Kapampangan Soulwinning

 Mang Fher is as skinny as a rail and not for want of food as the ample frame of his wife proves.  Though I have known him now for about 7-8 months, I don't ever recall coming to visit him and seeing him just sitting down. Maybe once the requisite afternoon siesta, but when awake, he is moving and doing.  He is a mechanic and a jeepney driver, and we have hired him to pick up people for church in his jeep for all these months. Our relationship may have been business at first, but now it seems like the gospel message has taken hold in his family's life.  He is the grandfather of the little one (Roann) that recently died  .  We have been promoting our 1000 Sunday (This Sun. July 23) and Mang Fher wanted to invite his relatives.  Today we accompanied him as he told the community about the special service.  He is a native Kapampangan and speaks that dialect, which neither Rev. Gaudario or I understand, so as we invited people, if he found out they were Kapampangan, he would take over, and take over he did!  What a joy it was to see him go soulwinning for the first time!   He invited his relatives, cajoled their neighbors, persuaded the people and at the end of about 4+ hours soulwinning, he was beaming.  I just tagged along, and couldn't have done any better.  What a joy to see him not only working for the Lord, but having a great time doing it.  Halfway through our time, his sister served us a lunch of delicious fish, rice, tomatoes and salt with a banana for desert.  In the same area there is a group of people called the Itas, or Negritas or sometimes Kulot.  They have been described to me as the original Filipinos.  Kulot means curly and is often the adjective used to describe them, since most Filipinos have straight hair. Also described as the black Filipinos, we met and invited many.  It was a great soulwinning day!

 Photos of the Itas (Aetas) by Park Cruz Follow @ddevonshire