Final leg of 3 tribe tour

December 7, 2011

Pearl Harbor day. I am in the Philippines, back in Manila now. It is amazing to think about the history here – 70 years ago today was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It was actually December 8 that they invaded the Philippines, but it was simultaneous to the attacks on Pearl Harbor due to the international date line. That is something I did not learn until we moved here.

What a whirlwind trip! I am glad to be back home with Ginny and the kids. They are not so much little kids anymore, with one going to college next year, one in high school, and one in middle school. Hard to believe. But it still is just as hard to be separated from them, and it is especially hard to be apart from Ginny.

Highlights of the last leg of our trip – We flew into Maitem ne Egis, where our friends the Epps are ministering to the Agta people. Again, it is a mixed language situation, in which many Ilocano families have moved into the area for the fishing and other business opportunities there. It is still an isolated place not connected to by any major roads, but apparently the business opportunities are good enough to make some people want to move there. Naturally the Ilocanos also plant and grow their gardens to supplement their food when they move there. However, the majority of the people there are Agta, and since they are basically an unreached people group, they are the ones to whom the missionaries are focusing their efforts in church planting.

Our purpose in being in Maitem ne Egis was to assist the missionaries in their becoming fluent in the Agta language. It is always nice to report that they are doing a great job! A missionary living in an isolated situation like this has to know how to run his own language learning program. It is like everything else that we do as missionaries living in isolated situations. We have to be our own carpenters to build and repair our houses. We have to be our own plumbers, and build and maintain our own water systems, along with building and maintaining our own sewage and septic systems. We also have to be our own power company, and build and maintain our own solar electric systems. We need power for lights at night, and to have power for a computer where all of one's language and culture data is kept.

In the same way, we have to be our own language school, and run our own language learning program. There are no classes in the Agta language – it can only be learned by someone who runs their own language course. Let us not forget culture – we don't want to speak the Agta language and not know the deeper meanings of what they are trying to say. In order to have good relationships, necessary for ministry, one must speak the language well and fully understand the culture. Quite a challenge!

The missionaries that live amongst the Agta have dedicated their lives to bringing the Gospel to this unreached people group. We enjoyed spending time with them. It is hard living out there isolated from civilization. But there is no greater joy than seeing the unreached come to know Christ, and these missionaries are fulfilling the command of our Lord. How I miss being among the Palawanos! Yet I am thankful that we are still able to serve in this way.

The Agta are a different race from the more common Malay race of Filipinos – they are more commonly referred to as one of the Negrito races – kin to the Australoid populations of New Guinea. Their black skin and “natural afro-hair texture” makes them look African in nature. However, DNA research has indicated that they are actually the most genetically distant group of people from Africans (see the Wikipedia article on Negritos here). I would be interested to know how committed evolutionists explain that one – it is evidence to me that the genetic makeup for all races originated in the first 2 humans that God created – Adam and Eve. The genetic code for having what we would call African features actually existed in all of the earliest humans, and these features have become dominant features of people in 2 different parts of the world, not just Africa, which does not seem to follow the accepted progression of thought for an evolutionist.

We had one very sad incident happen while we were there, which still pains me to repeat, but I will do so for the sake of asking for your prayers. The day before we left an Agta family came by with their 2 or 3 year old kid. He had accidentally tipped over the pot of boiling rice and it had spilled over most of his back, buttocks, and lower legs. We all gave them some first aid, but the poor child was too damaged and he died during the night. If he had been able to live through the night, we might have been able to take him out by helicopter the next day, but it was not possible. Please pray for this family that lost their dear son in a sudden tragic accident.

The area of Maitem ne Egis, like so many other areas in the Philippines, is a mixed language area now. In the past you would have only found Agta people there, but today there are Agta, Ilocano, probably some Itawis and Ibanag, as well as Tagalog speakers, being the trade language. Like other locations in the Philippines, the missionaries must have a very broad base of vocabulary in order to minister to the needs of multi-lingual people.

For example, take the word blood. In English we basically have just that one word, although old English might have used the word humour in a generic sense. In Tagalog and Palawano, they use the word dugo for blood. In Ilocano, the word is dawa. In Cebuano, the on-line dictionary lists dugo and gawi, along with several other options that in some way might have some referred meaning relating to blood. In order to communicate the truth of the Gospel to as many people as possible in a mixed language group, one would need to know how to say blood in more than just one language.

There are very few places left in the Philippines where there almost purely monolingual. The place where we ministered among the Palawano was unusual in that regard. Because we were up in the mountains, the people there still maintain a somewhat pure Palawano language. This is in contrast to most Palawano areas that are near roads – they are often able to speak Tagalog. It is still better to minister to them in their heart language of Palawano, but to go into an area like that, the missionary would really need to know both.

Up among the Agta, the trade language is actually Ilocano, not Tagalog. However, most people know enough Tagalog from having gone to school for some time, and so when a new person moves in from another area that doesn't know Ilocano, they communicate in Tagalog. Also when government officials come into the area to promote health programs or such, they communicate also in Tagalog. So Tagalog is widely used and understood (though it would not be effective to minister in up in that area).

This is an interesting aspect of life here in the Philippines. In the past, if you traveled all over the Philippines, people that lived in an area where Tagalog was not the trade language did not speak Tagalog. Many of the missionaries in the past that went to tribal areas in Northern Luzon communicated in English to tribal people, because that was what they learned in school. Not so today – now the trade language is Tagalog. People still want to learn English and try and learn to speak it, but Tagalog is now much more prevalent. That is also why the official name of the language is Filipino, and it is considered only to be based on Tagalog.

By the way, when you say Tagalog, it is pronounced like this: tah-GAH-log. Most English speakers will say TAG-a-log when they first read that word, but that is incorrect.

Enough for now. I hope to put this in an email update by the time my birthday rolls around. Don't know if I can get there that quickly, though.

Ok, here are the pictures. More to come on another post. Click on any picture below to enlarge.

getting the chopper ready for the next flight

heading towards the mountains away from civilization

a washed out bridge along the way

river coming down from the mountains

break through past the jungle to the coastal area

black sand beach with missionary house prominent

the isolated coast

chopper on the ground, people waiting for us

inside the missionaries' home

view from the back porch

rainy weather most of the time we were there

home looking up from the garden

people coming by to get help with their tools as kids look on

houses in the Agta village

reviewing some CLA principles on the computer

unload and reload the helicopter while the engine is still running

storms the last couple of days made the seawater muddy

on the way out, a waterfall coming down the mountains from the rain

2 of the missionaries' tribal language helpers.

A bat cave we flew by on the way in.

Agta kids playing

One of the Agta villages.

Agta kids in a native Agta house.

A beautiful waterfall that we flew by on our way out.

The 2 on the left and me on the right make up our consultant team. The other 2 are the missionaries in the area.

The Language Barrier - the Ga-dang (and peanut coffee)

12/1/2011

It was time for role-play. This was our communication task. Having arrived the day before by helicopter, now we had 2 Ga-dang native speakers, both of whom were also pretty good in Tagalog (at least enough to communicate what we wanted to do). At first we had the missionary pretend he was visiting one of the Ga-dang men in his home, and then properly excuse himself to go home and help his wife. The idea is that we are looking to see how well the missionary speaks and acts according to the customs of the native people he is working with. They played the role just fine. (click on any picture below to enlarge)

Checking communication tasks with native speakers

Life among the Ga-dang - pounding rice

Arrival by helicopter

Then, for comparison, we had one of the Ga-dang men pretend that he was married and visiting in the other man's house. He also was supposed to excuse himself and go home to his wife. The roles were understood. The 2 men thought it was really funny that they were “actors” (artista). We set up the scene, and the young man said, “Ok, I have to go home now to my wife.” Instead of the proper Ga-dang response, the older man forgot he was doing a role play, looked at him and said, “What? I didn't know you were married!” Of course, then the younger man broke down laughing!

Time for take 2! Artista we are not. :)

Maybe it would be good here to write up a description of how we do a language and culture check. First of all, we are moving into places where the language barrier is a significant barrier to people understanding the Gospel. There in the Ga-dang village where I was this morning, I went outside the house we were staying in and walked up to talk to a neighbor. In this “tribal” area, the people are not really tribal like the Palawanos were, but are more just like Filipino farmers who have a different language. At least, that is what one might think when one first goes in.

However, even after a few minutes of conversing with my neighbor in Tagalog, which he speaks pretty well from having gone to school, it was pretty clear that there was a lot he would not get in Tagalog. Use of Tagalog is increasing in the population for sure, especially because of television shows that are broadcast nation-wide, but for the most part explaining the deep truths of God's Word clearly is still going to have to be accomplished in the local language in the Ga-dang area.

The only person available now to take God's Word to the Ga-dang are these missionaries. This can be a sensitive issue. Us missionaries have sometimes made the mistake that it will always be necessary for foreign missionaries to take the Gospel to these remote places. That is changing rapidly – there are increasing numbers of Filipino Christians who have a vision to take the Gospel back into the remote towns and villages and finish getting the message to all these areas. But that is all for another discussion. The point of this discussion is how a cross-cultural missionary is able to move into a new area, learn the language and culture, preach the Gospel so that it is clearly understood, and establish a church.

Why language and culture? Why not just language? It is because culture and language are inseparable. Here is a simple illustration. Three tribal bible teachers are going to hike to a neighboring village to teach the Gospel there. The new missionary wants to accompany the tribal men, so he goes along. However he wants the tribal men to walk in front of him, so that he will not feel that he is imposing upon them. When they arrive in the village, the village people are cold with them and do not receive the teaching, and really are not interested in listening at all. Why? Because in this tribal culture, the order in which outsiders approach a village is of supreme importance. By not having the white missionary in front as a person of perceived higher status, the bible teachers communicated to the new village that they did not respect people of higher status. They were thought of as people that do not show respect, and therefore their message had no credibility.

That is culture. Culture and language are inseparable. When a tribal woman in a certain tribe sitting on her porch says “come in and visit” it is different from saying “come up and visit”. One is a proposition of an illicit affair, the other is a polite way of acknowledging a visitor. The missionary would want to respond appropriately. There are so many things in a culture that are intertwined with the language. Our job as Culture and Language Consultants is to help the new missionaries in tribal areas to learn to recognize these things. Also, since there are no language schools in these areas in order to teach the new missionary how to speak and act in a given area, he or she has to figure it out for himself. Our job is to help coach them through setting up their own learning program so that they can get to the point where they can teach the Gospel clearly.

Of course, there are always going to be mistakes that are made, especially at the beginning stages. However, the missionary who has been somewhere for several years and still has not learned that “come in” means “let's sleep together” and “come up” means “let's visit” will not be very effective in preaching the Gospel. He will not have good relationships with the people he is trying to reach if he doesn't understand the little nuances of the culture. The people make great allowances for mistakes when he first moves in. After several years, a missionary is expected to know these things. If he learns them quickly, within the first couple of years, then he establishes a pattern of excellence and respect among the people, which will make his message more credible.

It was a good visit to the Ga-dang village. They gave us peanut coffee (roast peanuts pounded and then mixed into hot water), and I liked it better than real coffee! No caffeine rush, which is preferable to me. Also we locked the keys to the missionary house inside the house once! I had to ask one of the men to borrow a stick to mash open the window - they were a bit concerned about that! They gave me an axe, and we got in. Ha! So now I have broken into someone's house with an axe! Well, at least it was supervised.

We have now finished with the 2^nd tribal visit, and one more to go. The weather is not cooperating right now, and we are waiting for it to clear so that we can fly in by helicopter and assist the missionaries in another tribal area.

tying the generator to a water buffalo cart for transport

the Ga-dang village from the air

pointing out the area we will fly through

some houses still have thatch roofs, though most do not

village kids

tasting peanut coffee (no coffee grounds were available, so fried peanuts were mashed and made into coffee instead)

a village house on the left with its corresponding rice house on the right

Island travel, on to another jungle for Christ

11/28/2011

“We need to be at the boat at 7am in order to make it to El Nido in time to catch the shuttle going to Puerto.” sabi ng host missionary.

We just finished a language assessment with a friend of ours on another island. He is working in an area where the Gospel has not reached yet, and is doing well in his progress for learning the local language of the island! That means another unreached tribal area of the Philippines will soon have the Gospel!

So there we were, ready to go at 7 am, and our guide didn't show up! We waited, and waited, and finally decided to walk across the island to the boat by ourselves, pulling all our bags in a hand cart. When we got to the beach, we saw why our guide didn't show up – low tide! Our guide, or boat captain, had been drinking the night before, so he didn't pull the boat out past the tidal area. There was our boat, sitting on the sand! And we had to get to town that day...

Well, in a situation where time is of the essence, and you are on an island waiting for the tide to come in so that you can leave, what do you do? Nothing, of course! All we could do was sit and wait for the tide to come in. Well, we could have tried to swim across the open ocean... No, probably not a good idea.

While waiting for the tide to come in, we looked at squid eggs in the water, and talked about different things. Finally the tide has risen by about 6 inches, and so we called some other people over and we began pushing the boat towards the deeper water. It took about 10 of us, but we made it! We were off the island by 9 am, and our host called the shuttle van and asked them to hold the van for us. I don't know how the other passengers took it, waiting for 2 extra hours, but they didn't say anything to us. Once we were on the road, fantastic...

And of course, at Roxas we stopped at the Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. Wow. The most amazing food ever, and all for only 100 pesos. I always get the “beef stew with noodles”, and I never get tired of it!

Back in Puerto Princesa, we settled down and got ready for the next leg of our trip, which began this morning!

So, yesterday morning I was on a small island in the middle of the ocean, and today I am up in the northern part of the country, getting ready to go by helicopter into another tribe tomorrow!

We are in Tuguegarao, and have looked at our flight base up here. The base actually belongs to another mission, and they have shared the use of it with us. Their ministry is doing really awesome things for god – they record Gospel lessons in 4 or 5 of the major dialects of this area, and then broadcast them on different radio stations at designated times so that people can hear, come to know Christ, and be encouraged.

I was talking to the missionary in charge of this ministry, and he had some very keen insights into the world around us today. He said, “Why do you think that we have all this technology, the ability to travel, and the ability to send radio messages and internet email and all those things?” He believes that God restrained us from acquiring this knowledge until recent times.

Think about it from this perspective – the ancient kingdoms could build pyramids and giant statues, navigate by the stars and do all kinds of amazing things, but they couldn't look at a duck taking off from the water and figure out the simple mathematics of flight? It is not that complicated – wind speed over a wing, increase the lift over the drag, and you get something airborne. Leonardo Da Vinci may have been ahead of his time, but perhaps it was because God was only just beginning to allow man's mind to be opened up to this technology. And why would He do that now? So that we could use this technology to finish getting the Gospel out to all ends of the earth. That is what God is all about – the completion of taking His Gospel message to every people, tongue, tribe, and nation!

So while he broadcasts Gospel messages, we send people out into the hills. And with all these different means of taking the Gospel to the nations, soon every tribe will have been reached! This is what we hope for and pray for, and what we labor for!

Tomorrow we will be going into another tribal area, to a location off on a remote hilltop, where the Gospel has never penetrated. The people there are not really “tribal” like the Palawanos we served with, but they are still unreached with the Gospel and greatly in need of the message being preached there.

Click on any picture below to enlarge.

getting on the boat to go to the island

a view of Palawan as we jut out to sea

view from the boat as we head out to the island in the distance

a sleeping house in the lagoon on the island

after crossing the island through a coconut grove, the missionary houses emerge in the clearing

there are lots of pigs on this island

 

view of the beach on the side away from the boats

preparing one of our meals

a German-Romanian salad served on an island in the Pacific

private beach area

nice white sand beach

Konrad and I at the beach in between sessions

our boat was stranded waiting for the tide to come in

at low tide the people gather fish and clams from the reef

view of the one really nice house in the village from the reef at low tide

squid eggs

Once the tide started to roll in we were able push the boat out towards deeper water.

on our way back to the Palawan main island

view of the shore

fishing boat based on the main island

view of the El Nido cliffs from the bus terminal