2015 A Big Year

With 2015 already in full swing, we are looking ahead to all that will happen and we realize that there are many big family events this year.   Some not so big but here is a list of family events this year.  Hope you enjoy the new pictures of the kids.

January 9th-  Hala turns 16 years old!—This is already over!

Beatrice will be 2 yrs old on February 17th.

February 19th-  Chuck turns 40 years old!

Jenna turns 5 yrs old on April 6th!

                     May- Eli graduates from High School!

                         July 1st- Eli turns 18 years old!

August- The 5th Anniversary of our move into Paradi!

Kyle- 15 years old on September 2nd

September 5th-  The 10th Anniversary of our arrival in the Philippines!

September 13th-  Charlotte turns 13 years old!

Sophia turns 8 yrs old on October 17th.
She will be the same age Eli was when we came to the Philippines.

Shannon- 38 yrs old on November 8th

November 18th- Chuck and I celebrate 20 years of marriage!

If you would like to send a card to any of the kids here is our mailing address:

PO Box 46240

Tuguegarao City, Cagayan 3500

Philippines

Letters

Do you like to get mail?  I'm sure you don't like junk mail but what about letters from friends?

Last year our kids started to write letters to friends and family.  They didn't just send emails but mostly they were working on writing good old snail mail letters!  They sure have had fun writing these letters but they really enjoy getting letters back from people more!

Would you like to get a letter from one of our kids? Or even from one of us?  Would you like to write to one of our kids?

Here is our address:

PO Box 46240
Tuguegarao City, Cagayan 3500
Philippines

It takes about 2 weeks to arrive in the Philippines and then depending on when we supplies are coming in, it can take another 2 weeks to arrive in the village.  So please be patient for replies from us!

If you would like our kids to write to you, please send us an email with your mailing address and we will get them writing!  chuck_talbot@ntm.org

Maybe you were the lucky recipient of these letters earlier this year!

 

Teacher Samantha

The last post I put on this blog was 3 months ago and it was asking for a teacher for our kids.  It has been a busy 3 months and through it all the Lord has provided a teacher for our kids!  We are so very excited to introduce you all to Samantha Carr!

She heard about our need for a teacher through one of the kids old teachers, Jessica Peschka (Wease).  Jessica taught the kids for the 2009/10 school year.

Samantha comes from Michigan and loves to be involved with kids.  She has a heart for missions and saw this as a great opportunity to serve the Lord.  She will be with us until May 2015.

We are very excited to be picking her up from the airport in just under 36 hrs from now!

Please pray for Samantha as she adjusts to the Philippines, the heat and of course to our crazy family.

She gets a week in Manila with us and then we head north and just a few days later she will move into the village with us.  It will be a long 2 1/2 months living in the village for her.  Pray for her adjustment to living there.

Pray also as she jumps right into teaching the kids.  We have already started the school year and with 4 weeks of no school by the time we get back they will be eager to get started again.

Thanks for praying.

Our kids WANT/NEED your help?

                

How can anyone resist these faces???  These kids are in need of someone to help them with their school work starting this Fall for the 2014/15 school year.  With the work we have ahead of us in learning the Ga’dang language and culture along with meeting the physical needs and possibly the need for literacy, these kids could sure use some help with getting an education!  Plus we have 3 groups of people coming to help build the Easton’s house and on top of that several language evaluations for Chuck.  It is going to be a very busy year.  We NEED HELP!!!

 

The 4 kids above need someone to help teach them.  You don’t have to be a teacher.  You just need to love the Lord and love children.  Would you consider coming and helping us out?  Even just for 1 month? Or 2-3 months? Or 6 months? or the whole school year?  Any help would be a huge benefit to us and our kids.

 

PLUS…you would get these 2 little girls that would love to be your friend!  Aren’t they soooo cute!!! (There is also big brother Elijah but he does most of his school work on his own!)

Please forward this information on to any of your friends or family. You just don’t know who the Lord will lead to help us out.

 

If you have questions please email us at chuck_talbot@ntm.org

 

Thanks for praying for us!

Time

This coming September will be 9 years since we came to the Philippines. This August marks 17 years since we first went to Bible school. And this July will be 20 years since Chuck and I first started dating and committed ourselves to being missionaries together.

Time sure goes by fast. We never thought 20 years ago that we would be where we are now. We actually didn’t think we would be Tribal Church Planters but thought we would be support staff. As the Lord led us to be Church Planters we never thought that we would be at this point in our ministry after so long. I’m pretty sure we figured we would be at “phase out” stage by now.

But here we are still in Tribal Language and Culture Study. And we are still here wondering when we will get to the point when we will be able to share the Gospel with our friends the Ga’dang people. As we look at the mountain of work ahead of us in learning their language and culture even after 2 active years in it and 5 years after beginning building houses among them, we feel lost and discouraged many days.

Many people wonder what is taking so long. And ask us these types of questions: Why haven’t you taught them the Bible yet? Are you preparing lessons yet? Why can’t you just teach in the national language that you spent 2 years learning? When WILL you start teaching? How many believers do you have?

Those are tough questions to hear and sometimes tougher to answer.

When we decided to become missionaries we decided that we wanted to work with New Tribes Mission. Not because they are the best mission group out there. Not because they are perfect and have a winning plan in how to get people saved. But we believed that they understood the value in people hearing the Gospel in their heart language and they want to see the believers then grow deeper in their understanding of who God is and how He wants them to live.

These values make it hard to answer some of those questions. Teaching people who God is and His plan of salvation doesn’t happen overnight when you have to learn the language and culture of the people you are teaching. Filipino languages are hard to learn. And Ga’dang is one of the hardest languages here.

 Then there is culture. How do they think? What are they thinking when they do certain things? The Philippines has had many religious groups come through and teach so many things over the years. Even ‘tribal’ people know who Jesus is. But then they mix it all together with what they already believe about God and the universe around them. This makes for a very confused person. But reminds us of the value of knowing and teaching in the language of the Ga’dang people.

But then in order for these people to grow deeper in their knowledge of God, they need to be able to read His Word for themselves. This then leads to the question of can they read and write in their own language? And what does that really mean? Do they read and write at all or just at an elementary level or high school? And what language are they doing that in? Then what do we do if they can’t read or write well.

Chuck has been away this week learning about literacy. Just 2 days in and he was feeling overwhelmed even more so now with the task ahead of him. He still has a long ways to go in language and culture study. But what if we need teach them to read and write better than they can now? That takes time.

 As we look to the future we don’t know what God has in store of us. Our oldest son, Elijah, has just finished 11th grade. Hala is 15 yrs old and at some point will need extra help to adjust to life in Canada because of her special needs. Kyle is going to start high school in the Fall. And then there are the other 4 kids growing up so very fast.

So how do we fit all the things related to ministry and family in over the next few years??? We sure don’t know but we know that HE knows. Many days that is just a head knowledge response for me. Then my head goes on to plan the next 4 years out for our family and ministry. But God is working on my heart. He wants me to trust in HIM and His plans for the future. We don’t know if we are here for just another day or many years. We don’t know if we will get to actually share the Gospel with the Ga’dang people or if we are just preparing the way for others to do this. So we trust in HIM.
Please pray for us as we take each step forward. Pray that we have peace about where He has us each day and what He has us doing each day. Pray for peace and contentment in knowing that we are doing the task He has set before us.

These are some verse that the Lord has used to speak to me this week:

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. Psalm 62:5

This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. Hebrews 6:19

Job 40:6 “Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.”

And a quote from Beth Moore, “He’ll never take you anywhere He has not already prepared for your arrival. Keep trusting Him.”

Thanks so much for praying for us and supporting the work that God has us involved in with the Ga’dang people.

Electricity

When we began moving into the village we live in nearly 5 years ago, we had talked candidly about the idea of electricity coming our way…way in the future.  When we returned to the village this past summer Chuck was out in the bush with a man from here and noticed some concrete markers.  He asked what they were and was told that they are for electric poles.  We thought wow it might just happen within the next 5 or 10 years.  Then early in January we heard of a meeting that happened regarding electricity coming.  Again we thought ok maybe within 2-3 years it will come.  Often times there is a lot of talk and not much action going on here.  But another week later there was another meeting in the village about electricity.  Some of the ladies actually came to get Valerie and I to attend it.  We went along didn’t understand much as it was in the local trade language.  We could follow some of it and were later able to ask questions to the officials from the electric company.  When we asked them when the poles would be coming in they couldn’t give an answer.  It was all very vague.  Again we thought that it would be a lot of talk and little action.  Then just 3 days later these were delivered to the village!  And there were piles left along the road to the village.  Amazing to see the poles here already.  That was about a month ago.  Just this week poles have been moved to the last village on the line.  And just today men were in here digging the holes of the poles!  Just maybe it will get done before the end of dry season!

 

 

 

This will be a huge blessing and savings for the Easton’s as they build and set up their home in here.  If it gets installed sooner rather than later then they will be able to use the electricity to help build their house in the Fall.  But even if that doesn’t happen, they will be able to plan to use town electricity to power their home.  What a blessing that will be.  Electricity in the Philippines is often inconsistent.  There are often “brown out’s” (no power for the day) and times where typhoons cause damage to the lines.  But with a back-up system of batteries it will be a wonderful thing to have.

But we do know that it is going to change the lives of the Ga’dang people.  They already have access to generators and use them to power movie players and charge cell phones and flash lights.  But we can see it bringing more of the outside world in too.  We are praying the karaoke machine doesn’t return! (There was one that was run off a generator a few years back!)

Please be praying that the progress will continue in this project.

On a funny note, Chuck asked 2 of the guys today what is the first thing they will buy when they get electricity.  The first guy said, "a washing machine!"  He's single and doesn't like washing his clothes by hand.  The other guy said, "a robot cook!"  He too is single.  I think he needs a wife.  They sure got a chuckle out of the conversation!

Medical Emergency

Ever since we had our first emergency medical flight in 2011 we have had it on our mind that we need to set money aside to help fund emergencies in the future.  We looked for donors who wanted to contribute regularly to this fund while we were home but no one came along.  Then shortly after our return to the Philippines a former missionary friend of ours contacted us about their VBS donating to a project that we might have on the go.  The only need we had was to have funds available for medical emergencies.  They decided to collect and donate to this fund.  We were very excited to have people getting behind this need.  The Lord went above and beyond our expectations with the money they donated for this need.  Since then we have worked with NTM to set up a special project to help donors meet the medical needs of the Ga’dang people.  We have seen people from all over the world contribute to this fund. 

What a blessing it was to know that we had money available for a medical emergency just last weekend.

This is Maricel.  She is not Ga’dang but her husband is.  She speaks the language very well though.  She has 2 sons that are 8 and 6 yrs old.  Her husband is a certified teacher but hasn’t worked as a teacher up until recently.  He is currently the preschool teacher (5 yr olds) in our village.  They are the owners of the lot that Christina’s house was built on, where the Easton’s are living now.  They also live next door to them.  Maricel is a hard worker and takes care of her family well.

In the middle of the week last week Maricel’s husband came to us because he was concerned about his wife as she had been sick in the night and was also having pain when urinating.  We were also told that she was 6 weeks pregnant.  After checking her urine and confirming she was pregnant we figured she had a urinary tract infection.  This is very common here as many people don’t drink enough and then wait long periods of time before going to the bathroom.  She started some antibiotics and was starting to feel better over the next couple of days.  Then Saturday morning her mother in law came to me as Maricel was having pain in her side.  I went to check on her and immediately was concerned about her.  She was having some spotting and pain in her right side to the point of tears .  I was very concerned about a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy.  When she was asked if she wanted to go out to the hospital for a check-up, she said yes.

We then began the process of checking if the pilot was available to come get her.  He was flying to another place at the time and could come in that afternoon.  We also contacted Dennis and Valerie as they were already out in town on a break.  We were so thankful that they would be there to take her to the hospital.  If they hadn’t been there then one of us would have needed to go out with her to take her to the hospital.  Around 2pm the helicopter arrived and Maricel and her 60+ year old mother in law got on the helicopter.  What a scary experience for both of them but something they were grateful for as travel by land would have been very painful and challenging. 

It wasn’t long before Dennis and Valerie were at the hospital with Maricel and she was having an ultrasound to see what the problem was.  It was confirmed that she had an ectopic pregnancy and that surgery was needed ASAP.  By 6pm she was in emergency surgery.  It was after 10pm before she was out of recovery and in her room.  The doctor said that the fallopian tube had already ruptured when they started the surgery and that she lost a lot of blood.  She needed 2 units of blood. Without the surgery she would have died.  And had she waited much longer to go to the hospital, she may have still died.

Her husband wasn’t able to come to her until Monday morning as he was at a seminar a long distance away.  Her mother-in-law sure was out of her element in town.  Especially in a big city and at a hospital.  Dennis and Valerie spent many hours helping them with all the things that needed to be done, from getting blood from the blood bank to paying bills to getting medicine and filling out forms.

After just 3 days in the hospital she was released and went to a nearby town to recuperate until her check-up next week.

 

We are still working on the final total of the medical bills but it will be about $2000 USD!  Plus the cost of the helicopter to town.  If it wasn’t for the medical fund we just couldn’t pay the bill for them.  When her husband saw the medical bill he started to panic.  What would he do?  How would he pay for it?  It was a relief for him to know that we could help.  They will be going to the municipal center to apply for some assistance to help pay us back.  And they will be paying us back some of the money from wages and the selling of their corn crop.  Without the money from the VBS last year and money from others, we wouldn’t have been able to help.  Thank you to all those who have given.

But what now?  Her bill alone was what was budgeted for the whole year to help with the medical needs of the people here.  Are you willing to help?  Would you like to make a 1 time donation? Or contribute on a regular basis? 

 

Here is a link to the where you can go to donate:

US Residents can donate here.

Canadian Residents can donate here.

All donations are tax deductible.

Your donation will help to save the life of a Ga’dang person like Maricel that still doesn’t know Christ as her Saviour.

Please pray for Maricel and her family.  Pray for her recovery and that she will be able to return home soon.  Pray that we can be a light to the people we are with every day.