Sunday, September 23, 2012

The first leg of fall 2012 travels - Agta tribal ministry


Now that I am finished with about 4 weeks of travels around the Philippines, I am ready to take a rest. It is really good to be back home with Ginny and the kids. I am pretty exhausted as I write this. It was a good all around visit to the tribal areas, working with the missionaries in their respective locations. I am actually slightly ill right now with an upset stomach, but I can't sleep, so I am writing this in lieu of sleeping.

I was just reading John Piper's “Don't Waste Your Life,” for the 2nd time, and I highly recommend it. He admonishes his readers to learn to live with that single all encompassing passion for the glory of God, which is the glory of Christ. Boasting in the Cross of Christ, because Christ took our sins upon Himself when He was nailed to the cross, and because of this we can now have a relationship with God. Those who do not know Christ, do not know God.

In truth, in my life, I have always found it difficult to keep up that passion when on the valley floor. Mountain-peak experiences are fantastic, but when you get down to the everyday life, it is not so easy to think about living solely for the glory of Christ. It is easy to get distracted – what do I have to eat today? What plans will I make for next week, next month, next year, and after-wards? Yet there is a way to still have that all encompassing passion, even in the daily grind of life by faith. What is it? It is by faith – believing and remembering that we are most satisfied in life when we are most satisfied in God. He is worthy far above anything this world has to offer.

I am going to separate the narration of the last 5 weeks into segments, so as to break them up and make them shorter. I hope that this will make it easier to digest.

The start – week of August 26

At the airport, I met up with Jun Fabra, the head of the Filipino branch of New Tribes Mission. We flew to Tuguegarao, where our helicopter base is. We were able to meet and have supper with the supply buyer and purchase some fruit out in town. We expected the town to be mostly filled with Ilocano speakers; however, the fruit vendor we bought from did not speak Ilocano – only Tagalog. Apparently in the city, it is more useful to have knowledge of Tagalog than Ilocano. This makes for an interesting challenge for our future missionaries, because in the outlying towns and barrios, Ilocano is more useful.

The busy northern town of Tuguegarao

The next day we got up and got in the helicopter, flying over the mountains in the North in order to arrive at the black sand beach where the Agta people live. We did not go there ourselves to evangelize, but to help the missionary become proficient in the language so that he can evangelize and make disciples. “Making disciples” is the key phrase here – this goes beyond evangelism. There is a lot of work in developing deep relationships with people and teaching them how to become a disciple of Christ. Making disciples cannot happen without 2 principle components – a shared language that both people can communicate deeply in, and time spent with each other. 

With Jun Fabra of NTMPI and getting ready to fly

Beautiful black sand beach

Upon landing at the helicopter pad we were greeted by the tribal people, the missionaries with their kids, and all the friendly dogs in the area. (There were also a couple of water buffalo, but they did not pay much attention to us). After a friendly exchange of greetings and saying good-bye to the pilots, the helicopter left and we took our bags to the missionary's house. Now we were here, and ready to get started!

Agta boys playing basketball by the airstrip

But wait, we did not come just to do a job – we are friends with these people! It is an interesting thing in the mission, that we find ourselves living at someone's house in the jungle for a few days to evaluate their language progress, and they have to feed and shelter us. It is pretty easy to get to know people doing this, and the fellowship is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the work. Furthermore, it is a very important part of the evaluation to ensure the missionaries there that we have come to help, not criticize. 

A nice catch of river shrimp for a good snack!

Getting to know the kids and their pet turtle


After spending some time talking over things and talking to their kids a bit, we sat down and came up with the plan for what we were going to do. We had to accomplish the following tasks:
  • We would go into the village a couple of times and meet with some of the missionary's tribal friends, let him introduce us, and visit some (while listening and observing the missionary's interactions with his friends there)
  • We would come back to the house and go over a questionnaire about the tribal culture
  • We would have some specific communication tasks for the missionary to go over with his language helpers, which we would then record and listen to, having the tribal guys translate them back to Tagalog so that we could know how well things were communicated

The whole process usually takes about 3 days for each missionary that is going to be evaluated. It is also very helpful to have another person along (in this case, Jun Fabra from NTMPI) in order to discuss the things observed and develop an accurate rendering of the missionary's level according to our progress chart.

Since this is the ministry assignment I have been given, both in the national language study for new missionaries and in the tribal areas for missionaries studying the tribal languages, I would appreciate your prayers for all of our ongoing evaluations. It is of supreme importance that when missionaries come to the Philippines, they are able to connect with Filipinos and learn to love and appreciate the culture of the ministry God has called them to. It can also be a bit discouraging to have someone from the outside come in to your area and tell you that you are doing lots of things wrong. So I appreciate your prayers that I will exemplify grace to my fellow missionaries when I go on these ministry trips, so that they end up encouraged and helped, knowing they are heading in the right direction.

Discussing the day's events

Going over language tasks with the Agta language helpers
This is an exciting time for the Agta tribal ministry. The missionary there is just on the edge of reaching teaching level in the language!

At the end of our time up in the North, I was able to meet with the other 2 members of the missionary team there. The first one is building his house and will soon move in with his family. We were able to talk about his strategy for getting ready for learning language in that area. The second missionary there that I talked with reached level in the Agta language a couple of years ago. He has already taught once through the Gospel lessons and is continuing the work there. We talked about strategies for sustaining his language and the work they are doing in the church. He also asked for help on how to re-configure his solar electric system, so I was able to offer some practical advice there.

Visiting at a local house

Public transportation in the village

The last part of the assist visit was to come up with recommendations on how and what the missionary should study in order to reach that final proficient level. We were able to do this, and communicate these things to him before we left. The helicopter came in, picked us up, we said good-bye, and then we left. After landing at our helicopter base, we drove over to the airport, boarded a plane, and returned to Manila. The plane flight to Manila took about 45 minutes; the drive through Manila traffic from the airport to our home was 3 and a half hours.

It was good to be home, even if it was only going to be for a short time.

As the helicopter comes in, a baby water buffalo (carabao) gets spooked and runs off

Getting ready to leave and say good-bye

PS - Just one thing to add and ask for your prayers about. I have had gastric reflux for some time. This past summer it flared up again, and after going through 3 courses of the medicine, I was getting no relief and had pretty regular pain in my chest. So I decided to change my eating habits to a rigid, gluten-free and grain free diet right before going on this trip. All of a sudden I was pain-free. However, this sort of diet is impossible to keep on these types of ministry trips, since most normal people don't eat that way, and I have to eat their food when I stay in their homes. So I would appreciate your prayers as we schedule our travels for next year and we adjust our diet in our home.


Next time: A week's respite
 
fierce hunters

Piling rattan on a boat for trading up the coast

The boat is now loaded down and ready to get underway

The Epp family taking a swim break in the ocean

The missionary teaching one of the tribal men to give medicine to his baby

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