A Few Crossed Wires

If you have ever wondered why your attempts at communication get a little distorted, it could be because some of the cultural and language wires have gotten a little tangled. I have a feeling that the folks that run wires here don’t try to find the problem, they just put up a new wire. At least the birds have a lot of places to sit.

I just spent a week away from home working on translation. I was going over several local translations with a language helper and, figuratively speaking, trying to cut out all the wires don’t communicate to our Isnag friends and find the ones that communicated Bible truth effectively.

I really appreciate Malana’s willingness to come out of the village to work with me. We were able to put in long days without the distractions we sometimes get in the village. I came away with pages and pages of information which I will now work on in my office in Manila in order to come up with the first draft for the Southern Isnag.

While I was up north, I was blessed by Carl Stevens’ family and their ministry partners. They let Malana and I use an air conditioned office at their ministry location and had us over for dinner a couple of times. Wednesday morning Carl volunteered to be and ambulance driver for us. Our partners in the village had a patient flown out of our tribal location to the city I was working in, so Carl and I met the plane and took the patient to the hospital. The patient’s name is Grace and she is a good friend of our family. She was very weak and had been having a very high fever. Prayer for her would be appreciated.

A couple of interesting things happened on my trip. When I got on the airplane to fly back to Manila they had an unusual announcement. You know how on ships they call, “All ashore that’s going ashore!” Well, as we were finding our seats after having gone through several security checks they announced, “If you don’ t have a ticket you shouldn’t be on the plane.” Hmmm… Well, the guy lying under my seat didn’t seem to hear, but I didn’t want to disturb him…. Just kidding!

The second thing had to do with wild animals. Either my eyesight is really getting bad or the ants in our hotel room were incredibly small. I’m sure it was the latter. These ants were so small I couldn’t see them unless four of them stood next to each other which they didn’t do often. They were very small, but all teeth. They hid in my clothing and didn’t really start chomping on me until I was walking down the street. That made for some interesting dance moves on my part. People probably thought I had some sort of twitchy nervous disorder.

I’m glad to be back with my family and excited about the progress that I’m making on the S. Isnag translation.

Palm Sunday

In the time of Christ, palm branches must have been the cultural equivalent to rolling out the red carpet. When I was a kid, we didn’t have any palm trees handy, so on Palm Sunday we would make construction paper palm branches and remember who the “red carpet” was being rolled out for.
Last Sunday was Palm Sunday and I didn’t see a single construction paper palm leaf. Perhaps having real palm trees has something to do with it. Everywhere you go on Palm Sunday you run into people selling these palm leaves which have been woven into a….. something. Yes it is a definite something.
I was curious, so I pulled over and for 30 cents was able to purchase one. The reason I did this was culture study. I took my palm leaf home and after asking a couple friends, found out that it is called a palaspas. You might ask, “What is a palaspas good for?” That is what I asked too. A palaspas is for keeping evil spirits and lightning out of your home. You hang it up inside and keep it there until you get a new one on the next Palm Sunday.
It is sad that instead of remembering Jesus, the one who came to save, so many are just honoring the red carpet.

Soccer

The latest family news here is that Carrie joined her school's girl's soccer team. She has been working very hard learning her skills and gaining endurance.

This Saturday Carrie's team had a game, so we enjoyed watching her play. She played back near her team's goal and did a good job of keeping the ball moving the other direction. If you look closely at the picture, you will notice that she is actually floating above the ground. Wow! I guess she enjoys soccer more than we though she did!

Thomas went along to help cheer for Carrie.

Building in progress

Life in the village has been tense lately. Down stream a cycle of revenge killing and ambushes is ongoing. The folks from our village have to pass through danger zones on their way to town. We would appreciate your prayers for their safety.

This is a friend of mine named Rigo. He is a good carpenter. On the day I took his picture he was involved in helping a neighbor build his house. Lately he has been involved in building something even better.

In the village, an exciting thing is happening. A group of men have joined together in leading the believers in a weekly Bible study. Rigo is one of them. They meet with our partners, Vicky and Robbie, who help them go over the coming lesson, then they practice on their own, and present the lesson on Sunday.

As great as that news is there is even better news. This group of men decided a few weeks ago that a village downstream needs the Gospel. Recently they gained permission from that village’s officials and have started teaching there too. We are thankful for Rigo and his companions and for the sacrifices they are making. It is a privilege for us to see the Scriptures we have translated being put to good use. It encourages us to press on.

Trip North #3

Once I had my boots on, I was ready to go back to our village in the mountains. Pictured with me is Steve, our current pilot. We had a good visit as we headed north.

The cloud cover kept us at a high altitude until we were over the airstrip. Steve took a few loops around the pattern to get us low enough to make our approach. We don’t usually come so high, so I was busy taking pictures of the village.

The people were glad to see me and made me feel welcome. It wasn’t too long before I was asked to repair a machete and fix a radio. They had a small harvest last year due to bad weather during harvest season; yet, in spite of that, several people have come by to give me rice to eat while I’m here.

I have been getting in lots of time with my translation helper. In this picture he is going over corrections I had for a chapter in Genesis. Last night I went to a meeting in which several men were preparing to teach this Sunday’s lesson. It was gratifying to see these guys growing spiritually and to see them using some of the Bible portions I have already translated. It sounds like they will be starting an outreach to a village downstream in the near future. That is great news!

2nd Trip North

We are excited to have a new team of missionaries ready to take the gospel to a remote area in northern Luzon. Moving into a remote area takes a lot of ground work. Without an airstrip, supplies need to be brought in overland. This isn’t an easy task when the village is a 4 hour hike from the nearest town and the roads that do exist are only passable 3 months during the year.

Recently, I went with Erik Peterson to visit a town north of his future ministry location. We wanted to see what kind of supplies were available and what kind of transportation went in the direction of the village and how close it could get before cargo would to be hiked in.

The day before I left the van battery went dead. As I worked with getting it fixed up these little guys kept me company. They were hoping I would take them for a ride in the van when I got it fixed. Talk about not being careful with strangers! Anyway, they ended up with some crackers, but no ride.
All my work on the battery didn’t pay off. The morning I was to leave on the trip, the van wouldn’t start. We live on a hill, so I roll started the van. After taking the kids to school, Heidi drove me down to the main road where we could buy a new battery. After getting the battery installed, Heidi took the van home and I started hunting for a ride into the main part of the city to meet up with Erik. I was hoping to ride a jeepney, but they were all full. I started praying for a ride and a taxi came along. Taxi rides here only cost a dollar or two, so I was thankful to have a ride. Traffic was very bad and so the ride took a lot longer than it should have, but I finally made it to the meeting place and Erik and I jumped in a different cab and headed for the airport.

After the van trouble and the slow traffic, I was very glad that we made it to the airport with time to spare. It was a good thing too, because when we presented our tickets, they said, “You are at the wrong airport, Sir.” The time of the flight and the airport were different that the ones we were given when we bought our tickets. So, I enjoyed my third cab ride of the day and we arrived at the correct airport and still had a bit of extra time.

The flight went well and an hour later we were far from the big city, glad to be in northern Luzon again. The road to the town we were going to was very nice. We rode in a van. I was glad that the ride only took an hour, because we were packed in so tight that I couldn’t move my left foot at all. (11 of us in a van that would have seated 7 comfortably.)

We found that the town we were surveying had a nice open market and several hardware stores. It had most of the basic things but not much else.

We spent a lot of our time trying to find out about transportation going south on a dirt road. The picture is of Erik questioning a jeepney owner. This particular jeep does make the trip and knew where the trail head was for the village Erik wants to go to. It was good information to get and may be useful in the future.

After learning what there was to know in town, we headed back to airport. Our plan was to spend the night in a hotel and catch our return flight the next day. When we arrived in town we met up with some missionary friends that I hadn’t seen in years. Carl and Ronalyn Stevens live in Northern Luzon and are doing a great work which has many facets. One of the main areas of ministry is a radio ministry that broadcasts Bible teaching in three different languages. They invited us to spend the night with them and took us on a tour of town and their ministry locations. It was a real treat of us to have good home cooking and fellowship with them.
There is only one airport in this city, so we arrived at the right one our first try. The scheduled departure had been postponed 2 hours and then another hour, but the additional hour wasn’t announced until 20 minutes after the flight should have departed. We were beginning to wonder.
The flight finally arrived, and after another taxi and jeepney ride, I made it home in time for dinner, thankful for a safe trip.

Driving

I took this picture while stuck in traffic.

Travel here can be very interesting and sometimes down right exciting. Last week I had to make a trip north to get paperwork done on our motorcycle and van. I traveled much of the trip by myself and that isn’t very exciting, but it was profitable because I was able to track down a long lost registration paper and get the papers up to date. I was also able to stop and visit several of our Ilokano friends and see some of our missionary friends.

Here are a couple shots of friends I visited along the way.

This past Friday, Heidi and I had an appointment across the city. We decided to take the light rail because we thought it would be faster than driving and probably wouldn’t be crowded in the middle of the day. Wrong! Oh well, it is exciting to travel in a group. You are all standing on the platform and the train rushes in just inches from where you are standing on the edge of the platform. If one person in the crowd nudged, the whole group would be over the edge like a bunch of lemmings. The train stops, the doors slide open, and the cars are just packed inside but somehow all of us on the platform manage to squeeze in. You hear about close fellowship, but here you get to try it.

As the train pulled out, an announcer reminded passengers to hold on so they wouldn’t fall down. I said to the guy jammed up under my left armpit, “There is no way we could possibly fall down.” He replied, “Too tight, Gasp!” or something like that. Some people just don’t appreciate close fellowship.
My new cell phone takes pictures, so I amused my self between stops. At stops it is fun to see how many more can squeeze in and if people wanting to get out will be able to make it through the crowd before the doors shut. (The arms in the picture are not Heidi's. They belong to other people. Ha, ha.)

Our meeting was with the brave man who volunteered to be our Tagalog teacher back in 1995. We really appreciated Henry and his wife, Cora. They are now involved in training church leadership and offer Bible school training classes in local church settings. It was fun to get to visit with them again.