From Recording to Solar Dryers

After a 3.5 hour-long bus ride from Butuan to Surigao City, we finally arrived home! At least for the place we will call home for the next 6 months. We unpacked our stuff, ate supper, and went out to walk around the town. While we were out we decided to visit a friend of  the O’Connor’s, Pastor Eliezer. He has become a true inspiration in my life. Why? Nearly a week after we arrived we went out to a nearby island for his 50^th birthday! What did we eat? About 10 kilos of different types of fish that he caught within about an hour. The amazing part is that he’s a spear fisher. The guy left the boat came back an hour later with 16 fish that he had speared. Then he proceeds to say he didn’t do so good that time. Humility? I think so!! I hope I can do something I enjoy that well when I’m 50! In the midst of that whole week we had spent a lot of time playing worship and trying to get to know people. We started hanging out with a group of Christian guys around our age outside our house and playing worship music. 

A couple days later we took the bus back to Butuan to help our friend Emman record a cd so that he could sell it to raise money for his DTS (Discipleship Training School). 

We were able to record 6 songs and used 5 total on the cd plus another 3 from his friend’s band. It was a lot of hard work but a lot of fun to get to be a part of. The musicians here a very talented so it makes it’s much easier than it could’ve been.

 Immediately following, we took another Jeepne up to the mountains to “help” Casey with his ministry with the Boost. Our goal was to go up to a barangay and help build a solar dryer (super greenhouse) to help dry out coffee and corn almost twice as fast. We got up there and tried our best but we weren’t really able to do much. 10 guys and 2 shovels make things difficult to help with. So once the project was up and running we headed back to Casyklan. On our way back to there we took a motorbike and ended up falling over. Luckily everyone was okay but I thought it was still a noteworthy event. Once we made it to Casyklan we met some Americans from a Nehemiah team that works with Casey at the boost and we stayed with them for the night til we had to get up at 3:30 for our morning Jeepnee ride back to Butuan at 4. I’m hoping to beable to post some video of the Jeepnee rides cause they are crazy! That’s all for now!

Barangay Dulag

The next day after staying the night in the hotel, Jason and Nelson picked us up and took us to Nelsons house where we met our newfound friend, Toto. Soon we learned that we would be going to his house in the mountain to stay the night there. Just for the experience, Jason had us take the trip via Jeepnee (like a ghetto school bus type of vehicle) and we rode on top with no seat belts of course. In fact, I haven’t used a seat belt that I can think of since we’ve been here.  After arriving at Barangay Dulag (Dulag Village), we headed to Toto’s house where we found lots of surprises waiting for us.

    

 The first, we each harvested a pineapple, the second, we each killed a chicken,  and the 3^rd, we all climbed up a palm tree and cut down a coconut. Oh yeah, let’s remember this is DAY 2 of being here… CRAAAAZZZYYY! Anyway, so the rest of the evening we were blessed to spend throwing football with the barangay kids and ended with supper and a bible study. The next morning we woke up at 5:30 and walked around the village.  Afterward we ate breakfast and decided to go see if we could meet another American missionary in the area. So the 6 of us hopped on 2 motor bikes and took off. We arrived at the Boost and met Casey, a business major from the south whose goal through starting the Boost was to help boost the economy by starting a few businesses and incorporating the ideas he learned in school to help the barangays around started earning a steady income. At the Boost Casey buys coffee, corn and gold. 

He is also helping facilitate a group working with bio sand filters. This is a picture of Rinel teaching us about the filters, how they work, how it can improve the village, and how they can incorporate the gospel into the installation of these filters. 

 

 After hearing all of this we felt like the Lord was leading us to purchase a couple of these for Barangay Dulag so that’s exactly what we did. These filters have little to no maintenance, they produce some of the cleanest water, I believe 98 or 99 percent free of any bacteria or viruses, and… they last for a lifetime. They are selling these basically at cost (60 dollars US) for the materials to make them.  Truly an amazing ministry and opportunity to get involved.  After talking with the Barangay captain we left the filters in the hands of Toto until Rinel got there to install them and share the Gospel the following Tuesday.

 Following those events we went back to Toto’s and began his Children’s ministry since the teacher’s often don’t show on Fridays so the kids have nothing to do. We got to sing songs, play games, work on memorizing scripture, and have a snack, much like VBS! After we had finished we headed back to Butuan to stay the night with Pastor Nelson’s family. We ended up having a Life group with some younger people our age around the neighborhood and then we worshipped for about 2 and a half to 3 hours. Then it was finally time for bed.