After we flew up from Bicol with the volunteer team (scroll down to see next post), we picked up a couple more volunteers and started driving north for our next adventure. This time, our team consisted of 5 Hagens, 4 volunteers from Missouri, 2 of Mikayla's friends from school, and 1 Filipina volunteer from our partner church in Singapore (our ministry partner, Joseph, also joined us for the first couple days).
It was a great group, and we are so excited by all that God did during our time in the mountains!
For the first couple of days, we stayed in our tribal-style house in the mountains. We traveled from village to village, doing archery presentations and sharing in churches so we ate what the people prepared for us and (for the last part of the trip) slept in whichever home was brave enough to host 13 foreigners. :)
We had two presentations that we did in each village - an evangelistic presentation that comprised of an archery demonstration (drew a big crowd!) with testimonies as well as a presentation geared to encourage believers and vision cast for the use of small groups for discipleship church.
(Click on any picture to see a bigger copy.)
Since Mikayla just got back from her trip to the Himalayas (see post HERE), she also got to share with the churches about her trip. It was so cool to listen to her share her heart and encourage the believers!
Mikayla also got to help with the archery demonstration! The idea was to encourage others that they could try the bow and arrow as well. I mean, if a teenage girl can do it, then surely these tribal guys can do it, right? Some of the guys were actually quite good, but it ends up that Mikayla is a pretty decent shot herself, so it was fun when she actually showed them up. :)
We saw some breath-taking scenery and some even more beautiful people.
And the people in one village blessed us with a Bugkalot cultural dance presentation!
One afternoon, we bathed in the river, and several of the group took the challenge to jump off the rock. Unfortunately, one of the volunteers held his glasses in his hand, and the lens popped out and got lost! God was SO gracious to us though because the next day, as we traveled through a TINY town, we were able to find an optometrist who figured out his prescription AND was able to cut him a new lens in about an hour!! Absolutely amazing since, even in the city (or the States!), glasses often take 1-2 wks! Such a God thing!
It was a wonderful team, and we so enjoyed spending time together - not only serving together but also in prayer and studying His Word.
I was especially impressed with the "kids" on the team. Before the trip, someone very graciously offered to keep our kids for us so that we could focus on working with the team. While I appreciated their thoughtfulness, I told them that our kids are key members of the team, and I NEED them on these trips. Mikayla's friends from school, Drew & Karis, jumped right in too, and they all worked their tails off carrying gear, loading the topload, setting up and breaking down the archery demo equipment, sharing testimonies with and playing games with village kids and even sharing testimonies with adults!
Someone asked me recently if I think it works to have teenagers on adult volunteer teams. It definitely depends on the teenager, but I would take any of these back in a heartbeat! They were a HUGE help!
We traveled more than 1,000 km (650mi) on this trip, and keep in mind that the roads here are just a little bit different than in the USA - take a LOT longer to travel the same distances! While we spent MANY hours (40ish) packed into these two vehicles, we used other modes of transport too...
We rode on a raft to get to one village...
...and hitched a ride on a massive truck!
We also did some old-school hiking.
However, most of the traveling was done in our faithful 4x4s. So very thankful for these great vehicles!
Some of the mountain roads were very sketchy - really more of a trail than a road - and they required some crazy intense 4-wheeling to get where we needed to go. While we were in the one village, it started to rain, so we weren't sure how we would be able to get back out on the wet roads. We got to one part where there was no way we couldn't do it without 4-wheel drive. Well, the one vehicle's 4x4 was working great (the one I - Jen - was driving), but the other vehicle's 4-wheel drive would not engage. There was no way we were going to make it out without it, so we just gathered and prayed, and the 4-wheel drive engaged for the first time in 6 months! We put some weight on the back and drove right out! God showed Himself faithful so many times on this trip, and this was a shining example.
On our last afternoon up there, we ended up with a couple extra hours, so we took the opportunity to explore a cave that the people there have been encouraging us to check out for a long time. It was phenomenal! The first picture shows the entrance from the outside, then the second one shows the hole (once you got inside) that you had to crawl down into. Once you got down there, the cave was huge! The people said that you could explore all day in there and not see all the tunnels. After a while, you started wading through water. Soon it started getting deeper and deeper until the only way to continue was to swim through the water. It was the craziest feeling to swim through an underwater river like that!
We had an amazing adventure with some wonderful friends!
And, best of all, we had the privilege of having front-row seats to see all that God is doing up in those mountains!
So very thankful...
1 comment:
Wow! Not only did you travel many different ways, but the adventures were mind boggling!
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