Need a Job?

He is the original “Digger O’Dell!” Our brother today told us of one of his previous jobs in Cebu. He worked at a Catholic cemetery digging up the bones. You see, when they bury you, they charge 2000 pesos which is good for five years, after that you have to pay again. “What if you don’t pay?” you ask…Ahhhh! That is where our brother came in. He would be sent to dig up your bones and place them in a box to be claimed later. He received 150 pesos per skeleton. He said it was an easy job, because the bodies were buried near the sea and so the ground was mostly sand. The only problem was once they found the coffin and pried it open, water would begin to fill into the hole, he would be searching around with his hands to find the head. Once found, he would have to hoist the skeleton up out of the grave, often the water would trickle on to his face and sometimes in his mouth! Yuck!!! The families would oft times be right there to supervise the bodies being exhumed. He said once, a man from out of town came to watch them pull out the bones of his relative, he looked at the skeleton and said “Hey the leg is missing!” So into the soupy water they searched looking for the leg, only to find out later that the leg had been lost in his lifetime, during a dynamite fishing accident! So…..Need a job? Follow @ddevonshire

His name is Joel

His name is Joel.  He is a trike driver.  A trike is a motorcycle with a sidecar that is used as a taxi here in the Philippines.  He works in an area where there are about 500 trikes.  He doesn’t own his trike, he rents it for 100 pesos a day, about $2.  It is called his “boundary”.  The first 100 pesos he makes goes to pay the boundary.  The only problem is, sometimes he doesn’t make it.  Then he has to borrow from someone to pay the boundary.  Today, when we saw him and his brother, they were waiting for a trip.  His brother had been there since 6am, it was around 11am when we saw him, and he still didn’t have his first trip of the day.  When he does, he will probably get 30 pesos, more if he goes far.  I asked Joel how many trips he gets a day and he said around six.  180 pesos.  Sometimes in the evening he makes more, so if he takes in 400 for a whole day he is doing good.  100 goes to the boundary, maybe 100 to gas, and he has 200 to take home.  I asked him how much he needed to eat each day.  100 pesos.  He and his wife and child eat one kilo of rice in the morning, and one “Ulam” or viand, or what we might call, a rice topper, or main course, and then this will be repeated in the evening.  He said sometimes he doesn’t eat in the evening so he can save more money.  It takes 60 pesos to travel from where he works to where he lives, so he often just sleeps at a relative’s house near where he works to save the fare money.  When they are waiting at the corner, their trike number is chalked onto a small board to keep track of where they are in line.  If he leaves, they erase his number and he goes back to the bottom when he returns.  I have been trying to convince him to come to church.  He seems interested, I have even witnessed to him and his heart is open.  His wife has attended once and seemed to enjoy the service….but you see….he needs to make his boundary…he needs to pay the gas….he needs to get the “Ulam” and if it takes until 9 or 10 at night, so be it.  This is survival in the Philippines.  This is one of our biggest challenges, to convince people that if they put God first and make time for God in their lives, He will in turn bless them

Eph. 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

Pray that Joel will make time for God in his life and see beyond his daily need to see his eternal need. Follow @ddevonshire

Rainy Season

It is rainy season and I snapped a couple of quick shots with my phone as we were driving down the river....errr....I mean street! Follow @ddevonshire

Soulwinning

Click on the pictures to get a larger view
I wanted to give you a little idea of what we see when we go soulwinning here.  This community is built on a set of railroad tracks.  So there is a narrow passage that leads between these houses. If you look closely, you can see a lady on the left washing her clothes, which was her excuse for not coming today.


These little ones came running up to me.  They are so lovable!
Here mom is reading the flyer and the daughter is reading me!
The lady in the green chair is getting a pedicure/manicure.  This too is a frequent sight.
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Cultural Observations

A few recent cultural observations:
Old ladies who smoke their cigarettes backwards! The burning side is held inside their mouth so as not to lose any of their “precious” smoke. Though I am sure there are others who do this, I have only seen some old ladies doing it. Of course they have to “cup” their mouth to keep from getting burned, so when they speak, they are very hard to understand.
Funny Signs: On a bottled mineral water store “Body Fluids Mineral Water”…..hmmmm….not so thirsty after all.
“U-Nick barber shop.” Now to be fair, the Filipinos pronounce their I’s with a long e sound, so it didn’t take me long to figure out it was supposed to mean “Unique”, but as I pondered, what kind of a barber shop advertises the fact that you will be cut or nicked, or worse, it could be read eunuch barber shop, I definitely won’t be going there.
(1/06) The power went out about 15 minutes before service tonight, and stayed out through most of the service. We scrambled around to light candles and try to situate everyone, but it was a chore. Large congregation was there,(no, not body size :) ) without any fans, no PA till we remembered we had batteries in our little karaoke machine, and many restless kids. It sure makes you appreciate the power when it comes back on. Follow @ddevonshire

Record Breaking Sunday / 1000 Sunday

This is the banner for our push "1000 Sunday" I thought I would link it together with a post from our last "Record Breaking Sunday"


(From January 2006)The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for us. On January 8th we had our special record breaking Sunday. We had been working for about two months towards this service and it turned out to be a great success. The greatest aspect for me was to see so many of the church people excited about reaching the goal. We had more soulwinners the Saturday before the big Sunday than we have ever had. We split up and went into several areas and invited people for the following day. When Sunday arrived, 20 jeepneys filled with people came! God blessed in a special way and the record was broken, and our goal was reached.

The following Tuesday, Pastor Davis arrived. We had the privilege of having him here in Luzon for four days before he left to go to Cagayan de Oro where our Asian conference was held. We joined him there on Monday. The conference was a tremendous blessing to us. The teaching was eye opening, and Pastor can still preach like a house on fire! The fellowship was inspiring and there was a lot of good natured harassing, laughter and story telling. Follow @ddevonshire

Simple Life...

Did you ever feel like your life was a bit too complicated? The more stuff you have, the more “things” happen to your stuff and you have to get your stuff fixed. Sometimes, just keeping up with your stuff is tough enough!

For many here, life is boiled down to the basic necessities, it is a simple life, not easy, but uncomplicated. “Buhay Pa” or “Nakaraos Pa” meaning “Still alive” or “Still surviving” are more than just an answer to “How are you?” to some they signal a victory for one more day.

The things that may be important to us, don’t mean much to the average Filipino. Hot water for showers? Not necessary. Air conditioning? Too cold! Medical care we would think essential, they can easily do without. One brother told me he thought his wife was pregnant, I asked him “Have you taken a test?” he replied “Why? We already have the sign.” (The missing monthly missive from mother nature.) I couldn’t argue with that!

They say “A big family is a happy family” but as I watch one family struggle on a daily basis to feed everyone, I wonder…This particular lady has eight children. All but one (an older boy with 2, yes 2, wives of his own) live in the home or in the case of the two older girls, live right next door with their own families. She gets up at 2am to go to the market so she can get home by five and prepare breakfast for the kids going to school. She sends them off to school, and makes snacks, or “Barrio BBQ” to sell in the barrio.

On wash days, (this is not my photo, taken by Adlaw, but shows perfectly the lady doing the hand washing) it is an all day affair of squatting next to a plastic tub and hand washing and wringing out the clothes and hanging them to dry. Making dinner includes starting a small fire to cook with and dodging the ever present smoke. Bathing, involves pumping water into a bucket and then using a tabo, a small hand dipper that you use to pour water over your head. A friend shared with me he had been taught how to deal with the cold water baths, his uncle had told him “Throw out that first tabo of water, because it is always the first one that is cold!”

Children are born at home, with or without the help of a midwife. The lady above went to the market on Monday (2am) and when she came back at 5am, her daughter had already given birth! They had fetched the midwife on a motorcycle, but she was only in the house 3 minutes before the baby came. I think (sometimes my language skills miss) they were happy because they would not have to pay the full fee since the midwife was only there a short time!

I told this lady, “When October comes, and our baby is due, I am going to send you to the market!” Maybe it will work!

Frequently we see the little children running around without clothes. Many babies are without diapers, and just held in their mother or father’s arms in their birthday suit. It is easier to clean up than to have to wash the clothes that would get soiled.


The simple life…even God’s call to us was a timely reminder
1Ti 6:8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.


The gospel message is a simple one. To the world it seems foolish, what seems more foolish than for a man to get up and preach, yell and point his finger and say if you will repent and accept Christ, your now and forever will be changed? It is this simplicity that keeps many people from accepting the gospel, it just seems too good to be true. Thank God, it is true! Follow @ddevonshire

The Crooked Cross

During the Easter season here, there is a custom called Pabasa. Small areas in every neighborhood are set up with a cross and a bible, a microphone and a P.A. system. Starting on Holy Thursday and continuing non-stop through Holy Friday, people take turns chanting or singing the bible. Even children get involved and are found in front of the bible with the microphone. Communities take special care to decorate this Pabasa area and usually have a banner, and streamers marking out the area. Since I had to drive by two Pabasa places to go to an area where we pick up people for church, I had noticed the large wooden cross that they had erected. It is perhaps 8-10 feet tall, so you really can't miss it. Alas, Easter has come and gone, and today, as I was driving into the area, I saw the Pabasa cross, laid on it's side, crooked against the barbed wire. It looked as if it has been forsaken there. Left to rot. It made me think of how often, in a special time when the world is looking, people hold the cross high, but in daily life, it is often forsaken, laid aside until someone is watching. God help me to take up my cross daily. Follow @ddevonshire

A Boy!

Today we went to the hospital to do some tests and the laboratory happened to be directly across from the ultrasound area. So I asked when they are able to identify the gender of a baby. The man was clueless and said he would have to ask. I returned later and he said they could tell at five months, then the lady next to him said six or seven months. Well if they thought they could, and it was only about $10, we went for it. After about an hour and a half wait, we went in and enjoyed watching our restless little fellow. He was quite active and when it got to the all important gender identification time, the doctor said what he saw seemed to indicate a boy. 70-80% sure. While he was looking around, my wife said to him, can you tell if he has all of his fingers and toes? Almost immediately after she said that, the little fellow held his hand up for the camera and we could count all of the fingers. It was as if God told him, "Hey! Hold up your hand so they can see!" Really a special moment. Follow @ddevonshire

I Shouldn't Have, But I Did

I have already told you how that I sometimes struggle with the myriad needs that surround us from day to day. Hungry faces asking for food, sick bodies needing medicine, desperate families trying to educate their children, and I am trying to live and give, as Christ would have me. Yet there are certain times when turning down the request is easier than others.

Friday we were soulwinning before our outstation. We came across some ladies, some probably in their thirties and some maybe in their sixties. I invited them to the service and she immediately asked if there was going to be food there. I have heard this question so many times, that I have a prepared answer. "Walang pagkain para tiyan mo, pero pagkain para kaluluwa mo" No food for your belly, but food for your soul. That usually silences the insincere inquirer. This time one of the ladies, (and I must include this for clarity,) who was fat, began to be very demonstrative, and said, "That is not right, if I am hungry, I can not listen to the word of God!" She was semi-mocking in her tone and actions, and I know I should not have, but I did....I told her "Well, you don't look very hungry." I think the giggles from the other ladies signalled their agreement in my assessment. Follow @ddevonshire