How did we travel to the village this time???

We just returned from 2 weeks in our village as Chuck was preparing wood for a UK Summit Team to come next week.

We are still without a flight program on Northern Luzon so we had to travel by land. Here is just a little bit about our transportation:

We first flew domestic airlines north.

Then another missionary drove us to a nearby town where we stayed for 2 nights as we finished packing stuff to go into the village and Christina packed up her belongings.

Then we hired a jeepney to take us into the village.  Well, the rains have now begun in our area and the road is getting muddier by the day.  So we only made it 2/3 of the way in and then needed to hike.  When we reached the village we had to ask the men in the village if they could go to where the jeepney was and collect our stuff.  They were very glad to have some work to do and make a little money.  In the end 9 carabao went out that afternoon.  Plus the next day, several more went to get the plywood and even a young man carried some sewer pipe in on his shoulder.

 

When it came time to leave we knew that we wouldn’t be able to get a jeepney in to get us as it had rained every night for the last 6 nights. (We were praising the Lord that we didn’t have to haul water as the water barrels were always full.)

So we talked to the men to see if the kids could ride carabao again.  That was not going to be a problem. 

With Sophia nearing 30 lbs Chuck really didn’t want to carry her out, so we tried her on a carabao with mom!!!  She didn’t like it as much as we had hoped she would but she did ride most of the way out.  The problem was that she doesn’t like to hold on to the person that is carrying her.  She is a little rag doll.  So when we went down hill, we would just keep sliding forward.  I am sure we would have had our knees wrapped around the horns if we hadn’t of gotten off and walked down the hills!!!

Christina had heard that some ladies will hire a horse to ride out when it was muddy.  She asked around and found a … horse… to ride! It was rather small and didn’t much like the smell of a white lady!!!  But Christina has experience with horses and was able to calm him down and ride.

Jessica figured she would ride a carabao too, if one was available.  At first there wasn’t one, but about 10 min out of the village, one of the men had another carabao and she was able to ride with the owner of the horse.  It was quite a lot of fun for her!!!

From the end of the trail we road back by jeepney to town.  We spent the night there and hired a van the next day to go to town to fly back to Manila.

It was a lot of different means of transportation but it all worked out!