The Road Journey Begins
Salamat, salamat
O Hesus sa pag-ibig Mo!!!
Thank you, thank you
O Jesus for your love!
What a wild trip this has been so far for all of us. We are so pleased to be here in this place and with these people, and are sorry we haven't kept you up to date as consistently as we would have wanted to! We are constantly on the move and our service is typically spotty at best and so getting a full thing to upload to the internet has been a challenge. But a worthwhile and meaningful one.
After arriving on April 8th, we left here on the 9th to begin our journey to Bical, the southern province of the Filipino island of Luzon. Travel here is a combination of fast and slow! To get anywhere, the travel is very fast. Traffic stops for almost nothing! And as I think Andrew said in another blog post, lines and lights on the road mean very little. Our driver Joseph is an absolute professional, weaving the 15 passenger van in and out of traffic like it is a motorcycle (of which there are many here). Oftentimes the rule is to force your way into traffic, and well, he is very good at it. Even with what we Americans might consider chaotic, we feel very safe and secure in the van with him. That is how driving feels fast here. How it feels slow is simply with the amount of people and traffic around, one can not travel as fast as they could in our home state of Montana. Our first stop was the church in Ragay from Navotas in Metro Manilla. This church is about 327 km, or 200 miles and is about the equivalent distance of Bozeman Montana to Missoula Montana. The drive in Montana would take us around 3 hours, maybe a little less. Here in the Philippines, it takes closer to 8 and a half hours, and that’s if there is no major road construction or delays, which there always seem to be. The extra time is no bother to us however. Instead, it is just wonderful to have that time with our brothers and sisters here who have already become quite dear to our hearts. I shall share more about them in a later Blog post as we are able.
We arrived late in the afternoon in Ragay and began to unpack things there. Cindy, our cook and mother figure here, immediately went to the kitchen and began cooking more delicious foods for us to have. Dale went to Andrew and I set up his drone to start flying around and see the countryside a little bit. This is going to be one of the best pieces of media we bring back because it will help people really see the landscape that many of these churches are placed in. And if you get tired of seeing this statement…. Sorry not sorry. It is of course just beautiful when we got the drone up and into the air. In my mind ahead of time, remote churches meant remote like in Montana with very little around. Remote here means far away from the city, but still with many people and many needs around. After a little bit of set up and tour guiding explanation to us of the Ragay church, we set up for our first interview with a young man, Pastor Jeff.
The truth is this church was struggling a little bit in recent years. It’s not all fun and games on the mission fields and the challenges they face are often very similar to challenges in America, specifically temptation. Jeff is the new pastor here and has done a wonderful job reviving the church. They were down to almost nothing, and in a few short years he is running 3 or 4 bible studies in people's homes, while more are being run by church members. Jeff is a musician at heart, and you would be hard pressed to find someone with more natural talent at the guitar than he has. Of course this is coming from someone who appreciates music greatly… but is not a musician himself. Jeff is in that phase of ‘I don’t always know what I am doing, but I know I am doing it for the Lord’. In ministry, this is often the most effective phase to be in. Because it is in this phase that we are the most dependent on the Lord for his guidance. With this in mind, the Lord is able to do even more work, because he is so willing.
After our interview with Jeff we spent some time with Pastor Charlie. Now Charlie is not the official pastor of either one of these churches, but he is well known in the community for being a pastor for many many years. Charlie has an amazing story about how he came to know the Lord Jesus for the first time and has been serving Him faithfully ever since. In his recent years, Charlie has been helping Jeff to restart the churches in Salvacion and Ragay. His interview was very sweet to the soul like honey, and you could really hear his passion.
For the night this was it. We had some dinner together and made our way to bed. In the morning was when it got really exciting. We headed off to Salvacion, a town in the mountains just 2 to 3 miles up the mountain. Though the distance doesn’t seem far… it is. It was very clear that most people in the barangay (this term refers to a small community, or section within a larger town or region) did not own or have much access to vehicles. As we got up there we saw many rice farms, trees that tower over everything, off in the distance. Beautiful forest covered mountains, and the wonderful smile of children. Up a dirt road a little more and into a field, the little church of Salvacion can be found. It is a single room building, with basically an outhouse on the back and a makeshift cover for a kitchen and food area. Chairs were set up, a small stage presented itself and worship began.
My friends. It is no exaggeration that I have never experienced worship quite like this. I know it would be different and exciting. Every American is told that worship in different countries is better. But I think it is one of those things that you really will never know until you truly experience it. Everybody seemed to know the songs, from the youngest child to the oldest adult. Almost everybody was singing, and cheerful to sing. I just watched in awe as the words were sung by the enthusiastic worship leader came into tune.
Salamat, salamat
O Hesus sa pag-ibig Mo!!!
In every church we have been to so far, this song has played. I encourage a listen as it is beautiful as it is fun. Here are links to a youtube video, and a translation for those interested.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/salamat-sa lamat-thank-you-thank-you.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMZmyvr5IAM
(Yes their churches can get big and hightech like ours too. No there are not many of them like that at all).
Back to our experience as I round us to the end of this blog post. After the music it was time for my first truly international sermon. I have once preached in Trinidad and Tobaggo, but they primarily speak English as well, and so this was my first time with my interpreter Jocelyn (who is AMAZING). I feel as though the Lord has given me a message, inspired by Scripture, Prayer, and influenced greatly by a good sermon from Steven Furtick. And every time I have worked on the message and before I preach, I say a prayer that the Lord would find me faithful to the text of Scripture. That He would break down the language barriers. That He would use this sermon for His Kingdom purposes, and also that I not say anything that might be culturally insensitive. At a steady pace I stumbled my way through the message we prepared. Not in a bad way, just as I was working my way through the learning curve. My interpreter made it so easy and seamless as well. Here when it is preaching, most people are paying attention and very few eyes are distracted elsewhere, save maybe the small and tired child. My encouragement to our brothers and sisters here is that they are not alone. And let me tell you, many of them have come to me saying they feel the message. They feel lonely for many reasons, but Lyn and I did our best to encourage them that God never forgets about them, and that there are churches all over the US praying for them. Churches… I hope you will continue to do so. After a wonderful lunch potluck where we got to try Buco Juice for the first time (Coconuts) we performed an interview with sister Trinidad.
She is the mother of pastor Jeff and was largely responsible for starting both the Salvacion church after hosting numerous Bible Studies in her home over the years. She told us great stories of Pastor Dale’s exploits in the area, how the churches formed and the locals were so opposed for so many years, and how Dale continued to pioneer and win the trust of the locals by developing great relationships, showing Christian movies and connecting with the people.
After this we went to have some homemade Hawaiian overload pizza at her house, made our way back to the church in Ragay, and got on the road to our next location in San Jose. While there will always be more to tell, we hope to wet your whistles with these stories but for now, onto San Jose. We’ll see you there.
