a week in the tribe by myself

8/20/2011 Journal entry

Wow, what an amazing and crazy week I have had. Being in the tribe by myself is a lot of work, and there are good and bad elements to it. To recap –

• I had a great visit with the downriver pastor and his wife about the school they have set up for their area. It is really doing a great service for the tribal people there in that area. They are receiving a Christian education, which enhances and strengthens the church, as well as helping to break the cycle of animism that keeps them in bondage.
• A guy way up river fell out of a tree, broke his femur, broke an arm, and his lower back. This was about 10 days before I arrived. They said that his lower abdomen had already started to smell bad (indicating gangrene, I suppose). I asked them why they didn’t take him to the hospital in Brooke’s Point, which is only about a 2 or 3 hour walk for them, and the messenger didn’t know.They said that they don’t have any money, but the interesting thing is, they can get money when they really want it. They typically only are willing to do that for themselves. They can haul begtik, or go into debt with someone, or sell land, or something. But they typically don’t do that for their neighbor, only for their own children or spouse.
• A kid dumped a pot of boiling hot rice over his leg, causing 2nd degree burns. I gave first aid, and then the next day when the blisters came out I treated it with burn cream and the gauze banadages.
• Another guy who fell out of a tree 2 years ago, and is now crippled, moved into the tribal house next to us. He is having to live under someone else’s roof, which is a bit of a burden for them, so he is trying to build his own house just a few feet down the trail. However, he is crippled and cannot walk without crutches, so he cannot build himself. The other Palawanos, who build houses all the time, won’t help him or build a house for him unless he pays them. He cannot get money, because he cannot work, so that is also a problem.
• Since our partners will be preaching the Gospel soon, hopefully this guy will be someone who will be available to listen to all the messages. After all, he is not going anywhere.
• I had one good language session with my helpers.  I got lots and lots of recordings, more than I usually do, knowing that I would have time to process the recordings once I returned to Manila. They are having to split time with their families also, by putting their kids in a downriver school, and hiking back up to the tribe once or twice a week to take care of weeding their rice fields and other work at home.

When I flew back to Manila on Saturday, Sarah was having a soccer game at the international school. I took the taxi there first, dropped off my heavy bag with Ginny, and then took the taxi to the place where I received my motorcycle I had shipped (yong pinagkuhaan ng ipinadala kong motor - that is easier to say in Tagalog). Then I rode my motorcycle back to the game, and after that back home to our apartment.

Now that the Lord has moved us out of being full time in the tribe and up to Manila for the time being (with regular short term returns to the tribe), we are settled in an apartment. It is such a totally different life here in Manila. I am thankful for the Lord working things out for us to be able to take care of some family needs at this time. He is good.

Keislaman

Also this morning at the bed next to us the ward was new patient – a very old man. They said he was 110 years old! His sons were attending to him. All 3 of them impressed me as very nice, with good manners, and well educated. Then all of a sudden one of them turned to me and started speaking in fluent Palawano! Totally unexpected – why would any educated Filipino take the time to learn Palawano, the language of the native people, especially since knowing that language doesn’t help anyone further their business or anything like that!

Well, it turned out that they were from one of the neighboring people groups that live down river referred to as “Keislaman” by the mountain people. These are people who had common ancestors with the Palawanos, but they broke away when they became Muslim. Now, many of them are educated, but they speak the same language as the Palawanos in their homes.

According to Palawano legend, they separated back in the days of the ancestors when an old man came down from the hills to visit a young man and his wife, who had just prepared dark sticky rice to eat. According to custom, they fed the old man and visited for some time before he left. When he left, he travelled by a path where the young man had set his pig traps. A few hours after the old man left, the young man went out to check his pig traps, and he had caught a pig in one of his traps. So he brought the pig home, where he and his wife butchered it and ate the initial cut of meat. After eating, they argued about who would take the remains of the pig down to the creek to clean out the intestines (which they would have use for later). The wife won the argument and took the remains down to the creek. When she was cleaning out the intestines, she noticed their contents – dark sticky rice! So she realized that this pig was actually the man who had visited them that morning, and he had turned into a pig and been killed in the pig trap. She got violently ill and threw up, but managed to make it home. She told her husband she could never eat pig again because of what happened, but the husband didn’t agree with that idea, so they separated. She went down to the ocean and re-married, while he went up to the hills and got remarried. Her descendants became the “Keislaman” and his descendants became the Palawano. According to the legend, that is why the Muslims don’t eat pork, but they speak the same language as the Palawano.

I was able to share this Palawano legend with our neighbors in the ward, but I have not confirmed if they share the same story in their culture. They acted a bit surprised at the story, so I have a feeling they might not have heard it before.

Ama, mulit ne!

“Ama! Mulit ne!” 

Over the last week, I have heard this phrase over and over again. It means, “Dad, I want to go home.” I am in Puerto Princesa right now with Burut, a 7 year old Palawano kid that we brought to the hospital. They showed up at our place over a week ago, and the child was swollen up like a marshmallow. Our medical team members were pretty sure the problem was kidney disease, but in our place there is nothing we can do about that. So we gave them some money in order to take a bus to the hospital in town. The next day another man came by our house with a message from the doctor at the hospital. They said they were pretty sure it was kidney disease, but they did not have the facilities to test to find out the extent of the disease. So we needed to send him to Puerto Princesa.

I was on top of the mountain about 5 hours up river when they called me in the morning to tell me I needed to take the kid to the hospital. My son and I were doing an overnight hike up there (more about that later). We were planning to stay 1 more night, but the medical emergency pre-empted our trip and so we came home that day. The next day I went to Quezon and met the kid with his dad, and together we proceeded to the hospital in Puerto Princesa. That was last Saturday, and we are still here a week later. The prognosis looks good for a release this weekend or early in the week. However, the young boy still has to wait.

It has been hard on the family for multiple reasons. First of all, they have not had any contact with their family that they left up in the mountains, so they are probably wondering what has happened. Secondly, the hospital is not an ideal place for people that are used to living in a free and open place, where they get up in the morning or at night and can look out to see as far as the eye can see. Also, they were embarrassed to bathe and/or use the restroom at first, but eventually they got over that and had to use it.

On the good side, the other Filipinos that are in the hospital have been very nice to the patients. We are in a ward with 5 beds, and all the families of the other people there have been very courteous and pleasant towards the dad and his kid. They have not made them feel embarrassed at all about being “natibos”, but instead have included them in discussions and talks, making them feel welcome.

So with regard to this, we ask for your prayers for little Burut’s completed healing! As of this morning, his swelling had been reduced significantly, and if the urine tests in the morning show the disease to be in remission, then he will be allowed to leave the hospital.

Grandfather of the skunk and snake jokes

I think I need to write a few light-hearted things down so that if you read this, you will know that things are not all serious and terrible and desperate. We actually have even a somewhat “normal” life here at times. We get up in the morning, cook, eat, do our work (which is a lot of language study for me), homeschool, and often have a lot of fun with the tribal people. We go swimming in the river with them and visit at their houses or at ours. They will always have some kind of interesting story to tell, either about spirits, ancestors, or a simple walk through the jungle. Animism penetrates everything about the way they think here.

The tribal people love to have fun and make jokes. A lot of times their jokes are very integrated with their culture, so you have to understand their culture to understand their humor. For example, one time I was talking to someone about the mythical ancestors of the different animals of the forest. Every animal has some kind of mythical ancestor, which they say is its grandfather. So they told me some stories about the grandfather of the monkey, and the grandfather of the python, and others. The grandfather of the python is who they say went through the land and carved out all the hills and valleys.

So I was asking about the different grandfathers of the different animals and listening to the stories. I was sitting in one of the tribal people’s homes as we were talking, and I asked who the grandfather of the skunk was. This lady looked at me, and said, “Egsa (that means cousin), he’s sitting right there,” and she pointed at her husband sitting next to me! Well, everyone laughed at that, including the one being pointed at, because they all knew what that meant!

That is just one of the ways we have fun with the tribal people.

Even in somewhat scary situations, we can often find something to laugh about. Consider the following. Yesterday morning I woke up to find a snake in the middle of the kitchen. Don’t worry, it was not one of the very poisonous kinds. Yet nevertheless, it was a snake, first thing in the morning. I held the dog and sat there staring at it. For some reason I couldn’t think of what to do. Probably because I had just woken up and was still a bit sleepy. Remember that time when I had to pour boiling water on the snake that was hiding in a crack in the wall? Well, that was the only thing I could think of. But I figured the snake wouldn’t wait around for me to boil water to pour it over him! Hmm.

Suddenly like a light shining in the darkness came a voice out of the silence, breaking through with magnificent thought and reason. It was Ginny. “Would you like me to hand you your machete?” Wow! I wonder how long I would have sat there staring at the snake if she hadn’t prompted me! So I took the machete, chopped off the snake’s head, and end of snake!

The tribal people never chop off a snake’s head. They think that if you chop it off and throw it out into the jungle, the next time you cook rice, the snake’s head will magically appear in your rice pot, jump out, and bite you on the neck! So naturally I want to challenge this assumption (gently of course), and so I took the snake with the severed head over to the tribal people’s home next door and showed it to them. I asked them what kind of snake it was. “Sawa manok,” they said (which means chicken snake). Later I came by and I told them I had thrown the snake and its head out into the jungle. There was a pause as they stared at me uncomfortably. So I asked, “Do you think the head will appear in my rice pot and jump out and bite me on the neck?” That broke the tension, and they all fell over laughing!

The reason they laugh at that is because they know it is a silly idea, but they still believe it enough to not chop off a snake’s head. They have no basis for thinking that the snake’s head might not reappear, but they are still scared that it might.

So, score 1 for the challenge, done gently and in love.

It happened again

"I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles..." Isaiah 42:6

Making God central to our ministry   
I have been reading a lot lately from scripture and in other places about making God completely and totally central to our ministry. As I look back and reflect on our time in ministry from when I first left my engineering job in New Mexico, there have been times I have totally focused on God, and other times that I have been a whole lot more focused on myself. During those times that God has been central and we were walking by faith, stepping out and trusting Him to go before us, our fellowship with the Father has been the sweetest. This work that we are doing, to bring the Gospel to people who not only don’t know God, but who regularly serve demonic forces, cannot be done in our power. Other times when I served my own ideas (instead of the Lord’s) stand out as times of spiritual failure.

I will recount the great things God has done in our lives. He sold our house in a miraculous way, provided for the funds to get us through our training, found my lost keys just off the highway in Utah :), guided us to an interest in the Philippines, and led us to a tribal location that did not yet have the Gospel. Here we are now, and we are pressing forward, guided by His Spirit, and your prayers. I am convinced that nothing in this world happens that is not somehow connected to God’s greater plan for the world.

What I am about to write may be a little disturbing to some who read this, and completely unbelievable to others (also it is probably not suitable to be read to children). Be that as it may – I write about what we see and pray that God gets the glory. The Palawano here do not know Christ yet and have centuries of animistic darkness holding them down. We believe that by your prayers and ours God will soon lead them out of that darkness into His glorious light…

It happened again

We heard that the young girl was getting married, and finally figured out that was the reason so many people were around. Every day for the past week there were kids out in front of our house playing soccer, volleyball, and badminton. Our porch was always full of people wanting to look at pictures. They especially like looking at pictures of themselves. :)

So then last night, they all started to go to bed in the house right next door feeling happy and contented. All was right with the world. It was dark with no moon, so people would be asleep early. Then it happened. All of a sudden there were screams, yelling, banging, crashing around. Screams of terror. “Keep him away!” “Help!” “Hold him down!” People jumping out of the windows of the house, off the porch, escaping through holes in the floor, and running in every direction just to get away. Some came running up to our house, holding especially their little kids.

Egsa, it’s Tabung again! He’s nemulpug! The bad spirit has him! He is trying to kill the children! Many of us were bitten by him!

I looked and there was his little brother, a boy of about 13 years old. He showed me his arm where he was bitten hard. There was a huge bruise.

So then the conversation follows as I try and find out more information.
Where is he now – did he run off into the jungle?
No, he is still in the house.
Is someone holding him?
Yes, there are 2 or 3 guys holding him, but they are not strong enough to hold him down. There are still children in the house in the room on the side, but they can’t get out. Can we stay in your storage shed, Egsa? He can’t get us there.
Well there is gasoline in there. I will have to move it. Let me go check on Tabung first.

I walked over to the house and went up on the porch, and there I saw him. He looked similar to the last time he had this affliction, only a bit worse this time. His eyes were wide open, and he was making a growling sound. He was crouched like a tiger ready to spring, facing the door of the room where the remaining children were being held for their protection. There were about 3 guys holding him down. I called his name. “Tabung!” No response – he was totally focused on the door. As he started to make a move for the door, the guys holding him held harder and called for one of the adults to start moving the children out of the room and out of the house. I looked at his face – it was the face of someone being controlled by something more powerful than himself. It was the face of evil. This is not the Tabung that I know and talk with every day.

Some of the men from the other side of the village came to help hold him down. By this time I had moved the gasoline out of our storage shed so the mothers could hide their children in there. We got everyone settled. I went back to our house to pray. Ginny and Abby had been praying already. So we all 3 prayed together. “Lord, we pray that you protect the people here from evil. We trust in your protection over our house and our family. We pray for the children here to be kept safe and the people to be delivered from fear. We pray especially for Tabung, that you will deliver him from this demonic presence that seems to affect him from time to time.”

Things were now settled for a bit – there were men guarding Tabung and holding him down during his fits, and the women and children were all hidden in various places in the village. Then suddenly we heard more commotion from the house. Shouts. The men running out of the house with their flashlights. I went out to talk with them. Sure enough, it turned out, he had broken their hold (7 of them holding him down) and had run off into the jungle. Nobody had any idea where he had gone. When he has this madness come upon him, he seems to have multiple times the normal strength of a man.

Well, as it turned out, he did come back in his right mind an hour or so later in the evening and went to his grandparents’ house. He told the people there to make sure that they kept the children away from him in case his malady returned. He didn’t know what had happened, but he had some idea. The children were taken away, but the men stayed with him all night. In the morning, he was physically fine, though emotionally spent.

The difference between this time that Tabung was sick and the first time, when we treated him for cerebral malaria, is that this time he has not been sick or physically weak during the day. In fact, he has been one of my main guys for a particular project I have been working on at our clinic, and has been able to work hard every day without a problem. During the day he is a perfectly normal guy. However on some nights he seems to have this type of madness come upon him. Before, he showed definite symptoms of another sickness in addition to the madness. This time, there is only the sporadic madness with no accompanying symptoms. When I talked to him the morning after, he said that he did not remember anything, but that he is beginning to feel separated from his own people now (as in they are scared of him and want to make sure they are sleeping somewhere far away).

As we thought and prayed about it, several things came to mind. First, we know there is an Enemy that wants to keep these people from hearing the Gospel. If we fail to recognize evil, we are sure to be defeated by it. We know that the teaching of the Gospel is coming soon, so this is an attempt by that enemy to keep the people in darkness, where they have remained for hundreds of years. Secondly, it seems that part of the strategy of the enemy may be to bring out the Gospel teaching prematurely, before the people are ready. If we bring out the Gospel teaching before the people have an understanding of sin, this gives an opportunity for cults to come in and usurp the authority over new life in the church. This has happened in many places, and we seek to avoid it by wisdom.

So instead of attempting to exorcise the demonic spirit right now, we ask for your prayers over him, us, and our families. God is doing a work in the hearts of the Palawanos right now, but they are not ready yet. We are plowing the ground, preparing the field for planting the seed. There is more than just this one incident affecting them. 3 weeks ago there were multiple people who were affected by this same type of spirit in one night, and they all had to be held down to keep from going after the children. Though this has not been a common type of malady in the past, it now seems to be increasing in frequency.

There are other things happening as well right now. The government program of financial assistance to the Palawanos for putting their kids in school has people concerned. They were very happy to get the money when it was offered. Now that the start of school is getting closer, they are realizing that putting their kids in a school 3 hours away is not going to be easy, and they are constantly talking about what they are going to do when school begins again in a couple of weeks.

So again, we are making a call to prayer. Prayer for the Palawanos to be drawn to Christ, drawn away from the darkness that has enveloped them for centuries. Prayer that they will question the teachings of the ancestors, understand their sinfulness before God, and look for a way of deliverance. We also call you to pray for us and our families. Pray for our team to be united in our work and fellowship. Pray that us and our kids will be protected from the attacks of the enemy, will be kept safe, and will remain faithful in trusting our loving Father.

Update May 2, 2011
Last night everyone in the village tried to sneak off to the houses up on the mountain so that they wouldn’t have to sleep near him. I talked to one of the dads, and he was very concerned that Tabung would kill one of his children. When they were out on the airstrip trying to sneak off, Tabung saw them all and went to join them. These are, after all, all his extended family – aunts, uncles, cousins. He is 18 years old and naturally feels a need to be with the people he knows and loves. So they ended up sleeping in the houses near us again, with several men sleeping close to Tabung to guard him in case he woke up in a fit of madness. Thankfully, nothing happened.

 

This is the spot where they told us someone fought with a spirit, killed it with a machete, and it fell down knocking a hole in the bushes.

Replacing the clinic wall

Repainting the wall on the other side.

The young man and his new bride.

adjustments to change

April 4, 2011

We have only been back a few days. 3 people have showed symptoms of cerebral malaria. Only 1 of them has come to ask for medicine, and he is better now, though I don’t know yet if he is fully recovered. The people here still believe it is caused by a bad spirit. The human mind gravitates towards searching for a reason, and in the absence of a foundation in the truths of scientific observation, their minds will naturally tend towards the spirit world.

Nuutnuut said he saw a huge person big and dark (meitem, which means black or brown) and hairy. The creature looked at him, and his mind started getting dizzy. Then he started reaching towards people and grabbing them to bite them. This seems to be the common manifestation among the people here. The same thing happened to Selem. We gave them both medicine. Nuutnuut took his, but Selem threw hers up and asked for a different kind. There aren’t any other kinds that we have here. We will see if she gets better or progressively worse. Because they think it is a spirit, they don’t always come get medicine until it is really serious.

At least with Nuutnuut, his mother is wise enough to pursue getting medicine early on. That is what happened, and probably the reason he is well now. Selem is considered intelligent in her culture, as is her husband, as they know the jungle very well. They also do well with relationships with other people, and they do pretty well with us. However, they are not town savvy at all. Once we sent them to town to the dentist’s office, which we have done with many other people, and they couldn’t find it. They sat at the dentist’s house for hours waiting for her to come home, which she never did. They finally left, and he walked around with a toothache for a month or so. I hope that one day I can learn to pull teeth, as this would give them a relief from time to time from the incessant toothaches.

It will be interesting to see how this government program works out. They were told that they all have to build outhouses. They will not use outhouses – they move around too much. Well, Ipaya’s family does have one, and he already uses it because he is from another culture. Also, they don’t move around so much, but stay in the same house year after year. The others, though, they will not use them. They said they are supposed to build them for “visitors” when they come. I wonder who the government plans to send up here to visit on a regular basis.

Giving away handfuls of money has implications in many areas. It is not free money – the people are required to send their kids to school. This is good, because Palawanos are routinely taken advantage of by townspeople. Not all townspeople, of course, as there are plenty of nice people in town. Nevertheless, if they can speak Tagalog and do math, then it will be much easier for them to get along in the downriver culture. 

However, giving out handfuls of money, especially in the quantities they are receiving, will require some adjustment in the thinking of those who receive it. Yesterday I was talking to a family who had received some 8500 pesos. They showed me a receipt they had for 200 pesos of goods they bought in town, and they showed me that they only had 1100 pesos left of the 8500. I asked where the other money went, and they said that they had bought 1 sack of rice for 1800 pesos, and some other dry goods for 1400 pesos.  The man at the store where they purchased the dry goods, they said, refused to give change or a receipt for the 1400 pesos. Where is the rest of it, I asked. There should be around 5100 pesos remaining. They didn’t know. I wonder what they will do when the government overseer of the program calls them to give an account of the money (they are supposed to have receipts for everything).

The Lord calls us to do this work for His glory and for His sake. Today I will push to try and get some more direct language study in, on top of all my other duties. I look forward to the day when I can communicate clearly.

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!