Wednesday was our first visit out to a village (actually two towns). It was a really, really good day … just really exhausting! We are hoping that the next 3 places we visit will be a bit less intense, since we’ll be spending 2-3 days in each place (rather than just one, which was what we had yesterday) – they will be longer stints, but hopefully since there’s more time, things won’t be so packed.

Josie is one of the two main Mother Tongue Translators (MTT’s) for the Ifugao people’s translation of the Kalay-e Old Testament. So Josie picked us up at the SIL center at Bagabag Wed morning and we took a Jeepney about 1.5 hours north to her town of Kiangan. Jeep rides always take longer than private cars because they are public transit so they are constantly stopping to pick up and drop off new passengers. I sat up front by the driver, and soon a Filipina woman named Linda got in next to me. She was very talkative (not unusual for a Filipino person!) and very friendly. It was really nice to talk to her, except after an hour, I found myself feeling really tired out and we hadn’t even gotten to the village where we’d be doing the interviews yet! (I’m an introvert, and all this talking all day long can get tough.) I was also struck by Linda’s wealth and excellent English, both seemed to be at unusual levels for Filipinos around here – she had gold earrings, and she had been to Europe with her Spanish husband. She is a Christian and told me about the prayer mountain behind her house where she likes to go before sunrise to pray.

We got off in Kiangan and took a tricycle to Josie’s neighborhood (“barangay”). A tricycle is basically a motorcycle with a little cab attached to the side – they’re really common in SE Asia for taking people short distances.

Josie told us about a horrible car accident she’d been in 4 months ago, she’d been unconscious for several hours and her companion (and good friend) was killed. We met the friend’s husband and saw his store and the rock that the car crashed into. It was sad. I was amazed at Josie’s dedication to serving God through translation – you can still see the scars all over her face and she said she has blurred vision (which obviously makes working on the translation really hard) and also her chin gets sore when she talks much because it became detached from her face in the accident and is healing very slowly. But there was no hint that she would not return to translation work. She is so determined.

Next we went to a little cafe owned by a friend of hers for “merienda” (snack). She wanted to pay for us but we wanted to pay for her, because we knew she was already making a huge sacrifice of time and money to take us around all day, and doesn’t have much money to begin with. But only the pragmatic reason of Daniel saying he wanted to get some change finally caused her to relent (she sure sounds like a Webster woman ).

We were served these huge pieces of dry chocolate cake and two fried bananas. It was so much food and we weren’t even hungry! But that happens often, and it would be rude not to eat it.

Then Josie’s husband brought her 5-year-old granddaughter by. Anjuli was adorable and spoke English really well. Josie said she lets her watch a lot of VCD’s and cartoons so she can improve her English.

Then we walked to Josie’s house. It was interesting to be in her home and find out what a typical highlander Filipino living situation is like. (I’ve been to the Philippines several times, but haven’t spent much time in Filipino homes.) Her family has a small farm with a rice paddy and a few chickens and ducks, so they sustain themselves, rather than buying food in a store. However a lot of the Ifugao in her town work in offices, so they buy their food in a store because they don’t have time to farm. Josie’s rice field is just big enough to make enough rice for the family for 6 months, which works out well since harvest happens in March and then October. Since both she and her husband are older, and since she works full-time (on the translation – although she used to work a full-time job in addition, as well as going to school!), they have a man who lives in a hut on the edge of their field – he works the land and they give him a small share.

We learned how rice is milled and made ready, and also learned the 4 words that the Ifugao have for rice in its various stages. It reminds me of how some native Alaskan people group has like 12 words for “ice” – it really shows what is important to a people!

The bottom floor of Josie’s small home houses students from a nearby school (!), and she and her family live in the top floor. The household consists of her and her husband, their oldest daughter (whose husband works several hours’ south, so he only comes to visit on weekends every once in awhile – Joan is also helping with the translation and expecting her first baby next month), and then Anjuli, the daughter of Josie’s youngest daughter. The youngest daughter and her husband live in Manila (for the last 5 years) because she is in school to get her nursing degree (so many girls are training to be nurses here!!). So Josie and her husband have raised little Anjuli.

Then after awhile we went to the home of the other main MTT for this project, Tessie. We visited for awhile and got some good interview material, and then took a jeep to a church further away in another nearby town. There we met up with several of the local pastors. This is where things started to get a little hairy.

The thing is, I have a tendency to absorb things and carry them beyond the Lord’s call for me to hold them. The kinds of “things” I’m talking about are like people’s grief, their discouragement, their struggles, their frustrations, or their concerns. I’m gifted as a counselor, but this can get me into trouble because sometimes I hold onto others’ burdens myself rather than holding them before God and staying connected to Him as the Sovereign One who Cares, while I listen. Then I get exhausted.
And that’s pretty much what happened. Josie had gathered nearly a dozen local pastors to come and talk to us, and they basically poured out their needs to us. I was exhausted by 3:30 pm. But we still had a few more churches to visit. What was exhausting was not just the listening, but the fact that I was trying to record everything they were saying on my notepad. I had 14 pages of shorthand notes by the end. Also, we had not brought enough water with us, and were really dehydrated by the evening.

So it was a really productive day, and I think we really got a lot of good content, but it was really really tiring. Daniel got a lot of good photos. We got home around 7pm.

Please pray for us as we leave at 7:30 tomorrow morning for Bontoc, and will go on from there to Butbut. Pray that I stay more connected to God as I listen to the people’s stories and needs.

I think we will be traveling by bus (or some other public transit like Jeep). When we go to Butbut we might be in a private car. We would love to have a day at the end of this trip to stop by Batad (Banaue) and get photos of their incredible rice terraces.