Kemantian
Jeremy Gable
Unfortunately, I still don't have alot of time. It seems that this is
going to be the case for most of the times. Just so that you're all
aware, my scheduled email time is Sunday 10-11 am (my time) which is 14
hours ahead of US Central Standard Time. So with that in mind, you'll
have to figure out what time that will be wherever you're reading this
from. For anyone interrested in sending things to me here at the
project, you can find my mailing address on the AFM website, which is
www.afmonline.org Just click on Student Missionaries on the left side
of the screen, and then click on my name and browse through the options
displayed on that page.
I wish I could send you all some pictures of this place, but
unfortunately, I don't have a camera to take any. Another SM here has
taken some pictures for me with her digital camera, but there hasn't
been any oportunity to get them off her camera yet. I REALLY wish I
had a camera. This place is absolutely GORGEOUS and the people are shy
and very friendly. They love to laugh and relationships are of prime
importance to them. I work here from about 7:30am until about 6:00 pm.
The sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm.
Thursday we had a monstrous rainstorm which then continued on into the
night and throughout most of the night. The end result being that the
water reserviour (spelling?) which gives us water pressure to run our
hydro-electric generator became over half filled with silt, sand,
gravel, and larger rocks, plugging up the hydro intake pipe and
burrying it so that we lost hydro power. It was cloudy all day Friday
so we also had no solar power. This was bad because our radios that we
use for communication in this treacherous mountain area need to be
charged in order to work. Likewise, this computer needs power to work
so that we can communicate with the outside world. So from about 8 am,
until just an hour before Sabbath began at 6pm, I was waist-deep in the
hydro pool in approx. 60 degree F water with a few male Palawans
working to uncover the pipe so the generator would work again. In all
that time, we managed to find and uncover the majority of the pipe,
only to find out that it didn't solve the problem. So we quit working
and headed back down the mountain to our huts to prepare for Sabbath.
It was cloudy again all Sabbath so no power then either. On top of
that, there was another TORRENTIAL rainstorm on Sabbath. There are
three small creeks that run through the part of the village where we
live, and they were all flooding. The one that runs between the
church/school and the clinic & SM huts was flooded so bad that it was
threatening to wash away anyone who tried to cross. The palawans are
not very big people, so only the biggest and sturdiest of them were
able to cross without much trouble. The nimble-footed were able to get
by with a little difficulty, but most needed the help of someone
bigger, including all the women. So myself and a couple of the other
men of the village stood in the pouring rain to help people across.
Before we got there though, two people were washed down the river a
short ways, and had to be rescued. They didn't get washed away
completely (only about 15 feet or so) but got tumbled around and banged
up pretty badly. We got them back to the clinic and treated their
wounds and sent them with one of the local church members back to his
house to take care of. This all took place right after church, which
is normally when the church members split up to head out to the
outlying villages to do branch-sabbath schools. This is how the
organized evangelism works here, and it usually takes all sabbath
afternoon. Sabbaths here are not idle time, sitting around, sleeping,
or being lazy. For us, Sabbaths are the time God has given us to share
our knowledge and love for Him with those who don't yet know Him. The
village that Pastor and I go to every week (Kensuli (Kuhn-sue-lee)) is
across the Tamlang (Tahm-lahng) river which is the river that all other
rivers in this valley drain into. When it hasn't been raining much,
it's a fairly mighty river, though still easily crossable if you're not
completely careless about how you step. Yesterday, though, was a
different story. With all the rain, it was VERY mighty. He and I
probably could have crossed it with difficulty if we were extremely
careful, but we didn't know if the rain would let up at all. If the
rain didn't stop, then it was quite likely we wouldn't be able to cross
it on our way back in the evening. Given that thought, we decided it
best to just stay around our part of the valley. I helped out a little
with people at the clinic, and Pastor went to the home of a local whose
wife was very sick, and gave them a radio so they could communicate
with us if her condition changed at all.
This morning, Pastor and I collected the tools we would need to get the
hydro pool and pipe system working again, but decided to check the
large drainage valve at the hydro plant before heading up the mountain
to the hydro pool. When we opened it up, it sprayed like a firehose
for a couple minutes, then dropped to a muddy trickle. We waited a few
more minutes, to see if it would improve at all. Over the next ten
minutes or so, it increased a bit, then spent alot of time belching out
air trapped in the pipes, spewing out bunches of mud here and there,
and then began to flow freely! We stood there another 10 minutes or so
to let it finish burping out all the air, then started up the hydro
plant and it ran beautifully! Praise God! When we'd left off digging
in the pool on Friday, the valve would just trickle and not improve!
We fully expected that the rainstorm we had on Sabbath would make our
situation worse by filling in the pool and burrying the pipe again, but
it didn't! We went up to the pool anyone just to check things out and
make sure everything was as it should be. It was, so we headed back
down (after pastor lost his glasses in the pool by forgetting to take
them off before going under the waterfall).
That's just an abriged version of the events of the last couple days.
Imagine how much more there is to share with you all, given that I've
been here for going on 3 weeks now (not counting everything I would
like to share about the two weeks in the lowlands it took us just to
get to the project)!! The church members have come such a long way
since this project was started! I'm almost out of time now, so I can't
even start to tell you in this email about all of it. One thing that's
a big sign of the effect of this project in these mountains, earlier
last week we had a visit from some people from a village on the
opposite side of this island. Their village is in the mountains, but
is essentially sitting right on the western shore. We're on the
eastern side of the island. They came here wanting us to send some
missionaries to their village so they could learn about God! Needless
to say, this is very exciting news to all of us! We don't know yet who
will be going, but it will most likely be one of our Palawan church
members. It's not likely that another career missionary will be sent
to work among the same people group. So please that God will open a
door to send missionaries to this village, as well as the few others
that have sent us similar requests! Pray that He will put it into a
Palawan's heart to go!
That's all for now. I miss you all, and I hope that these brief times
of contact are a blessing to you!
With love in Christ,
Jeremy Gable