Vision Trips

As we have been focussed on mobilizing the Bugkalot tribe to send people down to partner with us to reach the Agta tribe, my dad has been networking connections with people and churches who are excited about what God is doing here.  One of those churches is in Singapore, and they recently sent 2 different teams on vision trips to catch a glimpse of what God is up to in our corner of the world.

(Note: These pics were taken by members of the teams who came - the 1st group by Ana Gonzales, and the 2nd group by Joseph Reygan.  Thanks for sharing these great pics!!!) 

 The first group from Singapore came down to Bicol to visit the Agta just after Christmas.

 We headed across the lake to the village of Ipil.

 For most of this team, this was their very first time out of the city.  Mikayla helped with the younger members of the team as they tried hiking for the first time.

 The team brought some school supplies to share with the kids in the village.

What a blessing!

 Headed back to the boat

 The Singaporeans weren't the only ones who got muddy and needed to wash up before getting in the boat. :)

We so enjoyed getting to know these precious people from Singapore, and we are blessed by their visit to Bicol.

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Last month, we headed north to help host another team from Singapore - this time there were 27 of them! (including drivers, family members who tagged along, etc)  We met my parents in Manila, then met the group EARLY the next morning to head up into the Sierra Madre mountains to visit the Bugkalot tribe.

 Zach & Ben helped with loading/unloading the vans.

 What a privilege to introduce these brothers and sisters to one another, for us all to see that even though some are tribal villagers and others are Singaporean businessmen, we are one in Christ.

 This group also brought some school supplies to share, and we had some great teamwork packaging the goodies.

 This little lady attaches herself to Steve every time we visit her village.  Her parents are in the group that is hoping to join our team in Bicol in April.

 Everyone got to try out their skills at pounding rice.

 This Singapore team had several kids with them, and our kids had a blast getting to know them and showing them around the village.

 Mikayla loves little ones.

 In the midst of the busy-ness with our visitors, we also got in some important discussions with the Bugkalot.

 Mikayla catching up with her friends.

 The kids have friends scattered throughout tiny villages all across the Philippines.

 We so enjoyed our visit up north with the Bugkalot and getting to know new friends from Singapore.  We are so blessed by the people whom God has allowed us to partner with the reach the tribes of the Philippines.

I will leave you with some amazing pictures taken by Joseph Reygan during our visit in the Sierra Madre. 

Family Time

Quality family time is very important to us, and we really try to make a priority of it, even in the midst of our crazy lives.  After several months of roughing it up in the mountains (see following posts), we decided that our family needed some down time.  So we headed to the beach (November is a little warmer here than in the States!).

 The snorkeling was AMAZING!

 So was boating around the tropical islands.

 The scene is set for some relaxing family time.

 After a wonderful couple days at the beach, we spent a couple days in Manila trying to catch up on life - meetings, medical, email, and paperwork (amazing how all this can get backed up when you are living without electricity or internet for 2 months!).

While in Manila, we went to our favorite little zoo.  Not much to it, but lots of interaction with the animals.

 Happy Thanksgiving!

(Yes, I know it is January already, but like I already told you, we got a little behind on computer stuff while we were in the mountains!  We celebrated Thanksgiving with friends in Manila right after we came back to "civilization".)

 O, and Merry Christmas while we're at it. :)

How many 11 yr olds do you know who would be this excited to find a kiwi in her stocking?

 I think this one is a riot of Ben.

"If I don't smile big enough, maybe she won't let me open my presents..."

 The kids made this cool collage for us for Christmas!

 All 3 kids have been saving their pennies all year in hopes of eventually saving up enough to buy a kindle (Mikayla) and Ipod Touches (the boys).  So all they wanted for Christmas was $ to keep saving towards these treasures.  Between our money for them, grandparents' gifts, and friends said they would pitch in, and we knew it would be close so we went ahead and ordered their gadgets from the States to have them ready once they had enough money.  This was when Kayla figured out she would have enough for her kindle. 

 I wrapped up the boys' money in containers with decoys like rocks and rice.  Ben got so excited about the rocks - he thought they were somehow special rocks.  Yes, they are special - they have money underneath them.  (Also notice Ben's hat that Mikayla made him.)

 Once they all figured out they would have enough, we set them up in the computer to scour the internet to find their kindles and Ipods.  Meanwhile, Steve snuck upstairs to get the actual items.  He came down and put them right next to the computer, but they were so intent on their internet searches that they didn't even see him do it.  Was fun to watch it dawn on them one at a time.  Zach said, "Wait.  Is that REAL?" We congratulated them on how fast they were at finding them on the internet.  We had some excited kiddos for sure, and they have been loving reading, listening to music, and playing games on their new gadgets.  I am thrilled too because now I won't have to haul so many books with us everywhere we go - they can read on their new readers!

So thankful for some cherished family time.  Meanwhile, things are going full out with our Bugkalot tribal partners - they have started many Bible studies already, and we are excited to see what God is about to do!  Pls pray with us, and I will post about it soon.

Pls also pray as we hit the road again - for safety and endurance as we still don't feel recovered from the last travels.  Exciting stuff going on though, and we are privileged to be in the midst of all HE is doing!  And an added blessing - we will be meeting up with my parents and siblings (who live in SE Asia too) for a Jackson family reunion at the beach!!!  1st reunion in 5 yrs, and we are really looking forward to it!

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.