Well, we survived our first trip up into the mountains, and I wanted to share a few pics, stories, and prayer requests with you before we head back up again tomoro. First, our car had some serious issues negotiating the mountains the last trip, and we barely limped it back into Manila. It was in the shop this week, and we are hoping that it will be good to go for this coming trip; however, it is difficult to give it a good test drive here in Manila traffic to know how it will perform in the steep mountains. Please pray that it does better this time.
This is the Sierra Madre mountain range where we are spending our time lately. It is about a 7 hour drive from Manila if all goes smoothly. Isn't it gorgeous?
We were supposed to stay in the old barangay hall (a community building), but they had stuff they were storing in there and they had JUST completed the new barangay hall, so they put us there instead for this time. Since it was just completed and has not been used yet, it was nice and clean - yay! :) Not sure yet where we will be next week, but we will be thankful for a roof over our heads one way or another.
This is our view from the porch where we did school everyday.
These red ants launched an attack daily while we did our school on the porch, but the kids were able to keep them at bay.
After school was finished, the kids had an absolute ball playing with the tribal kids in the village. I love the inventive games they play there. This one entailed setting up a pyramid of stones on top of a large rock, then everyone throwing rocks until it toppled over.
Many wonderful afternoon hours were spent down at the river. The boys had fun climbing on the rocks and throwing rocks into the river. Rocks are their main toys up there; who need fancy, expensive toys anyway???
(You may notice in this pic and a few others another "blonde" child. He is one of the kids' best friends up there, and he has terrible burn scars all over his body, including his head. Someone recently gave him a couple of wigs to cover the scars, and he loves wearing the blonde one.)
peaceful
beautiful
Another favorite activity down at the river is collecting small animals - snails, crabs, or - in this case - leeches. Check out how big they are!
The river is now running over the bridge because the culverts got plugged up. So this swinging bridge is the only dry way to cross to the other side.
It's a rough life...
cute kids everywhere
Mikayla finds a cute baby to play with wherever we go...
and it doesn't get much cuter than this!
This little one always has this amazing grin!
She is sharpening her pencil with that 18" knife.
Mikayla and her
barkada - group of friends - up in the village.
The village kids were pretty enthralled with the idea of the kids doing school at home. Mikayla took one of the books out to read to everyone at one point. Don't think they understood any of it, but they sat quietly and listened all the same.
swimming across the river to jump off the rock
Steve often affectionately refers to Mikayla as "Cinderella" when she does her chores around the house. Here are a few of Cinderella busy with village chores (the boys did their share too, but not when I had a camera out).
Washing clothes in the river...
...hauling water...
...and cooking.
We set up our little cookstove on a counter right outside our front door. Which meant we usually had quite the audience for cooking and had to watch out for the dogs, cats and chickens, but it worked pretty well all around.
This was a cute game too where they all went through the chain until it was all tied up like this.
Once the last person went through, then they all ran away. The person at the front of the line would try to catch a new person to be at the front. I love all their expressions in this one (you can click on the pic to make it bigger).
While it is a beautiful place to hang out and play, the reason we went up there was to teach a seminar on Acts to the churches there. This is the church where the seminar was held.
It blessed my heart to look around and see so many tribal men digging into God's Word and allowing it to transform their thinking.
Steve and my dad shared the teaching time. They "storied" the book of Acts up through chapter 13 - told it in story form, then focused on the individual stories and what those stories mean for us today.
After the teaching times, many men came up to my dad and Steve to discuss the truths they were learning. They were very moved by what God is calling them as a church to do - to send out some of their very own to reach others with the Good News. The man talking to Steve in this pic was in tears as he surrended to whatever God has for him and his family.
And Mikayla found another baby to play with. :)
The kids in this particular village (where the seminar was held) play with home-made wooden tops. This older boy is whittling one for our kids to take home.
I love this picture. The older man was my dad's language helper when they moved into this village 30 yrs ago. Here he is teaching Ben how to properly wind his new top.
o happy day!
Another little boy stepped forward and gave his own top to Ben so that he would have his own. Too precious.
As we drove from village up there (where the seminar was held was a different village than where we stayed), we saw many gorgeous spots like this one.
We decided this must be the best pic-nic spot in the world. We will try it out as soon as we get a chance, then report back. :)
So that we didn't have to slather bug spray all over us every night, this time we bought mosquito nets to sleep under. One night when we went to bed, a small lizard had sneaked into our net. Now, I am used to these lizards climbing all over the walls; they are everywhere here. However, I am NOT used to sleeping under a net where one is trapped only a foot from my head. Steve figured we should leave him in there to eat any mosquitoes that managed to get in the net, but I was just not cool with that plan.
The village where we are staying.
The river that runs by the village.
You will be hard-pressed to find a more beautiful corner of God's spectacular creation.
Thanks for praying for us as we head back up there tomoro. We will be back in a week for 2 days in Manila, then we head back up again until Nov 23rd. Pls continue to pray for safe travels, good health, and that God would be at work in the lives and hearts of these dear people.
not so gentle or peaceful now!
Remember the shot of this rock that the kids like to play on next to the stream?
Before...
...and after.
Tnx again to all of you who are praying for us and sending encouraging notes for us to find when we come back to the world or email & FB again. Really such a blessing. This next week will be our last week up there for a while; pls pray that God will continue to work in hearts. After this week, we will head home for about a month to get some work done down there, host some visitors, and maybe even get in some vacay time! Then back up north for Jan & Feb; anyone want to come for a visit? We'd love to have you, and you will be hard-pressed to find a more gorgeous place. :)
Jose is also one of the leaders of the small church that meets in their village. He has also started multiple outreach groups where he teaches the Word every week. This is actually quite remarkable because Jose can't read - but MaryAnn can! So MaryAnn reads the Bible to Jose every night (often for several hours) until he knows it well enough to teach it. 
