Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sad news- Melagros

We just received word this afternoon, that after a couple days of being sick, Melagros has passed away.

We had been told that with her having cerebral palsy that someday she would likely get sick and that it would be bad and then she would likely die quickly.

We are very sad for this loss and sad that we are not able to be there with this family. 

We won’t be able to be home in the village until Wednesday or Thursday. We will plan to see the family right away.

Please pray for Melagros’ family.  Pray that we would be light to them in this time of sadness.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Colouring

Many days I have little girls coming up to me saying, “Ate…colour???”  Although the word colour doesn’t quite sound like we are used to hearing it, I have learned what they want to do.  The kids in the village love to come and colour on our porch!  It is one fun thing that our girls can do with them.

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When Paul and Chelsea Linscott were planning to come last November they asked us what they could bring.  The first thing that came to mind was colouring books.  They had many people give them colouring books and thus they brought a large stack with them.

This is what the stack looks like now.

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The ones on the right are fully coloured.  The ones on the left only have a small number of pages left.

Every time we are in Manila we look at all the book stores to see if they have any colouring books.  Sometimes they are hard to find and are often thin and expensive.

If you would like to help supply our porch with colouring books and crayons please send us an email and we can give your our mailing address or we can direct you to someone that will be shipping things to us in the coming months.

2011 Community Projects

#1 WELLS

One of the community projects that has been sitting on the back burner of our minds, so to speak, is to improve the availability and quality of water in our village.  This was one of the original requests of the people when we asked them if we could live with them 3 years ago.  Currently our village has several shallow wells, some of which do well even in the dry season, as well as a small river which is used for everyday tasks such as bathing and washing clothes. 

It has been our desire to improve the existing wells, as well as bring fresh water into the village from a spring located about 2 km away in the hills above.  We have been able to repair several of the wells in our village over the last year, thanks to one of our supporting churches in Ontario.

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Recently it came to our attention that the 2 neighbouring villages next to us have only one well in each of them, and at the moment are not doing so well for water.  Before coming out for break this time, we agreed to help them by providing the materials needed to install some more wells in their villages. 

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The cost for materials to install one pump is approximately $100.  We would like to replace 2 existing wells in our village and install one new one there.   In the two neighbouring villages we need to replace the existing wells and install 2 new ones in each.

That is a total of 9 new pumps and pipe we would like to provide for these 3 villages.

In the process of getting this blog post ready we spoke with Adam from Bethel EMC, in Lion’s Head, Ontario. He has told us that they would like to care of the funding for this entire project! Praise the Lord! These villages will be able to have more water very soon.


#2 FRESH SPRING WATER

As for bringing water in from the spring up in the hills.  It will be a significant project, as we will need to build a small collection reservoir at the source, install a 500 gallon holding tank at the village and approximately 2 km of durable water line.  This is going to cost approximately $3500.

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We are also looking to see if anyone would be interested in coming over to help us with the water project. Please let us know if you are interested.  We’re open to the possibility of a small team coming to help with it or individuals.  It would be an awesome opportunity to be a blessing to the Ga’dang people as you work alongside them. 

If you would like to give to this project please contact us at chuck-shannon_talbot@ntm.org or go to Give Information for more information, you can then click on the Donate Now on the right hand side of your screen. Please be sure to include our names and what project you would like it to go towards.


#3 RICE

Another project we are looking at is a result of Typhoon Juan, which passed through northern Luzon as a category 4 typhoon last October.  It happened just as many were beginning to harvest their mountain rice crops.  As a result, much damage was done to the local people’s fields, as well as their other food sources such as the fruit trees.  As we have talked with our Ga’dang friends, they are telling us that many of them will run out of rice to eat soon because they need to hold on to some of the previous year’s crop in order to plant again.  Rice supplies were already being stretched due to the 6 month drought in the first half of 2010 which caused widespread rice crop failure and/or extremely poor harvest.

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The local authorities have been able to help some in offering free rice seed, but it has only come in the form of seed for low land wet paddy rice.  Unlike mountain rice, which cannot be bought as seed, paddy rice seed is readily available anywhere in the country.  Mountain rice on the other hand, must be seed from the previous crops.  Most Ga’dang people only grow mountain rice due to the hilly terrain and so were unable to take advantage of the offer. 

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It has been a good opportunity for us to observe the community spirit and sense of strong family connections as we watch the Ga’dang people work through this together.  Many are sharing their reserves of rice seed with others so that everyone will at least have a little to plant in June.  We are amazed to see the resourcefulness of them as well as they come up with opportunities to provide the necessities to survive. 

We will continue to watch and be open to how we may be a blessing to the Ga’dang people in our area.  It may be that we will need to purchase sacks of rice to pass out to them to help them make it until the next harvest in October.  The average Ga’dang family of 6 can consume a 50 kg sack of rice (which costs about $40) in less than 2 weeks, especially when there is nothing else to supplement the meals.  That’s a lot of rice in a village of 100+ people! 

If you would like to give to this project please contact us at chuck-shannon_talbot@ntm.org or go to Give Information for more information, you can then click on the Donate Now on the right hand side of your screen. Please be sure to include our names and what project you would like it to go towards.

All donations are tax deductible and we receive 100% of the money donated.

Solar Power Project

Living in an remote area brings with it challenges for accomplishing everyday tasks, such as providing a consistent and reliable power supply to the house.  We didn’t realise how much we take for granted that we can flick a switch to turn on a light or plug in the computer and not have to think about starting the generator first.  Up to this point that is what we have to do to have power in our house. 

Fortunately we have a small Honda generator that is fuel efficient, and so we run it for several hours each morning to charge up batteries, etc. while our twin tub washing machine is being run.  I also have to turn it on again each evening to charge up batteries again and have lights inside the house. 

We are hoping to be able to make the step of purchasing solar equipment in the near future.  This will help minimise the amount we need to run the generator, and therefore be more cost effective.  Just one more way we can be good stewards of what our financial supporters bless us with. 

It is going to cost about $10,000 to set up our house but we can get started with a basic system for about $5,000 (we would still need to run the generator for a couple hours a day.)

If you are interested in helping us with this project send us an Email for more information or go to the New Tribes Mission of Canada website and follow the links to give.

Zach

During this past February, we were blessed by a young man named Zach.  Zach is currently visiting the Philippines for several months through another organisation to expose himself to the many aspects of missionary work.  Although we didn’t personally know him, we were approached about the idea of allowing him to visit us for a few weeks to see what missions is about from the tribal missionary perspective.  Of course we said yes!

During his time with us, we tried to give Zach a wide variety of opportunities to experience life with us.  He sat in on my language helper sessions, visited with the local people both in our village and the neighbouring one, and even got a taste of birthday food tribal style.  Of course I had to give him opportunity to do a little work around the house as well.

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One of the things that stood out to me though was the amount of time he spent simply playing with and talking to our kids.  In some ways it was like Zach fit right in with us, whether he was playing peek a boo with Jenna, piggy-backing Sophia or building a fort with Kyle. 

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It was a good reminder to me as to the importance of our kids in our ministry amongst the Ga’dang people.  They can see the relationships we have with our children, and hopefully it’s a good example of how we (and they in the future) have a relationship with our heavenly father.  It was also a reminder to me to not ignore the spiritual needs of our children as we minister here to the the tribal people.

Please continue to pray for us as we focus our efforts not only on the Ga’dang people but also on these little ones in our family.  Their spiritual well being is just as important, if not more so.

Zaldo and Tintin

I’d like to introduce you to another couple we are getting to know here.  Zaldo has been mentioned in the past, as he’s my main language helper.  I first met him when Erik and I made our initial survey to this area, I did not know at that time how important Zaldo would be in becoming a part of the local Ga’dang community.  Not only has he been very patient with me as I struggle to learn his language, but he has been a huge blessing in acting as a ‘go between’ when I’ve needed to negotiate or otherwise communicate with the other people in the village. 

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When we returned to the tribe from our Christmas break, Zaldo informed me he had a girl friend and was planning to get married.  We were very excited for him, especially as he is 33 years old now and it is uncommon for the guys in Ga’dang culture to wait this long to find a wife.  Needless to say, we wanted to meet the girl but she was extremely shy of us.  It did happen eventually and everything is looking like they will get married shortly after we return to the tribe this time.  Zaldo even made sure to ask us when we planned to return so that we could be sure to be back in time to participate in the wedding. 

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It has been a great cultural learning opportunity already for us as there are events in Ga’dang culture that must occur leading up to the actual wedding day.  One such event which has already happened was a procession of the family and village elders from our village going up to Tintin’s family’s village to announce the engagement.  It was a time for traditional music and dancing, killing a pig, all the elders giving advice to the couple to be wed, and of course the two families discussing the date of the wedding.  As we found out, this ‘date’ decision alone can take days!

Pray for Zaldo and Tintin as they will soon begin their lives together.  We look forward to seeing the day when the Lord uses this couple to bring the Gospel not only to our village but also to the one where Tintin’s family lives as well.

SSayy Whhatt?

I’ve finally started the next step of the process of our reason for being here in the Ga’dang tribe.  Hurray!  The Lord has blessed me with a language helper, Zaldo, who is eager to assist me in this daunting task, even when it hurts his ears. 

For example, we were practising making sentences using places to go to, how we got there, who went, and when we did it.  Sounds simple, eh?  Maybe in English!  Here’s a sample: “I rode a water buffalo to the school yesterday”.  In Ga’dang I should’ve said; “Naddaffuwak se ageskwelan se gafi.”  This is a case of not easier said than done!

Notice the double consonants?  Zaldo, along with everyone else listening was able to hear it when I didn’t say those double consonants right.  Then there’s the ‘a’ sound, which can almost sound like a short ‘u’ (as in cut)or ‘a’ (as in cat) instead of ‘a’, as in ball if I’m not careful.  Those really hurt his ears!

Here’s a few more fun ones with double consonants I twisted my tongue around:

Nallakarak – I walked

Sintaw naggabwatannu? Where did you come from?

Ansa nadingngangngo? What do you hear?

The trick (I think) is to split the doubbles between syllables without making it too obvious.  That offten gets funny looks too.

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Pray for us as we dig into the language here and try to make sense of it.  Clarity of speech is essential for when we present God’s Word to them someday, hopefully not too far in the disttant future.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Melagros April Update

Over the last 3 months we have been helping a little girl with cerebral palsy because she was so malnourished and her mother didn’t know what was wrong with her.

We have been so happy to see her and her mother come to us each Monday to get Melagros weighed.  Then we send her home with more formula, baby cereal and vitamins. 

We are amazed at the growth in this little girl.  She has gained 2.4kg in 3 months!!!  That is truly amazing.  She is still small for the average almost 2 yr old but she is doing so much better then she was.

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What a difference in her!

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Thank you for praying for her.  Please continue to pray for her and her family.  Someday we will get to share with them about what Christ did for them!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Happy 1st Birthday Jenna!!!

I can hardly believe that my baby girl is 1 year old today!!!  This last year has flown by so fast.  Jenna has been such a joy to our family.  We love her so very much and can’t imagine our home without her.

Today we started our birthday fun with a chat with Nana!  Then we went to our friends house for a swim and lunch.  We had a great time with the Easton family.  Then we went for dinner with our other friends, the Harada’s.  Their daughter Grace shares her birthday with Jenna.

Here are some pictures and videos of our fun day!

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That looks yummy!

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No need for hands!!!

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Give me more cake!!!

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Wow, that was good!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

First Flight

Here we are in Manila for a break from the tribe, and after a week of relaxing and doing almost nothing (which is a good change of pace for us) it’s time to get back to work.  That is, we head back into the village next week and there are still doctor’s appointments to go to, shopping to be done and of course blogs to be written before we leave. We hope to bring you all up to date on what’s been happening with us since our last break in December, while we have fast internet here in the city. (We’re hoping to change that soon after getting back into the village, but more on that in another blog.) 

So without further ado, I think it would be appropriate to start with something that many of you have been praying with us about for well over a year now.  For the first time, we actually flew out of the tribe in the helicopter!  Hurray!  For so long now we’ve had to travel for 2 days over land, hiring all sorts of modes of transportation from jeeps to karabaw, and hiking through the mud just to get in and out of the village.  What a huge blessing it was to be able to walk 2 minutes away from our house, get into the helicopter, and ride 20 minutes to the NTM flight centre for northern Luzon. 

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Of course it probably won’t be the last time we’ll end up going through the motions of hiring and hiking.  But, we can certainly appreciate the smoothness and simplicity of the helicopter, and be very thankful for the Lord allowing us to be able to get in and out even without it.

Please be praying for our pilot, Brian as he needs to go through a series of check rides with our NTM chief helicopter pilot who has already come over from the US once and will be back again in a month.  The Lord has worked it out already for another pilot to fly with Brian next week so he can take us back into the tribe.  (We thought we going to be back to hiking in the mud one more time, but the Lord is very gracious to us.)  Once we are back in the village, we will need to negotiate a rental price for the land which we would like to use for the landing pad.  This has already become a hot topic of interest with the villagers as it is seen as a prestige thing for the landowner.  Pray for wisdom and discernment for us as we seek to be fair and show a Christ-like example to the Ga’dang people. 

The following is a video clip of the first time the helicopter flew in.  Enjoy, we certainly are! Smile

First flight into our village.