A week in the Jungle

As the fog rolled in we began our first night in the village as a family.  We already had a fun filled day of hiking and visiting with people.

We woke around 4:30 am and gathered last minute items.  At 5:30am the jeepney was here and we loaded tools, 25 pieces of plywood, food and clothes for a week and 9 people inside.  Off we went to spend a week in the jungle with the people we will spend a lifetime with, the Ga’dang people.

After a 1 hour ride, we unloaded everything and the men began to load our stuff onto 6 sleds and 2 carts that would be hauled by carabao (water buffalo).  The next day 4 more carabao came out to get what we could not take that day.  Plus the plywood was left at a house for another day to be carried in.

We then began our hike.  It was just about 7:45 am and everyone wanted to be first down the trail.  If only the kids had known what they do now about the trail.  This trail is about 10km from where we are dropped off to the village.  These are rolling hills, so that means lots of ups and downs.  Before long into the hike there is a large, muddy, slippery hill to climb.

 

Even the carabao have a hard time getting up the hill with a load on them.  In some places the mud covers almost all of the legs of the carabao.  Thankfully in some places there is a narrow trail along the side to walk on.  Problem is, it is very narrow and slippery!!!

Once at the top we took a break to catch our breath and have a drink.  Peter, who is helping build our houses in the village, left about 30 min after we did, and soon enough he caught up to us.

Charlotte was able to enjoy a ride for much of the hike.

Hala and Eli on the other hand walked the whole way into the village!!!  Good job guys!!!  Kyle hiked most of the way but was able to get a ride on a carabao for the last 1/3 of the trip.  Sophia also got a free ride!!! They all did a great job.

Right away in the village we were able to begin making friends.  Dana often makes fun of the time of day we eat supper, around 5:30pm, I realized soon enough that I would have to change our supper time.  The people tend to come and visit between 4-7 pm.  It’s hard to have supper at 3:30pm and I am too tired to eat at 7:30pm.  What are we going to do????  Many nights the kids ate at our normal time while us adults waited until later to eat; after the work was done, the men were clean and the people had gone home.  Here are some of our visitors.

It took until the last day we were in the village for Hala to decide that this girl would be her friend.  They are both 10 years old.  I think they could have a great friendship for years to come.

Sophia on the other had started making friends right away!!!  The people in the village come to see, touch, smell and listen to everything Sophia did.

 

This little girl beside Sophia is our neighbour.  They say she is almost 3 years old. (Sophia is not 2 yrs until October.) She is a very tiny girl.  Her family appears to be the poorest in the village, thus shunned a lot.

 

Kyle of course reunited with his old buddies from his last trip in there.  The day before we left he said he was going to miss them.

Now to the building part of our trip.  The purpose of this trip for Chuck, was to begin putting post up with hopes of getting beams, joists and the floor down by the time his dad comes next week.  So after a week, this is what was done.  Chuck is in there until Friday so we will have to wait and see what he gets done these next few days.

Over the last several weeks a couple of men collected sand and gravel from the river bed for making the concrete.  We also hauled in 53 bags of cement.  Each bag weighs in at 40 kilo.  They were all carried in by carabao!!!

The men worked hard mixing and mixing.  There was no lack of workers in there.  Everyday someone new was coming to ask if they could work.  It gets hard to manage to many people so we are working on trying to rotate the men so they all have a chance to make some money.

Forms were made and put in place. 

Even Chuck did some work!!!  Just kidding, Chuck did lots of work.  It is much different working in the heat of the tropics.

It was soon realized that the holes that had been dug were way too big.  We planned to actually only use 25 bags of cement on the post supports and the rest for our septic tank.  After 12 bags were used to pour just 4 out of 20 holes, a new plan was needed.  Large rocks, broken cement block and dirt were added to the sides to help fill in the holes.

After day 2, they used only 10 bags of cement for 6 holes.  In total they used 39 bags of cement to make those 20 post supports.

This is the finished product.  The posts will be bolted to the metal straps.

Then in the afternoon of the day before I left, they began to put up some of the posts.  By the end of the day 6 posts were in place.  Praise the Lord for a good productive week.

        

From what I heard last night, all 20 posts are up and they began to look at the wood that was sitting for some time for the beams.  As they cut into them they found out that the wood has become soft and rotten!  This is so sad.  We have had problem after problem with wood in there.  Lately the new wood we had cut has been great with no problems but the old wood has not been so good.  I am not sure what will happen but I think we will need to have them re-cut. Pray that it will all work out.

 

Christina’s house is coming along great too.  It is starting to look like a house she could live in now!!!  Lord willing by the time we go in again in late September, we will be all set up in Christina’s house.

Then our week was over and we were ready to head home for a hot shower and a real table to sit at and eat.  It took just 2 1/2 hrs to hike out and it was very, very muddy and slippery.  I am sore today from the hike!!!

We were so blessed with having Christina Canapp, our co-worker, go with us in there.  She knew how things were done and was a huge help with the kids.  I couldn’t have done it without her.  Thanks Ti!!!

A muddy ride!!!

About 10 days ago Chuck had the opportunity to use his new/used motorcycle to go into the village.  It should have taken about 3 hrs to get in there.  But as life goes here in the Philippines, nothing is as simple as that.

Here is Chuck and a fellow missionary, Bob as they left the house here.

They left at about 1 pm and Chuck called at about 2pm to let me know they were about to go off the main road on the “other road.”  I expected then to hear from him around 4pm or maybe even 5 pm as Chuck is just learning to ride.  By 6 pm I am getting a little concerned and texting and calling him, but there is no signal where he is.  Finally at 6:30pm Chuck calls to say he is just outside the village, exhausted!!!  The road was much harder to get those dirt bikes through.  Here is a picture of some of the spots in the road.

The whole width of the “road” was just muddy.  There were many “sink holes” in the road.

After a break and wiping of his brow, Chuck was able to get out and carry on.

The next day they decided to leave the bikes in the village and hike out.  The majority of the hike is on a different trail, that is not passable by bike.  But it was still a long hike out after working so hard to get in there.

You might ask, “Why would they go in there for just one night?”   They were wanting to see how easy it would be to use the bikes to get in and Chuck also wanted to show Bob where he will be staying as he helps us build our house.

This week we head off as a family to the village.  We will take a Jeepney on a 1 hr trip, then we will all do the 2-3 hr hike to the village.  We will stay in one of the houses in the village for our time there.  Lord willing Christina’s house will be finished by the time we go in next and we can stay in it.  By then we can have a real toilet!!!  Right now it will be just an outhouse.

Pray for us as we start building our house.  Pray for safety as a family and pray for provision for all we need to complete our house.  As time goes on we find that things are costing more then we had anticipated.  God is faithful and has provided for most of the expenses we will have.

Last week I did some canning with fellow missionaries that made a special trip way up north just to help me.  Check out this link to their blog for the story of our canning adventure.  There are also pictures of the kids on it too!!!

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So much to say, …

The last 4 months have been a whirlwind for us. Four months ago we were packing up our house and moving in with Chuck’s parents as we did last minute preparations to head back to the Philippines. We arrived here at the end of February and then the fun really began. I, Shannon, started back into full time language study. Chuck made a quick trip to the tribe and then he started teaching the kids. After just 6 weeks and another trip to the tribe, I, Shannon passed my Tagalog evaluation!!! Praise the Lord!!!Two days later we headed north to attempt to spend a few days in the village. The Lord did not allow this to happen but he gave us the opportunity to find a house to live in, in a town closer to the village. That trip was full of much fun as Sophia started it off with her 3rd round of Nursemaids elbow in 3 months time. She also managed to fall off the bed numerous times. We had ants on the walls, in the bed and in my shirt (while it was on me!) We had vomiting from a flu bug and from twisty roads that we hadn’t even made it to yet. We had lbm in 2 people, thankfully one was in diapers!!! (No it wasn’t Chuck in diapers!!!) We had rain that socked us to our chins. We had great food and some not so great food. But after 10 days we made it back to Manila with house to move to. Praise the Lord!

Then began the whirlwind of trips to pay a deposit for rent and lots of packing. The emails began to negotiate a price on moving our belongings that had been in storage for over a year. Finally it all ended with our move to North on May 24th. Since then it has been a challenge to get settled in. Sorting through things we forgot we had, looking for things we thought we had and not finding things we knew we had!!! But today almost 3 weeks later we are getting settled in.

I still can’t find everything but it is coming. We have enjoyed the company of the Filipino man that we have hired to supervise the building of our houses with the Ga’dang people. We are now just 3-4 hrs from the village, so Peter and his companion have been coming out to our place on Sundays for the night. This means we can visit with them, feed them good food and answer any questions they might have.

This week has had Chuck off to the tribe again. We are trying to sort out where all the wood is that we are told is already cut for our house. It seems that some is still in the jungle, but rotting. Some is in the village and some is missing. Pray that Chuck will be able to sort all this out over the next few days. We are afraid we might have to pay again for some of it as it is a he said, she said situation. Pray that this will not be so and that we can move ahead soon with building our house.

Christina’s house is coming along well. We hope to have it completed by the end of June. This means in July we can start to build our house. Chuck’s dad, Paul Talbot, will be coming for 3 weeks in August to visit and help build our house. We are very excited to have him come. We are also very excited to be having another young lady come to home school the kids. She will come with Chuck’s dad and will stay with us for at least one year. Her name is Jessica Wease.

I think that is all for now.

Until next time, Shannon.

Wet men walking

My co-worker, Erik and I were able to get into the tribal village to visit the people again and see the progress of our other co-worker, Christina’s house. It is a slow process, due to the excessive rains that have come even though we are still supposed to be in the ‘dry’ season. It certainly hasn’t been very dry. While in the village, a typhoon came through, right over top of our area. This is also an unusual occurrence, and caused some damage to the trail. The Lord watched over us though, and Erik and I were able to make it back out again. Pray for us as we will going in and out of the tribe more once we are moved to the town close to the Ga’dang people.

This is tropical grass growing along the trail. It is very tall, and sharp!

Christina’s house is starting to take a recognisable shape.

This ankle deep stream became a chest deep river overnight when the typhoon came through.

On the move... again!

It looks like our family is on the move again. Recently, we as a family were able to visit a town located close to the territory of the Ga’dang people. While there, we were able to find a place to rent for the next year. Once this next move is complete, instead of having to travel up to 700km from Manila to the tribal village, we will only be a short 1 hour jeepney ride and 3 hour hike away. We are looking forward to getting out of the smog and noise of the city, but realise we will have to re-adjust to ‘provincial’ life. The will be conveniences we will miss, but it is worth it in light of the prospective goal ahead of us. It puts us one step closer to being able to one day share the Gospel with the Ga’dang people. Pray for us as we make the final plans to move north.

Gamugamo infested our hotel room one evening. They are harmless, but messy.

We will be renting the 2nd floor, Christina will rent the 4th floor.

Getting into the Village

Last week Chuck and Kyle went back to the village we will be moving into. Chuck traded out with Erik, so Erik could return to his family in Manila. This video shows just some of the trouble we have getting in and out of the village.

Kyle really enjoyed his time in the village. He made many friends with both boys and girls in the village. He always seemed to have a group of kids following him around. He told me just the other day that he likes where we are going to build our house. It is in a good spot he says!!!

Keep reading below for the progress that was made over the last 2 weeks.

Making Progress

Here is the lot that we have chosen to use to build our house on. The small building on the left will be taken down as it is an old grain storage building. The house in the middle is one of our neighbours, Boboy. The house on the far right belongs to a family with 2 young girls. It seems that their parents are often off in the fields and the older sister takes care of the younger one. It also seems that this family is shunned in the village. The are very poor compared to the rest of the people in the village.

Please pray for these young girls and for us as we build relationships with them and other people in the village.

This was our lot at the end of the week. The post holes are dug and so is the septic.

Christina's house was the big project on this trip. At the beginning of the first week, Christina, her dad and Erik arrived to see this much work done.

This is what was accompished at the end of two weeks. It is amazing how much work was able to be done. Remember all the gravel, sand, rebar and cement had to be hauled in by truck!!!

They were also able to dig the post holes and septic for the Petersons house.