Annual Christmas Adventure

We just returned from our annual trek into the mountains with the Maxwell family.  This was our 3rd year of doing this with them, and we once again had a blast.

We spent some time visiting in the village with the people.

 We also had a "work day" at our tribe house.  Mikayla and Z worked together to make this window a little more usable.  

 The other kids worked to haul gravel and spread it on the mud steps going up to the house - SO much nicer now!

 It is great to work alongside another family who values the act of working hard together.

 It wasn't ALL work though! We also had our annual Christmas hot dog roast down at the river.

 Ben and Chloe found this contraption (usually used for cooking rice over the fire), and Ben used it to roast his hot dog by skewering it on the hook.

 We also went on another Christmas hike.  We had to drive about an hour first - on some exciting mountain roads.

 And they're off!

 We are all used to hiking through the jungle, but this trail was pretty scary. I didn't take the camera out at the treacherous places, so you'll have to take my word for it, but it was one of those trails carved into the side of the mountain.  I call it a "fall away" trail because half your steps feel like the trail is going to give way and send you sliding down the mountain.  Not to mention it was so narrow that one little misstep could send you tumbling waaaay down the mountain. NOT my favorite.

 Once we crossed this river, we started up an even scarier trail...and then we called it.  Decided if it rained while we were up there, we would be really stuck, and we had no desire to sleep on the jungle floor. Or slide off the mountain for that matter.

So we decided to have our picnic at the river instead of continuing on up to the waterfall. It was a GORGEOUS spot, so not a huge sacrifice.

When we waded out to get this picture, Mikayla spotted a snake swimming along the edge, and it chose that moment to cross over to the other side! Lots of clamoring up out of the river suddenly ensued; swimming with snakes is not our idea of fun either. 

 Turns out it was a poisonous snake, so the guys worked together to kill it...then they lost it.  But we think it was dead.

So we went swimming. :) 

 It was once again quite the adventure, and we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing views in His creation.

I took this pic at the end of the hike. 

The kids also did their annual Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.  This time it was complete with an "unveiling" program. Love their creativity and the way they have fun together!

Playing in the river is always a highlight of our time in the mountains.  We actually saw ANOTHER snake in the water on this day!  All told, we saw like 6 snakes while we were up there this time!

 A couple of the crazier ones actually jumped off this bridge this time too.  That's Ben you can see in this pic.

 The kids also slept in hammocks again.  It wasn't as cold this time as it has been some years, but it still gets pretty chilly up in the mountains this time of year.

So thankful for another year of memories with the Maxwells in the mountains at Christmas.  We will miss them next year when they are on furlough!  And then Z graduates this year, and Mikayla next year... Not sure if/when we will get to do this again, but we've made a lot of memories to cherish!

Blog Blitz

Ok, I'm a little behind on updating the blog so I'll be on a posting blitz today to get all caught up by the end of the year. :)

The end of November found Steve in the city of Bacolod on the island of Negros in the southern part of the Philippines.  He was asked to be the speaker at a large conference there, and he joined several of the Bugkalot leaders for several days.

Not too often do you see a man in tribal costume behind a fancy pulpit!  Steve decided to go with our traditional dress clothes rather than theirs...

While Steve was in Bacolod, we celebrated Thanksgiving with some friends, and the kids had their Christmas banquet that weekend as well.

You'd never guess all 4 of these "kids" were on the rugby field just hours before this picture! Both Mikayla and Zach went with friends from their class.

(Notice how Mikayla is standing without any weight on her right foot? She turned her ankle playing rugby earlier that day, but she still insisted on wearing her new high heels...at least for part of the evening!)

 Zach has been enjoying learning how to play rugby.  He is the "scrum half" for the JV team, and he has been doing a great job.

He actually had a breakaway and ran more than half the field to score his team's very first "try" of the season.  A friend of mine caught the moment when he got by the opponent on her camera - great shot!

 Mikayla is in her 3rd year of touch rugby, and she is loving it.  She is one of the starting "centers" on the Varsity team, and she actually scored 2 diving tries in this game!

 While his older siblings have been out on the rugby field, Ben has been enjoying both kinds of football - American and soccer.  He participated in the annual Middle School super bowl and had a blast.

 His intramural soccer team was called "Fuzzy".

(I don't know why, and it made cheering for them interesting: "Go Fuzzy!" Even funnier was when they played the "Bananas"...so it was the Fuzzy Bananas game.)

 We are so thankful for the many opportunities that our kids have for fun activities at Faith Academy.  They are all learning so much, both in and out of the classroom.

Steve's Travels

So Steve's travel schedule has been pretty busy lately, but it has been exciting to see how God is at work as he goes from place to place.  One of his trips took him up to our tribe house, and he got this great shot.  We love that house and are looking forward to being up there as a family for a few days before Christmas.

On that trip, he was meeting with tribal church leadership to discuss specifics on how the churches can better coordinate and cooperate to support the men and women whom they have sent out to reach the unreached.  They were blessed to have some men from a church here in Manila who accompanied Steve to offer input based on years of experience since their church has been used mightily in sending   out and supporting those they send. 

Often when Steve comes home from a trip, I find pictures like this one on his phone.  This is a record of the discussion from one of the sessions:

Something else that we were busy with this past month was doing an annual evaluation of our progress this past year.  This entailed computing the results from dozens of pages like this one to see how many groups and how many people are studying the Bible with our tribal partners in Bicol.

 For those of you who like numbers, here are some for you:

At some point in 2016, there have been 507 Agta studying the Bible in 51 groups (some house churches, some early outreach groups). Of these 507, 201 people are new attendees; and there were 19 new groups started in 2016.  

While tracking numbers can be tedious, it was good to see ways that God has been at work this past year! 

Steve's most recent trip took him 12 hours north to meet with more than 60 tribal pastors. They had a great time of discussion and training, and we are excited to see these men stepping up more and more to lead their churches in reaching out to those who have never heard.

Tomorrow morning, Steve will fly to another island to speak at a conference to challenge a group of churches to get more involved in what God is doing with tribals reaching tribals.  Please pray with us that he is able to communicate clearly and ignite a passion for His heartbeat for the unreached.

The Show Must Go On

It's been a big month for activities for the Hagen crew.

Ben's soccer team won a big game. He played goalie (yikes!) for part of it.

 Ben was also a pirate in a middle school production of Pirates of Penzance.  He shaved his head bald to get in character! (that's him kneeling down)

The cast did a great job, and Ben had a blast in his first (of many?) productions.

Our family got out of town for a couple nights over a long weekend

 with some friends, and Zach especially enjoyed the time we spent wakeboarding.

I like this shot of Zach and Steve hitting the kickers side by side.

We had another big production this month too; Mikayla was Antonia in Shakespeare's 12th Night.  It was a production put on by the advanced drama class, and several of her closest friends are in that class, so they had a lot of fun doing the show together.

 Unfortunately, Mikayla sprained her ankle during rugby practice on the afternoon before the 2nd of 3 shows.  But after some serious pain meds and strong tape, we got her back up on her feet and on stage.  The show must go on, right? :) 

 Thankfully, her character had a bit of an attitude and some anger issues, so the pain probably helped with that. :)

 Another highlight on the homefront this past month was that Steve and I got to get away for a couple nights, just the 2 of us! 

 It was our first time to visit this area, and the views were spectacular.

Once again so thankful for our family and all the ways that God has blessed us here in the Philippines.

Exciting Report!

Steve recently attended a conference in a tribal area.  This is an area that has been interested in sending out more people to partner with us to reach the unreached tribes, but they haven't been able to do so until now.

 We are privileged to work in some absolutely beautiful places...

 ...with some absolutely amazing people!

Steve thoroughly enjoyed his time at the conference, and he was so encouraged by his interactions with the people there. 

 The exciting report is that these 3 single men have finished their pre-field training, and their churches made the decision to send them out to partner with us and our other Bugkalot partners in Bicol to reach the Agta tribe! Please pray for these young men as they make the transition down there and begin studying the language. You can pray for them by name: Michael, Leonel, and Benji.  So thankful! 

Home Front

We have just finished our first quarter of the school year and started into the second.  The kids are continuing to do well and enjoy the school here.  Thanks for praying with us for Ben; we have found some solutions that seem to be making a big difference for him in his classes.

The high school recently had their "spirit week", and Mikayla and Zach performed in some cultural dances.  Mikayla learned to hula (the only blonde :) ), and Zach was part of the Chinese dragon (in the middle with the red shirt/khaki shorts).

 Ben still loves to play percussion, and he is in the advanced middle school band this year.  They had their first concert recently, and they did a great job! Percussion plays multiple instruments, so Ben had his work cut out for him, running all around the back to play different instruments. 

Zach enjoys playing guitar, and he was able to work some over the summer doing odd painting jobs (thanks, Grandma & Papa!) so he decided to get an electric guitar with his earnings. He recently had the opportunity to have one special-made, and he is very excited with how it is turning out.  Almost done, should be able to pick it up soon!

 A couple interesting things have happened this past week.  One, we opened the gate to drive the bike out, and the pillar holding up the car and people gate cracked in half!  Thankfully, the open gate "caught" the pillar and supported its weight (so it didn't fall on the car) until we could get it tied off.  Thankful Steve was home during that particular adventure!  Discovered that there was no metal in that concrete post, so it's just surprising it didn't happen sooner. They had to chip it out, add metal and pour new cement.  Painting it has been an issue though because it's rainy season so never get a full day without rain.

 Another adventure this past week was some flash flooding.  Steve and I were on our way home from meetings in town, and the kids were trying to get home from school but couldn't ride their bikes because of lightning storm.  While they were waiting, we made it their direction far enough that we told them we would just come pick them up.  Then all of a sudden, traffic totally stopped because of flash flooding ahead.  We sat stationary in traffic for 1.5 hours, just waiting for the water to recede enough for us to go up and get the kids.  Mikayla texted to say the lightning had stopped, should they go ahead and come home? Just as she texted that, we saw the scene pictured below - large plastic road barriers floating down the river on the road that they would have to drive their bikes on. Half a dozen of those barriers floated by while we were sitting there.  Texted back and told them they better stay put. :)  Once the flood waters had finally receded for the high vehicles to get through (thankfully Steve was home with our 4x4!), we found it ironic that with all the 4-wheeling he does in the mountains, crossing many streams, the highest water he has driven through to this point was 5 minutes from our house...though it took more than 2 hours that day!

Thanks for your continued prayers for our family.  So very thankful that Steve has been home for these last couple adventures! :)

First Vol Team

Just over a week after we arrived back in the Philippines, our first volunteer team for the term landed.  This particular team was comprised of my (Jen's) parents as well as one of the other pastors and wife from a key partner church (who also happen to be Steve's brother's in-laws...what can I say, we are from the Ozarks... :) ).

The first couple days was a team retreat for the Global Empowerment team here in the Philippines.  We had a great couple of days, and Brian encouraged us through worship, prayer, and sharing from the Word. Such a blessing!

We then flew down to Bicol to connect with our Bugkalot tribal partners.

 It was a wonderful time of re-connecting and hearing all the reports of what God has done over the last couple months.

 It was also really good to have my parents there for that time, and it is always such an encouragement to our partners when my dad can share his heart with them in Bugkalot (and my mom shared too! It was kind of funny translating for her because when she spoke Bugkalot, I did the English for the other Americans, but then she would switch to English so I would translate into Bugkalot...a little chaotic, but it worked! :) ).

 Steve is showing the team the map we have made on the back of the chalkboard. It has pins for where all the Agta churches and outreach groups are located.  Amazing to see all that God is doing in that area!

 We finished our time together with a sweet time of worship.  Brian led some of the worship time, and one of the Bugkalot guys led some of it.  Was really special when we were able to find some worship songs that we know in multiple languages.  A taste of heaven.

 After the day with our Bugkalot partners, we flew back up to Manila and drove north to visit the Bugkalot churches.  Was so cool to watch my dad and mom re-connect with old friends.  This old man was part of the group that swam across a flooded river to make it to the leadership seminar.

 Grandmas the world over love to look at pics of each other's grandbabies. :) 

The leadership seminar was a powerful time, and we are praying that God uses it in mighty ways in the months and years to come.

 We also got to check out the coffee plantation. 

 Coffee cherries!

 This is our house in the clouds.  Come visit, and we'd love to bring you here!

So thankful for this team that came to encourage us AND our partners, both down south and up north.