November 25, 2012
Palawan again – week of September 9
As I write this at the end of my travels for the year, I am amazed at the work God is doing. Even though it has been difficult for me to travel while trying to maintain a somewhat restricted diet, the Lord has gone before us in our travels and prepared the way.
This update will encompass the scope of my return to Palawan, a visit into 3 tribal areas, and then finally a visit to Mindanao at the end which I will briefly touch on. It will also include some about Ginny and her work at Faith Academy, and how the Lord is doing great things in our lives. We are incredibly thankful for the goodness of God in allowing us to serve Him, and we pray together with you all we will continue to grow in His wisdom, knowledge, and love!
Return to Palawano for a (very) short visit, week of Sept 16...
When I first took on the job of being a language consultant, it was decided that I should always have someone to accompany me, as it greatly helps in the work. This time, our original plans fell through, so we had to scramble to find an assistant for the consultant visit.
The missionary who trained me to do this kind of work, Jody Crain, was returning to the Philippines for his other ministries for only about a month, so we asked him if he would accompany me. In this way he agreed to come and act as my assistant for this round of evaluations.
I went to Palawan ahead of him so that I could fly to our old tribal area first and make a final walk-through of our house there. There I visited with many Palawano friends and our old partners. I have been out of the Palawano language for over a year, but it quickly just came right back! What a blessing to still be able to recall enough to visit with some of my old friends, although most of them were out in their fields working.
Talking to our old partners was an opportunity to catch up on what is going on there, and they told me a little about the teaching and how the people are receiving it. They are teaching a small group in our old village, and then have plans to soon begin teaching in another village downriver from us. And as of the time of this writing, we have just found out that after presenting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, there are 5 new Palawano believers. Wow, praise the Lord!
After about 3 hours in our old location, we (the pilot and I) flew back to Puerto Princesa. Too bad it was so short, but the weather sets in early there, and we had to leave before the rains came or we would not be able to fly. The next day Jody arrived, and together we flew up to the north end of the island to an area where our missionaries are working in the Tagalog language.
Northern Palawan tribal area...
This area in the North is a bit unique for the Philippines. The missionary who started the work here was hoping to begin a work with the Tagbanua tribal people that lived there. Over the years, more and more Filipinos from other areas began moving in. At first the dominant language was Cuyonin (having supplanted the Tagbanua language), but now Tagalog has taken over as dominant with the influx of even more immigrants. So, when partners joined the original missionaries there, they believed it would be best to do the ministry in the Tagalog language. It is unusual for us to have a tribal ministry which is conducted in the national language, but it fits with the needs of the people in this area.
The other uniqueness of this area is that many of the Filipinos there do not have strong family ties. In the Filipino culture, maintaining strong family ties throughout life is the norm, and often grown children with their wives and their own families will be found living with one or more sets of parents and even siblings. However, the people at this end of the island seem to be group of outcasts (sort of). Since they migrated there for one reason or another, they have managed to loosely sever their family ties back to their respective home areas. Also, because Tagalog is the only common language they all share, they practice it and use it every day, and have become highly proficient in it (even though for most of them it is not their first language).
So in this environment, there is a little church where the missionaries are discipling the believers. The missionary we were there to do a final language check on has not been teaching in the church, because our mission requires close to proficient level of certification before teaching in a church. Instead, he has been discipling one on one with some of the leading men in the church, and the reports he gave about the response of the church members to their preaching have been astounding. He told of one instance where he was going through the book of Romans and talking about things that hold us in bondage. He asked the man he was discipling what people are in bondage to in their area. The immediate response was “superstitions.” The following Sunday, this young man was preaching through the book of Romans on how superstitions were keeping them in bondage and preventing them from fully trusting in God. There was an overwhelming response, as people began to discuss how to throw away their dependencies on amulets, good luck charms, and other superstitions in order to trust in Christ alone.
It is very exciting to see God working in people's lives in this way. The missionary there had been doing very well in language and culture studies, and had very strong relationships with the people in the area. The result of the evaluation was that he was clearly ready to move into a preaching and teaching role as necessary for the church.
While we were there, a big typhoon came through the Philippines and the residual effects in our area were very strong. Huge waves were crashing on the beach, and knowing that we were due in a couple of days to cross that ocean on a small boat, we had some cause for concern. I sent a text message to some Christian friends of ours in Manila asking them to pray for our travels, as the storm did not show signs of letting up within the time necessary for us to cross over to the other island.
When the morning came for us to leave our location and drive across the island to the embarkation point, the weather cleared up, but the ocean was still rough at first. We had a text message from the missionary at our destination saying that he thought the weather was calm enough to make the crossing, and he was proceeding out on his boat with the 2 local boat drivers. We arrived at the pick up point about the same time as he was making land, and by that time the weather and the waves were very calm! We made the smoothest crossing I have ever made to that island in record time, praise the Lord! It turned out that at the last minute the typhoon had turned sharply North, and we were left with clear skies and calm seas.
On the island of X…,
We arrived feeling thankful for the Lord going before us in getting us safe to the island. Back to back evaluations are a lot of work, and here we were working with both Nate and Megan, the same couple that we originally came with to the Philippines over 6 years ago. They are good friends of ours, and so it was really nice to visit with them.
This is a small island that has become a center for trade in squid fishing. The fishing has recently become so lucrative that many people from islands all over the Visayas have moved to this area. However, Cuyonin has remained the dominant language here, even though Tagalog is spoken and understood. One of the local people told me that if a new Filipino moves to the island, that person is expected to learn Cuyonin if he or she wants to have friends. So naturally, the missionaries there are also studying Cuyonin.
This time on the island, we were briefed on the team's plans to soon be teaching the Gospel lessons to the islanders. If you remember from earlier this year, the first missionary there for whom we did a language assessment had already reached his required proficiency level in language, and so has been hard at writing Bible lessons to present to the people. He has worked really hard, so that from the time in which he reached the required level to the time in which the Bible lessons were written has only been about 4 months! This is a very exciting time for the island, because soon the people there will hear the message of Christ, when God reached down to restore His relationship to mankind.
Our consultant visit here was to assist the progress of Nate and Megan in their language acquisition, so that they will be able to help the original missionary with the Gospel teaching. They too have been working hard, and are now both at their required proficiency level. After the assessment, we took a boat back to Palawan, caught a bus back to Puerto Princesa, and flew home. Wow, it was a busy month!
One month of not traveling
The month of October gave us an opportunity to catch up on some needed administrative work with the mission, as well as start working on figuring out what is going on with us health-wise. We are also now into the middle of our 2nd year from when we left the tribe to be based out of Manila, and we have found the right niche for our family life and for the ministry. (This is also the beginning of our 7th year in the Philippines.) Ginny is enjoying teaching missionary kids; we are doing well with our girls at home, and when I am at home I am able to continue to press on in deeper acquisition of the Tagalog language. I have learned more and more about how language study never really stops if you want to get really good in it. We now are developing some close friendships with Filipinos in the area, and are enjoying our time together when I am home.
November saw another round of travels (Mindanao)
In November, I was able to travel down to Mindanao and finish a language evaluation on the 2 missionaries studying Visayan down there, Brian and Brooke. They are opening up our Visayan language program for the new folks that choose to work in Mindanao. It was necessary for Brian and Brooke to reach a required proficiency level in speaking Visayan before they started teaching it to others. They have been working very hard for a long time, and they demonstrated their ability well. This is really good news for us, because now we can proceed ahead with our new missionaries studying Visayan.
Just as a reminder for clarification if this is confusing. Here in the Philippines, there are over 170 languages and 3 principal regional trade languages. In the North, the trade language is Ilocano. In the South (Mindanao) and the Visayan Islands, the trade language is Visayan (also called Cebuano). In Central Luzon and Palawan, the trade language is Tagalog, which is also the national language and is spoken throughout the whole country. In New Tribes Mission, we have 2 national language programs for new missionaries – Tagalog for the North and Central part of the country, and Visayan for Mindanao and the Visayan islands.
The reason we don't have an Ilocano language program is that Tagalog is also fairly strong in the Northern Philippines, enough to warrant its usefulness there and over-riding the need for an Ilocano language program.
However, that is not the case in Mindanao; hence, we have a Visayan language program there. After spending almost 2 weeks in Mindanao, I had some observations to make. First of all, compared to the Northern Philippines where you hear Tagalog and Ilocano whenever you go out, here in Mindanao you don't hear Tagalog and Visayan when you go out. You pretty much only hear Visayan. The people understand and can speak some Tagalog because they learn it in school and watch it on TV, but Visayan is still much more dominant here compared to Tagalog. However, when people found out that I could speak Tagalog, they were very eager to practice it with me, because they don't often meet someone to practice Tagalog with. (This is unlike Manila, where most Filipinos want to practice English with me and so I have to work to find people willing to speak Tagalog.) Apparently in this area of Mindanao, fluency in Tagalog brings possibilities of business and opportunity.
So it was great to spend a couple of weeks in Mindanao – the last time I was there was almost 7 years ago when I took Isaac along with me on a survey trip of the tribes in the area. It is hard to believe it was that long ago.
After finishing the evaluations, we spent a week talking through the details of how we are going to structure the Visayan language program for new missionaries. This was a very profitable time, and we are very thankful for Brian and Brooke spearheading this ministry!
Finally...
And as a final report, remember our friends on the island where I did the check in September? Well, we just received the report that they are now teaching the people through the Bible, in the Cuyonin language. So exciting to see the work God is doing there!
Blessings to you all in Christ,
George for all of us
George, Ginny, Isaac, Sarah, & Abby
PICTURES:
Flew into our tribe one last time, said good-bye :(
Saw that our partners were teaching the tribal people to type on the computer so that they can one day develop their own lessons
Flew up to Northern Palawan to visit a tribal area and do language evaluations on the missionaries there
Here is the missionary with one of the young men who is a leader in the church.
Typhoon came through, was blowing really hard
Waves were too big for crossing the ocean
But when it came time to move, the storm subsided
we crossed in calm seas
Here is the precious missionary family studying on the island and preparing to teach the Gospel
Here we are in one of our sessions where we are talking about the language and culture of the island
They got me to play basketball - the last time I played basketball was in junior high, I think, and they called me dr. J (for dr joke)
We do more than just language assessments - I had an opportunity to help Nate out with his solar electric system
Where they are beginning to let the kids in the village learn to read and write
The family had a pet crow that was very friendly
Lady came by selling a lobster she had just caught
Upon leaving, we said good by and hiked out
hiked through the village
waded across the shallows to get to the boat
rode the boat back across the ocean and headed home
Abby's soccer team won the local select team championship
Sarah's school soccer team took a trip to Taiwan to compete in a tournament
They were tournament champions
All Soul's Day in the Philippines - people spend the day at the graves of their relatives
We also visited the American cemetary to remember the sacrifices of soldiers and sailors
About 50,000 graves here from the Pacific War
I met some Muslims at the airport returning from their Hajj.
Visited a local school in Mindanao
Teaching the kids in a local school about creation, the fall of man, the Garden of Eden
Here we are working on language assessments with a family in Mindanao
Went to the market with this family
Met with another new missionary family, a Korean couple, eager to serve the Lord in Mindanao
One of the poor areas of Bukidnon
Came home and put up the Christmas tree
Getting ready for Christmas!
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