As our helicopter flew past Mount Megringgit (“Saw-tooth”), I marveled at how unromantic it appeared up close. Megringgit is our gauge of accessibility to Kebgen, our mission station in the mountains of western Palawan. If Megringgit isn’t socked in by clouds, we know the helicopter can get into Kebgen.
For weeks we had been watching conditions on Megringgit, and it was always cloudy. We packed and unpacked on four different Fridays. One day we thought we saw an opening in the clouds and decided to make a run for it, only to get up close to Megringgit and have the clouds start closing in around us. So anticipation grew as we awaited the Lord’s timing for my first foray into Kebgen.
Finally, one Friday dawned clear and bright, and we landed in Kebgen with medical supplies for future trips. I had seen pictures of Kebgen, and I had already met many of the people who live in the area, but to actually get to be in Kebgen after five years was thrilling.
Kebgen is a somewhat run-down and isolated place where the houses are old, and the school is so decrepit that it can’t be used in a rain storm. So why was I so thrilled to be there? For us, Kebgen represents the nucleus of our work in the region, and people are moving back to Kebgen to benefit from what we have to offer. Kalbu, one of our former lay-pastors in the area who backslid, is now married and lives there with his wife and her family. He is coming back to the Lord and is voluntarily visiting and teaching people. I’m also thrilled to report that Durman, with whom Niksun (our first missionary to the area) and Kalbu each studied, is continuing to grow in the Lord. He leads out in services and visits people. His wife is starting to believe and is quite enthusiastic and involved in spite of the fact that she is a young mother of seven children! It is thrilling to me that these people are finding Christ in Kebgen.
The landing place for the helicopter is a narrow ridge on the saddle of a mountain. The approach among the sparsely settled mountains gave us a sense of isolation, but there were people to greet us when we landed. They had been waiting for us for weeks. Some had been sick for a month or more waiting for us to come and help them.
The first thing we did was set up our makeshift clinic (medicines and supplies organized in cardboard boxes), pull out our notebooks and start trying to find out who was related to whom, how old they were, and what their sicknesses were. It was hard to sort out this information. In their area, it is taboo to say the name of other people, especially those of your elders, and it is taboo to say your own name as well! Sorting out family groups was also a challenge due to so much polygamy. To complicate things, one man might be married to sisters. So simply asking who the father of a particular child is doesn’t give you the whole family picture. When we ask people their ages, they give us their best guesses. Some claim to be 100 years old, and others claim to be 75, none of them looking more than 25 years old. Some young girls are sure they are in their 20s, but their size and body and tooth development indicate they are more likely 11 or 12. Often very young girls marry men who are 25 or 30 years older, so we have learned never to assume relationships. Her father? No, her husband!
Going to Kebgen reminded me in many ways of our arrival in Kemantian 20 years ago. Beautiful, friendly people, many painfully shy, clothing torn and old, scabies covering their bodies, lice in unkempt hair, and lots of fungal infections. Trying to define their physical maladies was a challenge, too. Their complaints tended to be a list of all the symptoms they had ever experienced. It was a great training ground for our high school students whom I’ve been training for several years to take vital signs, health histories, and some initial physical findings.
When we arrived the people gave us large, juicy usew (rambutans), which I ate with relish, gnawing the juicy flesh off the almond-sized seed. So refreshing! Hilin, a high school junior, said, “Minan, the seeds are really good to eat, too. Don’t throw them out!” Eager to try something new, I ate a whole usew, seed and all. It was so much easier to eat that way that I had a bunch more.
Later that afternoon when it was time for Hilin and me to resume our clinic work, I felt very nauseated and sleepy. So I lay down on the floor on my sleeping mat and told Hilin to continue taking vitals and health histories, and I would be up soon to dispense medicines. But I felt pretty miserable for the rest of the afternoon. The encouraging thing was that I got to overhear Hilin going through health histories without my help. Besides the standard questions and depending on their answers, she would ask about other body systems, more closely targeting the diagnosis. I was so excited! She was really getting what I had taught her. It was rewarding to see that our hands-on method of training our students is paying off.
That evening as I was finally starting to feel better, Hilin mentioned that she had a bad headache. When I asked her what she thought had caused it, she told me it was the three usew seeds she had eaten. Three?! I had eaten so many more than that! When I remonstrated with her, she said, “The seeds are edible, you just shouldn’t eat very many.” Well, thank you for that piece of information!
That Friday evening as we gathered in Kalbu’s mother-in-law’s house for worship and then much-needed sleep, I was excited to see additional families staying there with us as well. They listened intently to the singing and the stories, curled up on the floor without sleeping mats, talked into the night and then coughed the rest of the night (more patients to take care of in the morning).
Sabbath morning, after a communal breakfast, we went to the new house Durman is building in Kebgen. There were more than 30 people there, many from over an hour’s hike away. They were an enthusiastic and responsive group. Several ladies kept calling out “Banar! Banar!” (“True! True!”) as they listened to the stories and sermons. During church and also during the afternoon program, several men and women gave heartfelt testimonies of how much Jesus means to them and how He is working on their hearts.
During one of the programs, time was given to Agri, a visiting native pastor from another village. We first met Agri when we went through his region five years ago on our initial trip to the Kebgen area, and he had invited us to spend the weekend in a field house near his village. He and his family had needed medical care, but he feared we wouldn’t treat them since they were not Adventists. We assured him that God’s medicine is for all people, and they happily accepted our help. On this day Agri shared how the Lord is working in his life and then pled for more opportunities for fellowship between the two congregations. Many of his members were in our church that day, and they seem to really love the Lord. I’ve been supplying Agri and some of his members with Bibles and audio players with the New Testament in their language. They are eager to learn. Agri said, “Having a Bible in my own dialect will make it so much easier to understand and teach my people. All we’ve had was this tiny Tagalog New Testament.” I know the Spirit of God is working and opening peoples’ hearts.
During our time of fellowship Sabbath afternoon, a woman came up to me, tentatively indicating she had something important to tell me. She came up close to me and started apologizing for some awful things she had done against me when she had accompanied a patient to our clinic in Kemantian. I told her that all was forgiven (I actually had no recollection of the incident). We had our picture taken together, and she was so happy to have my forgiveness and to be released from her sense of guilt. I have a new friend.
On Sunday morning, the members from the neighboring church came back to Durman’s house to have church with us again. They said, “Now this is our day, and you can have church with us!” I don’t know how many people were in Agri’s church that day in his distant village, but there were quite a number who came to “church” with us and to see us off.
We had brought our older uncle Mentapang with us. We have been working with him for over a year, and it was fun to see him interacting in a new setting. He gave several testimonies of what the Lord is doing in His life, and he marveled at his own sense of openness. “You’ve never seen me testifying like this before!” he said.
Though the work in Kebgen has had some setbacks over the years, it is evident that seeds are being planted in people’s hearts and are growing and maturing. I’m grateful for the helicopter that can take us more frequently so we can develop our lay-leadership there. The people are eager to have a literacy school and more regular medical care again, providing a great hands-on laboratory for our student missionaries-in-training.
Thank you for your support of this work through your prayers and sacrificial gifts of clothing, school supplies and financial backing. These former Taw’t Deram cannibals are finding Jesus.
