For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake... Philippians 1:29

Egsa! Nuutnuut is shaking and he is stiff! He is trying to eat us! He just returned from the downriver market and he is really sick! Quick we need medicine! He saw the giant bad person and it is trying to steal his soul!  So we heard his mom frantically shouting outside our window last night. We asked if he has a fever, but they forgot to feel his forehead as they were holding him down. It is possible it is an effect of drinking from downriver, or also it could be another case of cerebral malaria. There are many cases of malaria right now because of the incessant rain bringing lots of mosquitoes. This is life among the mountain Palawano. We gave him some medicine for malaria and will continue to monitor things to see how they go.

We live in an area where time might seem like it stands still, yet if you observe carefully you can see how things change and people adjust, albeit at a slower pace than the outside world. We just returned from seeing our kids during their March break from school. In one of our first visits with people here in the tribe,  I asked them if they had heard of the major Tsunami in Japan. No, they had not heard about it. I had to describe it to them – an earthquake that caused a really big wave, which wiped out several towns and killed many thousands of people.

Then we talked about the radiation spill in Japan. They have no idea what radiation is, and instead of trying to describe what radiation is and all about atoms and energy, I just told them that a giant machine was damaged by the waves, and it spilled poison out into the ground so that the people cannot return yet.

They have not yet heard about the continuous unrest in the Middle East. Even the one Muslim who lives in our village is only vaguely aware of those problems.

There are a few people from time to time who have radios. If they have a battery so that they can listen to the news in Tagalog, and there happens to be someone there who understands Tagalog, then they can sometimes get an idea of what is going on. Then the news spreads along the jungle grapevine, with quite a number of interesting variations!

To the Palawanos, the biggest thing that is happening right now is that it is raining during dry season. This means that the field that they just cut down in order to plant will not burn. The smart ones will not plant rice this year, because they know that without a burn there will be too many weeds and they will not get any kind of decent harvest. However, there are some who will try to plant rice anyway. For those who do this, they will end up wasting their seed rice. Those who don’t plant rice will clear an area and plant more cassava and sweet potato. Too much cassava over the long term, however, has some negative health effects. So we are thinking about how we are going to help the people through this.

The reason for the rain during the dry season, according to the teachings of the ancestors, is that somebody has committed incest. Incest to the Palawanos means more than just brother-sister or parent-child. It can also mean uncle-niece, or certain kinds of first and second cousins (this is what it usually means) involved together. Some first or second cousin marriages are permitted, and others are strictly forbidden, especially if the fathers are of the same bloodline. When a man is joking around too much with a first or second cousin of the same bloodline, an evil spirit might cause him and the girl to start having feelings for each other. So they try to generally avoid being too much of a jokester with the opposite sex. However, it can and does happen, and when it does the gods bring chastisement in the form of rain during the dry season. Right now people are looking around for who committed incest. If they find the guilty parties, the tribal elders will first talk to them to convince them to split up. If the offenders commit the sin again a second time, they are both killed and their bodies split in half and left to dry in the sun to appease the wrath of the gods. However, it has been a long time, they say, since someone has had to be killed because of this particular sin.

Culture change
There are 2 big things happening among the Palawanos right now which have the potential to significantly impact their culture. The first is the intervention of a government welfare program to help the poorest of the poor. The Palawano families who want to participate have to leave their children downriver at school every week, so that they only come home on the weekends, and then they receive government grants of cash. In fact, some people have been given significant amounts of cash – more than they have ever seen. They have been told this will be given out every 3 months or so.

One of the benefits of this program is help for the Palawanos to be able to buy food. This will be especially helpful this year since their rice harvest will be poor on account of too much rain during dry season. Another benefit is that many Palawano children will be attending school downriver, which will help them in the future to be able to communicate in Tagalog. This will enable them to trade more effectively, and help them know how to protect their ancestral homeland.

At the same time, however, we don’t know yet the many other ways this will impact the culture. Will they stop looking for food in the jungle because it is easier to go downriver and buy it? We will have to wait and see. What about the people who chose not to participate because they didn’t want to be separated from their kids? What will they think when their friends come back with loads of cash and always have food? Already there are rumors of one of the government workers that was carrying the cash to a distribution station downriver being murdered and the cash taken. The lessons of history make it easy to imagine the different kinds of things that can happen. This is a big prayer concern we have right now. Some men told me this morning that on account of the murder, they are all preparing their blowguns to be able to defend their homes if some of the bandits try to come up into this area.

The biggest thing up and coming for the mountain Palawanos is the teaching of the Gospel in their language! Our partners have been working on lessons, and we are continuing to study language and culture. Please pray that our minds will continue to be open to learning this language well so that we can communicate the Gospel to them. Please pray also that the Palawanos will soon see that even large grants of money to make their lives easier will not truly meet all their needs. Pray that we will be able to communicate these things in the lessons that we teach.

There are changes from time to time in every culture, because all cultures are in a state of flux. The main challenge we have is to be a witness for Christ in the midst of the change that is happening, and to share truth with the people about God, Christ, and their eternal condition.

Thank you all so much for your prayers for us and the Palawanos as we prepare for teaching the Gospel!

click here to see some more pictures

a type of jungle dove, shot for dinner

young father who recently went blind in one eye

kissed by a goat!

monitor lizard for dinner!