Adventure Three on Mindanao

    Our third adventure started similarly to the first two. Alex and Fritz hopped on motorcycles while David and Erin jumped in the car to go on a survey. So up to this point we haven't mentioned that David is a rally car driver. Erin was in good hands on these rough roads, and had just a little fun drifting around a couple of corners :) There is a big push here to develop highways through more rural parts of the country, and let me tell you some of these roads are crazy! Not only are some of them badly washed out and under construction, there is also the random animal laying there sunning itself, including but not limited to: dogs, goats, geese, and chickens. Oh, and did I mention that it is totally normal to dry your agricultural products like corn, coffee, and anything else on said highways. Almost forgot to mention that Fritz and Alex rode by a king cobra! Alex didn't even see it... 
    The goal of a survey is to see if the gospel has spread and will continue to spread within a language group. It was exciting to see how this was done practically and understand the challenges that come along with it.
    Arriving in the area we first met with local pastors. Filipinos have this amazing relational network. When meeting a new person one of the first things they do is start making connections of who both people know, and most of the time it doesn't take long before they've found someone that they both know. We want to partner with the local church to see the gospel spread rather than jump in and try to do it all ourselves. Most often the local pastors have a good idea of what is happening in the area and know the culture much better than we ever will - even after years of study.

Pastor Pablo (left) and Fritz (middle) were a huge help in surveying the area! Fritz often helps David (far right) on surveys.

        The real adventure began when we took off into the village. The roads were rough and the car wasn't going to make it. We knew that so we hired a skylab. A skylab is a motorcycle for hire that has two side racks for any cargo you may want to take. Often they pile rice, wood, or other goods on the side for transport in this case it was three of us plus the rider. You should see how many Filipinos they can fit on these things! Erin rode behind the driver while Pastor Pablo and I rode of the sides. It was very exciting and we were very sore by the end of the day:)

    The pastor of this church we visited was actually a student of Pastor Pablo. That Sunday they celebrated pastor appreciation day. After a message from a guest speaker, gifts and letters were given to the pastor and his wife. A huge meal was prepared and everyone enjoyed!

The Church we visited

Our group with the Pastor and his family

Just a little of all the food we enjoyed!

    At the end of the day we had talked to several pastors and locals in the area. Sometimes it is hard to immediately know if someone understands salvation by grace - just like at home. At times it takes more than one trip to build relationships and truly know how well the gospel is understood. David now has a better understanding of the area and how well the gospel will spread. For this specific location it did seem that there were some true believers! Please pray for them and that it would spread throughout the area. There are many church's that don't preach the truth. It is very common that all you'll ever hear from the pulpit is to obey God's commands to receive physical blessing. All in all, it was a great opportunity to see what actually happens on a survey and get some hands on experience. We talked about them quite a bit at school but practically didn't know everything that went into one.

Adventure Two on Mindanao

     Our second trip on Mindanao started by getting back on the bike. Well, Erin decided to jump in the 4x4 with some other missionaries. It was a fairly uneventful ride except for the beautiful scenery. 

This was better than trying the bridge...

     It was a big day there in the village. The missionary there started a family day, where everybody would take a day off to play games and have a good time together. Today it was even bigger than normal! They invited the next village over, quite a few missionaries came in, and a pastor from Luzon came down with some of his church just for this event. They danced, sang, played games and had a huge meal which was delicious. It was such a great time!

In this game they took turns blowing flower out of a bowl to uncover a coin. The last person had to pick up the coin with their mouth and run back to the start!

Listen to this great tribal beat!

It turns out the white guys aren't too great at it:) Look at the local laugh at us!

     The beat is made by 4 people hitting the log at different times, then a couple other people add on with smaller sticks. Three NTM missionaries and the pastor from Luzon tried. We didn't make the right sound once! Turns out playing a log takes some skill...

     After all the festivities the food was brought out and we were ready! We knew it was common to eat with your hands in remote locations but we weren't very skilled. My first thought was, wheres the hand sanitizer? After fumbling around for a bit we were instructed on how to eat with your hands properly:) It involves forming the rice and topping into a single piece then using your thumb to push it off your cupped fingers into your mouth. 

It was a great time experiencing so much culture in one afternoon!

     Please pray for these people. They have no access to the gospel at this time. Soon the missionaries will begin teaching. They are already asking to hear God's word because of the lives of the missionaries there. 

Adventure One on Mindanao

     Less than a two hour flight from Manila and we were already landing in Davao City, Mindanao. Josh and Belinda were there waiting to pick us up. They showed us a great time for the two days we were in Davao. We attended church, had lunch on a beautiful white sand beach, were introduced to kinilaw (a new favorite dish similar to civiche using vinegar instead of citrus juice), and grilled tuna jaw. Before we knew it David was there to take us further north to a smaller city - Malaybalay.

It doesn't look like much but there's a lot of meat on there and it was great!

    After a month and a half in Manila, Malaybalay seemed small but actually has a population of 153,00 as of 2010. It didn't take long before we were headed out of town to visit a village. One night in Malaybalay and we were off on our first motorcycle adventure in the Philippines. David was our 'guide' for the two weeks in Mindanao and this first trip was a test of sorts to see how well we'd do on the bike. I've had about six months experience riding a dual-sport (street legal dirt bike) in Indiana. All of my experience was on the road however.

We didn't see much pavement on this trip:)

     We rode for a couple of hours before we finally got to our destination. The terrain was rough! For me it was anyway... We went up and down some steep 'roads' some clay, some gravel, and some really chunky gravel with large boulders mixed in. David only had to take the bike up one short hill for me. It was a steep clay hill with big ruts I just couldn't seem to stay out of. I felt pretty tough getting through certain parts of the road especially with Erin on the bike (who did great). I was soon humbled by a local riding a little 100cc motorcycle with a few hundred pounds of rice strapped to it going over the same stuff I was with ease!

     Our destination was a small village with a baptist church pastored by a national. We just had a short visit before it was time to head back home. 

Check out these pictures from our journey!

Having merienda with the Pastor and his wife

Had a little trouble getting back across...

     After a full day of riding on dirt roads we were all pretty tired. We were just about home when we had a little accident. There are dogs pretty much everywhere on the street and you never know what they're going to do. David was a little ahead of us and barely missed a dog crossing the road. The dog turned around, so I thought we were in the clear. It took two steps away from us then turned and went right under our front tire. We were going around 25 mph when we hit the road. We think Erin went over the bike and rolled while I stayed with the bike and slid. To add insult to injury the dog bit me! Erin came away with a few scratches. I had a bit of road rash and had to get rabies shots! It was a bad end to a great day. We are both all healed up and fully recovered from our crash.

Check back tomorrow for our next story!

Two weeks in…

        First of all we need to thank everyone for praying for us because we have been in Manila for almost two weeks now and we feel like we've landed on our feet! Neither of us has felt really stressed out or worried at any point of our time here. We've been slowly branching out to new places around the city, just trying to learn street names, and where all the different shops are.  It’s strange to see so many American stores here, just today we ate at Bubba Gump… it’s hard for us to find that in the states, but it’s here in Manila. We’ve been on a tricycle, jeepney, fx, taxi, and bus so we’re getting more comfortable with public transportation.

        We are currently living in the NTM guest house till close to the end of the year then we will move to Bataan (pronounced batah-ahn) and begin language study. Bataan will sound familiar to most of you because of the Bataan death march in World War II. NTM Philippines has a training center there for Filipinos who are interested in missions to the unreached, which we were able to visit this last week. We will start looking into housing the coming months and move out there when our Language Consultants get back from furlough.

       We’ve been making all sorts of new friends here at the guest house and at the little church we’ve been able to attend. Their Sunday service and prayer meetings are so enjoyable for us. What a privilege to worship with Christ’s bride all the way on the other side of the world.

       This Sunday we will be flying north to visit a tribe there. We’ll be staying there for a few days with one of our new friends who is kind enough to host us. We even get fly in a helicopter!

Praise:

Neither of us has gotten really sick, Alex is only battling a cold.

We’re still in the “honeymoon phase” where everything is cool.

We were received with open arms and it’s been a pleasure to get to know people here.

Prayer:

Our trip into the tribe up north could be affected by bad weather. Pray that God would grant us some clear skies J

Pray for future housing in Bataan.

Pray for us to be sensitive to culture so we can learn quickly and build healthy relationships.

The Ride of a Lifetime…

Can you recall the feeling of standing in line for the biggest roller coaster you've ever seen? I can, it was called “The Boss”.  Staring at that ride with all of its twists, turns, and drops was intimidating and exciting all at the same time. The further I got in the line the harder my heart pumped, partially from a tinge of fear, but mostly from a lot of excitement.

That experience of waiting to ride “The Boss” is pretty comparable to what we’re going through now. It feels like we've been standing in line forever waiting to get to the “good stuff”. As we approach our departure date on the 18^th all of the twists, turns, and drops are becoming more visible. We can see that first giant hill and to be honest it’s pretty intimidating, but with all the support we've had from family and friends it’s not as scary to go as I thought it would be. For me the best part of getting on a coaster is standing in line with your friends. It’s like we have all of our supporters getting on this crazy coaster with us, and with God at the controls I know everything will be OK regardless of our circumstances.

We just spent two weeks in Indiana in Erin’s home town saying our final goodbyes, so now we’re spending our last two weeks in Oregon in Alex’s hometown. We’ll be staying at Alex’s parent’s house because we already packed up our apartment before the Indiana trip. Our time is filling up with last minute travel details and get togethers.

We leave from Portland on the 18^th. The total flight time is around 15 hours not including layovers. When we arrive in Manila we’ll be staying at the guest house until we can find an apartment. We’ll get most of our furnishings in Manila and start helping out wherever we can until we start language study in January/February. As I write this I can picture “The Boss”! Please be praying for this massive transition. We are genuinely excited and ready for this move… it’s been a long time coming.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! We love your support!!

P.S. We’re at 87% of our monthly support goal! If you’re interested in partnering with us check out our Get Involved page for more information.

Leaving On A Jet Plane !!!!

 These last few weeks we’ve been having trouble finding interesting things to tell you that you don’t already know. Well that is no longer a problem! We finally have our official departure date! We bought our tickets and we will be flying out of Oregon on October 18^thand arriving in Manila on the 20^th. It’s starting to feel like we’re actually going to leave the U.S.

Our time in Oregon has been fantastic. We’ve been able to get involved in so many ways with Keizer Community Church. Alex and I are gearing up to teach the summer Kids Wednesday Night program, be praying that we will be able to make an impact on these young hearts and minds. We’ll be watching a video series that shows what it’s like to grow up as a missionary kid; then we’ll be teaching from the Word to challenge the kids to examine their own lives. Our hope is that they will focus on serving God with their lives.

 I was able to work with some lovely women to put together a Ladies’ Tea, which was a little hectic but really fun. This last Saturday it all came together and went off without a hitch.

 

The best part of all is the many families we’ve had over for dinner. It’s been interesting to talk with people in the setting of our own home, we’ve loved hearing their stories and spending time with them. Another fun and practical thing we get to do is a CPR class that the church is hosting. I’m looking forward to having this training because we’ll most likely be the closest thing to medical help in the village we’ll end up in.

Praise God, we’ve reached 83% of our monthly goal! We’ve come to appreciate the body of Christ in so many new ways. Thank you to all of our friends that have gotten involved in our life! 

Prayer

·         Kids Wednesday Night Program.

·         Continue to prepare ourselves for the field.

·         Connect with people who want to be involved.

Praise

·         We bought our tickets!

·         More people have joined our team bringing us to 83% of our monthly goal.

·         Time spent with family has been so precious.

We'll arrive in Oregon February 5th and plan to leave from there to the Philippines late September.