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.