The Best Laid Plans Pt.2

This is the second part in the series, Best Laid Plans, if you haven't read the first part, click here

We were told late on Monday night, the very first full day of door to door work that there was an event at the Mayor's office that we were asked to attend. I thought that was cool, but didn't think that everyone needed to go, maybe just my family and Brian.Oh no, everyone needed to go, and it really wasn't a request, we were told it kind of had to happen.
That is how we found out that we all needed to be ready bright and early the next day in our church clothes to go meet the Mayor of Tubajon. Nobody knew what we were to expect, or even how long it was supposed to take, but we all got ready and waited for the official pick up to get us out there.

From the Mayor's Office, Pic by (si)Garrett Boone

The ambulance and the rescue vehicle was dispatched to make multiple trips to get us all out to the Mayor's office, which has a beautiful view of the bay and is overlooking the barangays that line the coast.  After settling in and going through introducing everyone and getting some cold refreshments we had a chance to talk with him about why we are here and what our goals are in Tubajon. We were given some good maps of the municipality and where the nine barangays (kind of like villages within the municipality) are located. He offered us help in whatever way he could and was very gracious and generous. Since the place we were staying was owned by him, we got to see the Mayor and his wife a few times after that meeting, and each time we were greeted very warmly by him and he was curious about what we would be doing or what our next plan was.

I guess this is as good a time as any to let you guys know a little bit about our plans for work on Dinagat. With the map we now have we can see all nine barangays in Tubajon and we can see how difficult it will be to reach them. Most of the people who live in the municipality live in the bay area that we normally go to and so they are within reach, but getting up into the mountains is going to be tricky at best.

Another challenge that we learned about from the Mayor was the general religious makeup of the other barangays that are up in the mountains: The Philippine Benevolent Mission Association, or the PBMA is not always a dangerous group, but they have been known to have their moments.

With the Mayor and His Wife, Pic by Jessica Lambiase

But one of the awesome things that came out of this past trip is something that we thought was going to take much longer. Pastor Arnel was worried that the young men of Tubajon are moving off to Manila or Surigao to get better jobs, which makes his church very one-sided in terms of men to women. With this trip, however, we have seen at least 6 young men (and maybe up to 15!) step forward and begin to show a desire to be involved in ministry in some way. They are not all from Arnel's church (some are from different denominations) but they are all eager to learn and be better disciples and better men of God. We intend to train those that want to be trained to send them out to be pastor-missionaries, doing the work of evangelism and church planting and pastoring a small church of (hopefully) new converts.

So while we were definitely not planning on meeting the Mayor, God orchestrated this event to be exactly what we've been praying and looking forward to: young men eager to serve and the means to get them out into the more remote barangays. Isn't God awesome?

Please pray for us as we step in to help with follow-up from the trip and as I'm writing the training material that we will use for these young men. We are also looking forward to maybe having some other smaller teams come out before next summer, pray that all would be put in place for that to happen as well, because that will also be a huge help and blessing to us. Pray for the young men that we are working with, that they would grow in godliness and a firm sense of God's calling. Also please pray for the Mayor and his wife, they are Catholic and going through some medical issues and with their Catholic theology, it seems like they put more trust that the local priest can help them more than Christ can.

Cebuano or Bust!

So this week we had a conversation with our fantastic language teacher, Ate Mimi. We spoke about how much of the program we had left and how we can try to ramp up the intensity to really drive home the learning and acquisition of the language that will be so important to our later ministry here. It's hard to believe that we've been here for six months! But with that comes the official end of our language learning. Mimi would like us to have been going out after class to practice what we learned and to ask cultural questions. This would have been great, but with the kids and the exhausting nature of trying to think in another language for three+ hours a day, we simply couldn't do it often enough.

We are keeping a tally of who speaks more English for "fun"

Into the fracas of the final month of language steps Hollie. She has a brilliant idea to force us to speak Cebuano in class, and if we use English, we pay a peso into a jar (this money will be used for an ice cream party...eventually), if we try to "Cebuanoize" English (perfectly valid use of language skills) but we were supposed to know the actual word in Cebuano, peso in the jar.
In just one week we have put almost twenty pesos away, but we have had good experience forcing us to think and speak and explain ourselves, all in Cebuano.
Our typical class has been transformed into a coffee-shop of Cebuano speakers, and it is fantastic. Normally we would have to listen and try to explain what we heard in English, but now we have to explain in Cebuano, stretching our vocabulary and our comprehension skills in delightful ways. Our grammar (read Jeff"s) is improving, and overall, I think this final section of study will be really productive!

The Best Laid Plans part 1

We just sent the team back about a week ago. We spent months preparing and planning, consulting contacts and church leaders here and in the States to make sure that we not only had a successful trip logistically, but that we were pursuing a goal that we believed that God had laid out before us in a way that would glorify Him and help with all that we were trying to do on Dinagat Island.

The team also prepared for months. They raised money, purchased and borrowed gear and went through training at SRC for this trip. They prayed and sacrificed so that they could come alongside us in the work we are doing here for just a short amount of time.

They flew for almost three days straight before landing in Butuan in the afternoon last Friday. We picked them up and went straight to Surigao on what seemed like a bus ride that lasted forever. After settling in to our hotel rooms with the 12 Amerikanos and the 6 translators and our family we went out to eat at Calda Pizza, a SRC Tubajon tradition now. The next day after breakfast we loaded all our things onto a 30 seater pump boat and traveled for a little under 3 hours to Tubajon. We were all tired but we were able to land right in front of the resort we were staying at, which is a major improvement from having to walk from the dock on the other side of town.

We had our first dinner there at another house right next door to where we were staying and had all our meals there. Then we had our first team meeting, going over the agenda and schedule for the next few days and trying to offer advice and make sure everyone knew what to expect. Then we all got some rest for Sunday morning, when the team would be leading worship for the local church there. The service went very well, with all the people in attendance we had to meet in the gym near the church to make sure there was seating enough for everyone. Hayden and Harper led singing while Brian preached and then Arnel got up and led his congregation in a Cebuano hymn or two.

Later that afternoon we had a basketball tournament where we were sharing the Gospel in between games and advertising the Bible Studies and VBS we were going to have the rest of the week. There were only minor injuries, mostly to Rosie, who tried to stick her fingers into a metal fan (!) and came out with only two little bitty cuts on her fingers.

Even with the little amount that we had done up to that point the stress was already killing me and Hollie. We were getting short with one another and, I'm sure, with others on the team. We have never done anything like this and even though we knew that in the Philippines nothing goes as planned we (read Jeff) hoped that having Americans in the mix would somehow even that out; because that makes sense right?

After a quick pep-talk from Brian later that evening we thought we were ready to start Monday off right and begin our Door-to-Door evangelism and Prayer Walking Groups. They went pretty well, it didn't take long to get everyone set up and on their way to where they needed to be and so I could concentrate on visiting church members with Arnel. But then the first scheduling "issue" came up. It was too hot for some of the Americans (not to mention that every one of them was experiencing jet-lag) and so they had to stop what they were doing and get back to the resort to cool down. Not a major issue, in fact an ok one to have:  people were recognizing their own limits and didn't push themselves past in an attempt to simply do work and be busy. The only downside was that they had a lot of free time on their hands (to me at least), with up to six hours of free time because we couldn't do VBS or anything else for kids in the afternoon because Filipino kids are in school during this time of year, plus the early afternoon heat is awful for everyone.

So we made the decision to let people decide when to call their morning, no earlier then 10, no later than 11.30, so that everyone could be back in time for lunch. After rest time we had our first VBS and it was quick and semi-painless affair, which is good because the person who planned it out (Hollie) couldn't be there for the first few because the girls were napping. After we cleaned up the minimal mess from VBS we got back to the resort, ate dinner and got ready to be back a little later for the Bible Studies. These were my baby, where the Americans were helping to show some of the church members how easy leading an evangelistic Bible Study was supposed to be. When we got to the gym to meet the throngs of unbelievers who were supposed to be filling up the place waiting to hear about Jesus, we only found little kids playing basketball. Man, the disappointment was almost palpable. While we were waiting to see if there was going to be some guys who wanted to have a Study, we learned that we were invited to the Mayor's Office the next morning, and that meeting was a big deal, and everyone had to be in attendance, scheduling issue no.2, no more morning Door-to-Door or prayer walking the next day.

photo of SBC Tubajon by Jessica Lambiase

The guys who wanted to have the Bible Study finally showed and when we found out that it was enough for one group Brian took the other guys back to their rooms while I got down to business with the small group. This group ended up being a HUGE surprise blessing, because Arnel and I have been praying for a small group of young passionate guys that we could train as pastor/church planters and send them out throughout the Tubajon region. With the exception of maybe one or two guys, we now have a group of trainable young men to work with and possibly send out into the wide open mission field that is Tubajon.

So the week went about as planned for the rest of the time. Aside from our visit to the Mayor's office (another post!)and the ensuing zaniness that event happened to cause, and one other event (yet another post!) it was fairly smoothish sailing. While I am glad that the whole stressful planning process is over, we have definitely learned quite a bit about how to plan and execute a mission trip. We are blessed to be apart of what God is doing here in the Philippines, in the next few weeks I hope to update everyone here on what we have planned as follow-up for the next few months (at least!).