BUZZZZ! OUCH! HAHA!

Palawan is covered in plants and trees that bear delicious fruit year round, pineapple, bananas, coconuts, avocado, assorted berries, but one of my very favorite are mangoes. Yes while ripe mangoes are usually my favorite, but I've grown to like green mangoes. Although they are a little sour with a little salt they become quiet enjoyable. The only down side is that green mangoes don't fall from the tree, only ripe mangoes do. So in order to get them you need to climb.

One day while returning home with the children from my village, we were passing under a a few mango trees and decided to stop for a snack. Dyubim and I climbed up and started shaking the branches to cause them to fall. Things were going great, mangoes were dropping one after the other to the kid below us. Moving to another branch, I began to shake it but the mango wouldn't come lose, so I did the obvious thing, shake harder. Bad move. What I didn't see was the bee's nest further out on the branch. That second shake sent a number of angry bees, stingers first, straight toward me. One got me on the crown of my head, another on my hand, but the one that brought the most swelling and later much laughter to all who saw it, was the bee that selected my upper lip as his target. A little swelling at first turned it to something....well just look at the picture. PS: Jungle remedy for swelling: heat a banana leaf over flame for 3 second and directly apply to swollen area. Thanks Meyini.

Lesson Learned Part 2:Blessed are the Hungry!!!

Please, read previous post first or none of this will make since. But if you’re too lazy I’ll sum it up for you. Recently, I learned some very good insight on the Palawano mind set in particular and how they value food in the survival situation they call their lives. The words they use to say they are full (no longer in need of food) implies that they are living and have what they need to survive until the next meal whenever that comes. Now that you’re caught up I still encourage you to read the previous post.

As I was processing the epiphany and wondering the lengths of its implications, my mind was drawn to the spiritual implications. I’m sure you are aware of the illustration that Jesus used in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. In Mark 22:19 Jesus took bread and broke it saying, ‘take, eat; this is My body broken for you. A piece of which was given to each disciple signifying that a piece of Himself is given to each one of those that follow Jesus. They took it and ate all of it. And we follow in their example, breaking bread in remembrance of Him. Now anyone who has participated in the Lord’s Supper knows that the small cracker comes nowhere near filling the stomach and more over, you would die of hunger if you didn’t eat anything else until the next time your church did the Lord’s Supper. Obvious, I know, but consider this with me. How often do we take only a small cracker size bit of the Jesus and expect it keep us alive until the next sermon or next time boredom leads to pick up a Bible and to a get fresh spiritual meal. It is no wonder we often find ourselves starving for food of the spiritual sort.

Taking of this spiritual meal, the bread, signifying the character of Jesus, and the wine, the forgiving and atoning blood of Jesus, is to be a daily process. The promise in Lamentations 3:22, 23 says that ‘His mercies are new every morning’ old wine will sour and ferment and old bread will mold and rot away but not these; they are fresh and new every morning. We sing a song that says ‘There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins.’ Indeed there is a fountain springing up from the Author of Love representing the sacrifice given to redeem us. It pours out to all, as a free gift waiting for us to accept it and washes away ‘all our guilty stains.’ In John 6:35 Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life.’ The only source true life is living in a relationship with Jesus Christ. There is no substitute, to have live: is to live with Jesus in our hearts.

At my last job had an accountability partner and each morning we would jokingly asked each other if we had eaten ‘breakfast’ yet. If not we’d stop there and pray together and if time allowed it we opened the Bible together. Now that joking exchange has a new meaning. Just like our temporal hunger our spiritual hunger is a gift from God to keep us alive. If it wasn’t for the sensors and reaction in our body to remind us, like I did with my friend, we might miss out on meal after meal. First we salivate, then the stomach growls, and eventually we suffer fatigue for emaciation, all of these are our body’s trying to send the message to the brain, ‘we need food!’ Similar signs can be seen in a spiritual hunger. When some external stimulus trigger a thought of heavenly things, a beautiful flower, the love a mother to her child, or God’s providence in our lives, I would relate that to salivation, a simple reminder. When our thoughts give way to doubt, and our faith wavers, when we see the result of sin in our lives, this is where our spiritual life is growling, and showing its apparent need. When it seems like the walls of life are closing in, our attitude has given way to anger and pride, and when there seems to be no hope, our spirits are suffering fatigue from spiritual emaciation.

Wherever you are today salivating for a delicious meal, growling within as the last meal has long passed, or maybe it’s been so long you can’t remember the last time you were full. My prayer for us today is that our appetites would lead us to Jesus Christ who says, ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’ ‘He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.’ Matthew 5: John 6:35

Lesson Learned.

As an AFM student missionary we are sent out with two main goals. The first is to fulfill the call that we’ve answered. When a person signs up with AFM they go through an in depth interviewing process with the intentions to best match them with one of the available calls. Once you have chosen from a more specified list it is then understood that supporting the existing mission and the career missionaries will be you main objective while in the field.

The second main objective you are trained to accomplished is language acquisition. A large part the month long training course at AFM is spent practicing the skills necessary to acquire a language in the most effective and efficient manner. This can prove to be one the hardest things, both to train for and later to accomplish, as a student missionary going to the only people group on the planet who speak this language. Most situations require a completely different understanding of grammar, pronunciation not found in western languages, and a great deal of culturally specific conversation styles.

For me it sounded like a daunting undertaking but after much prayer and Bible study I found this. The origins of the language were a result of sinful distrust in God, which then led to the separation of peoples only after they attempted to defy God in building the tower of Babel. (Genesis 11) Because of sin God had to separate the human family. But the plan to redeem that family and eventually to bring it back together at the great heavenly family reunion involves overcoming the separation of language and culture to seek out the lost members of the family of God.

In His closing words to His disciples Jesus says, ‘And these signs will follow those who believe, in my name…they will speak with new tongues.” Mark 16:17 So what this means to me is that Jesus promises that through the teaching power of the Holy Spirit those that believe in Him and go into all the world will speak the Good News of peace to the fellow man in new tongues.

So with this promise in mind I set off to speak with confidence and to take personal ownership of my language learning experience. Now, nearly 7 months have passed of embarrassing mispronunciations that included saying, ‘I have a door on my arm!’ when trying to say ‘I have a spider on my arm!’ (lellangewan meaning door and kelelawa` meaning spider) That or saying ‘I have a serious joke for you.’ instead of saying ‘I have a serious question for you.’ (ungke` meaning joke and ingku` meaning question.) Learning mistakes like those and many other, I have nearly filled a small composition notebook with vocabulary and phrases.

The most interesting part of language learning is the small insights on culture you pick up while practicing. It really caught me off guard when I learned they used the same words for saying ‘I am living now.’ and when they tell someone that they’ve had enough food like, ‘I’m full now.’ The phrase is ‘Mebiyag ku ne.’ Like many culture insight they take a while to develop and grow in your mind until you realize the implications behind what you’ve learned, followed by an epiphany. So I’ll explain:

For a Palawano the main goal of life is survival for not only you but your family and friends. Meaning to have a house to call home, healthy family and friends, and food in everyone’s stomach is enough to be more than thankful for. Once I understood the implication behind how they value life because of how fragile it is here in the mountain, I started to appreciate even more their invitations to share food with each other. In America we’d be sharing just another thing from the pantry, but for a Palawan they are offering to share a part of their life with you. It’s a large part of their love language and they are showing you that they really care for you.

Finding your way into a Palawano’s mind and intellectual belief system can only be accomplished when you have a place in their heart. As a wise person once told me, ‘No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you are care.’ The way you show you care for a Palawano is with food. Therefore, the way into a Palawano’s heart is through their stomach. The lesson of Abigail’s actions in 1 Samuel 25 ring true, where she got through to David’s vengeful mind and later found a place in his heart was through appeasing his stomach.

Lesson learned and applied, and now I wonder what’s next in the vast open ended mysteries behind these people I love so much.

Pray Requests

Update from Palawan and Pray requests:
Today is my last day in the lowland where the internet, running water, and electricity are available. But before I hike back into the mountains I wanted to leave a little update about what things are happening right now in Palawan.
1) School: We are nearing the end of our second quarter at our little mission school in the mountains. It's be nothing short of an adventure so far. We recently have been forced to cancel two of our highschool classes as one of our missionaries here ended her time with us. We still are teaching Bible, Math, Philipino (Tagalog), English, typing and teacher training to our 6 highschool students. It is very sad though that they no longer have a science or history class which were taught by Kiana. We hope to begin them again when Kent and Leonda (our career missionaries return at the end of March) but even that will be a hard untaking as they have many other responsibilties here at the mission. Therefore, I asked that you'll join us in prayer for more teachers. There have been some potiential proscepts that have even visited the mountains but nobody has been found to fill the position. Pray for more teachers.
2) Our Students: Half way through the year can become a bit of a low point for our students and in the past this is when we have some decided to leave school. Recently after a serious situation involving two girls being demonicly harassed a close friend of theirs and a very promising young man named Nitu decided to quit school. We praise God that just recently he has returned to church but we still prayer that he will desire to come back to school. Pray for our students.
3) Transition: Like I mentioned above the project here is going through a bit of a transition. During the past 5 months our career missionaries have been on furlough in the states and we praise the Lord that the things that were holding them back from returning earlier are now moved out of the way and they are coming back. For the current SM's it comes as a relief to have our leaders back with us. It's been an amzing adventure but we are ready to return some of the bigger responsibilties back into their more experienced hands. Also, we recently had to say goodbye to our dear friend Kiana whose service term here in Palawan has come to an end. We all looked up to her and admired her devotion to the people here. She is surely missed but we are confindent that God is leading her 'in the paths of righteousness for His name sake' as she opens a new chapter of her life starting her career as a teacher back in the States. She leaves big whole in our team here 'not physically.' So I just ask that for your prayers as we make some adjustments over the following weeks.
4) Lowland team and supporting ministries: During the past few months their has been controversy and many hurt feelings as there has been a time of unrest for the PAMAS team. They are a branch of GMI that works hand in hand with the AFM team here. I with hold many details because I don't feel it's my place to share them. Recently, there leader suffered a three gun shot wounds two to the face and one in chest at his home in Manila. By a miracle of God, Dewayne Harrison is alive and recovering and is still in need of prayers. Satan has given not rest to the rest of their team and ours down here in Brookes Point. Please pray also for Danny Henson, his wife and two daughters as they plan for the soon future.
5) We need the latter rain. Revelation 18 describes a scene of whole world being lightened with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, prophesy tell us during this time just before the second coming there will be a revival of true godliness among God's remnant people as has never before been witnessed just before the time of trouble and the triumphant return of Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I pray that you personally ask God to pour upon you the early rain, (Joel 2 18-32) representing a daily portion of His Holy Spirit that will begin to change our hearts and lives to be more like the perfect example our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I ask that you join us as we do the same each day here in Kamantian. Jesus is coming soon!!! and, " being confident is this very things, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Phil 1:6 and "He who calls you is faithful and who will also do it."
He will prepare us for that time, if we commit our lives to Him today and every day.

As Time Flys by I Stop to Remember

Dear reader,
Whether you be close friend, distant relative, and random blogger. I pray the following will be a true blessing to you on your journey of life's path to what lies just beyond. I've titled this post time flys because coming to a 6 months milestone and turning around to watch it as it passes by I've been able to recount some of the experiences I've had so far living on the frontier of gosple work. Retracing memories of victory in appearent defeat, steadfast standing on shaking groud, and through it all learning more about trust and faith than I ever thought possible. There have been nights of sleep surrendered and long days of work done by strength not coming from within. There were times spent of the mountains of thanksgiving as my cups was appearently overflowing with blessings and also times of darkness where my cup seemed to be all but dry. Turning back I don't have to look to far down the road to spot a story worth passing on.
As of late things have been fairly quite and restful for the missionaries here, not much to write home about. We've been able to settle into our daily routine. For the teachers that meant having time to catch up grading and planning a little ahead in lesson plans. For the nurse and the clinic it means organizing, charting, prepacking assorted medicines, and treating the cuts and bruises and the occsaional malaria patient. But as it sometimes happens relaxation can be short and sweet.
It was Sabbath morning all was quiet and peaceful as the church members gathered at the church for singing and prayer before Sabbath School. Smiles could be seen all around and warm greetings were heard by all, it had all the promises of a happy and restful Sabbath worship service. The numbers grew as worshipper continued to come in. After our time of prayer and thanksgiving we prepared to break off into individual Sabbath School groups. Thats when things started to get stirred up.
Outside of the school house/ church doors waited a small group of people. After a little investigation we were able to find out the reason they had come. One woman was a frequenter of the clinic. She is know on a first name bases but not for all positive reasons. Just recently, she has been stringing together a chain of twisted story that have left our clinic staff feeling as if she has manipulated their vonerablity. The situation had started when she started asking for extra milk for her baby to supplement her breast feeding but later we found out that she had been lying to us and had been giving it away to a friend. Now I'm not saying the clinic here is short on milk or not willing to give it away to all that need it but we make it a priority to see and assess each patient that we can make sure that a case of simple malnurishment isn't worms or any other serious disease. But with that being said the nurses here had been made uneasy by the breach of trust and having to meet this same situation again quickly removed the atmosphere of peace.
The other part of the group that had gather was a father and son of a sick mother who was still at home. Since the clinic here is one of the only place to receive free medical care for the native people we have patient come from far and wide. This family lives a 3 hour hike away from the clinic. They had come that morning asking to receive medicine for the sick mother. The nurses weren't able to gather enough information about her symptoms to be for sure about her illness. It was decided that she would need to be carried to the clinic. So at the end of church some of the young men went with them to bring back their mother, causing us to have to cancel the Bible studies being given in an area newly receptive to the gosple. The boys ended up not being able to carry her in that afternoon and had to return home that night and go back the next morning. After coming back together we recognized that Satan had been at hard work that morning to try and stop the gosple for going forward in those Bible studies and it was discouraging to see that he had won the battle but we had proof that he didn't win the war.

Earlier during the youth Sabbath school that morning three of our girls came under spiritual attacks similar to one's we seen in the past with our young people here. They weren't as serious as what we have seen before when they needed to be protected from hurting themselves but this morning two of them, for short periods of time, would have acute muscle spasms. Uncontrollably and incoherently they would clinch their fists so strongly that it was nearly impossible to pull their fingers apart. But once their hand was reopened they would be coherent again. This has happened in the passed to the same girls. And as we did in the past and as we do always in these situations we prayed. The youth prayed during their Sabbath school and the missionaries gather after church for a special season of prayer primarily for the girls and also for direction as to what we should do for the planned outreach for that afternoon. One of the girls who had been demonically harassed has been mentured to give Bible studies, in particular two each Sabbath afternoon. Sadly, after the long morning of fighting she seemed to exhausted and weary to go on as planned. But we felt that we needed to ask her and also encourage her to still give the Bible study, the first of which was with a few of her own peers near the church. With a tired face she agreed. We shared with her the promise that whenever we work for God, He sends extra angels along side us to strengthen us and they even give us the word to speak.
I wasn't able to go to the Bible study but I can tell what was relayed back to me. The girls still worn down and tried began by singing a few songs. While the were singing, familiar smiles returned to their faces. They opened with prayer and the tone in her voice seemed to have changed from before. The person who had sat down at the beginning of Bible study seemed to be a different person from the one now giving the Bible study. Her saddness and exhaustion had been replaced with joy and energy. She gave a wonderful Bible study and closed with the lesson that no matter how hard the trying times are, we should never stop praying to God.

Following this Bible study, they both hiked up to the top of the ridge to visit with another family and give another Bible study. This one was followed with the same lesson as before, never stop praying. It reminded me a favorite Bible verse in 1 Thessalonians 5 starting in verse 16, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." verse 24. "He who calls you is faithful and who also will do it." And how true His word was for those two girls, He was faithful in their time of need, and He partnered with them and did it.

The God who helped those two young girls is the same God who is making Himself availible to each and everyone of us every moment of our lives. He gave more than we could ever imagined just so that He could be there to help us when we need Him most and there He waits just a prayer away.