks to decorate their front yard.

One of the saddest things we have seen up here is all the destruction from the 2 typhoons that came through right before we arrived. Bridges, homes, corn crops, even 4 people...all washed away. This pic was taken from a porch that was underwater during the flooding. From here, you can't even SEE the river from here right now, but this whole valley was under a roaring river! 3 homes were washed away right in front of this house; this one held firm, but it was under several feet of water.

These ladies washing dishes right outside their house. Do you know what stood out to me in this pic? The water rushing out of the hose into the basin. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess, I had to guard my heart against jealousy when I saw all that beautiful water running right outside their house. Oh, we have running water too - 3 of them, carrying little blue jugs. :)

Despite the challenges, there are some gorgeous views living in the mountains!

The kids and I go with Steve when he teaches as much as we can,while keeping up with school. But sometimes the hike followed by long hours of listening to your dad teach the same things in a different language can be a little exhausting...

This is how we spend most of our days in the village - school first!

This is Steve & my bed under a mosquito net - the kids' looks identical, but with 3 pillows. You can also see my folding chair on the back side, with books spread on the floor. This is where I teach the kids their lessons.

One of the things that takes up a TON of our time in the mountains is cleaning. Since there are no screens on the windows, and LOTS of bugs and dust, things get dirty pretty fast. I sweep multiple times every day; this is the pile of dirt I swept up in ONE room, less than 2 hrs after the last time I swept.Once we had filled our trash sack, we asked the villagers what we should do with our trash; they promptly came and took it away. Convenient, yes? Until we noticed our trash strewn next to the trail going to the river. Hmmm. We decided to burn our trash from then on.

One of the other things we do is evict critters from our house. You saw the ant colony in another post. We have also had multiple varieties and sizes of lizards, many large spiders and other bugs, as well as dogs and a rooster. Then one night this little guy flew in and couldn't get back out.

My least favorite so far (though the big spiders and flying cockroaches do give them a run for their money) are these tree frogs. They get in all the time, they can climb to the tops of the walls, then spring to the other side of the room. Since you are never sure where they might land, this is NOT my favorite game. Especially when I am in the shower without a light... enough said.

Our temporary house is right next to the concrete slab where everyone dries their corn in the sunshine. Whenever it starts to rain, everyone scurries to get the corn back into the sacks before it gets wet. The kids get to help with this fairly often.

We spend a lot of time at this river. At least once a week, we do laundry by hand. Last time I ended up with FOUR bleeding sores from scrubbing so much laundry by hand - I will be SO thankful to get back to our washing machine at home next month! The kids are a huge help though, and we are making memories for sure!

After scrubbing, rinsing, and wringing everything out, it is time to haul it back over the rocks and up the trail to our house so that we can hang it out - then watch for rain so that we can run and bring it in...then put it back out...then run and bring it in... then put it back out... I think you get the idea.

Something else we do at the river is bathe. Get all soaped up...

...then rinse it all off! I personally prefer a nice warm shower in the privacy of my home, but the kids don't seem to mind this way.

We've also had a lot of good play time at the river. Floating the rapids on tubes...

...swinging on vines like Tarzan...

...jumping off the rocks...

...and catching yourself on other rocks.

Here are my 3 goofballs, trying out their new rubber boots - which have made the 2 mile hike to the car MUCH nicer!

Mikayla found this home-made toy chainsaw on the side of the trail. Cute! And, yes, I know her outfit doesn't match - fashion is not on the top of our list here, and the villager's idea of "matching" is very different than ours anyway. :)

We do a fair amount of hiking to get from place to place. Beautiful views, good exercise.

So proud of these 3 kids. They have been through a crazy number of transitions this past year, they have worked hard and hiked far, but they are thriving and loving every new adventure. Thank you, Father, for the privilege of serving you as a family!