Butuan and Gingoog

A week ago last Friday we drove to Butuan to visit with the Staigmillers and meet our newest coworker, A.C. Acosta, a Filipino American from Chicago. He is single, 40 years old, spent six years in the Marines before finding Christ, and is a Moody Bible Institute graduate. We had a lot of time with him and really enjoyed getting know him! I am sure he will be a real asset to the LRF team. Right now he is in Butuan studying Cebuano. He grew up hearing Ilonggo and Tagalog, so that is bound to help! We stayed with Angela and Andreas and had a very nice time with them as well! Amos has really grown, and it looks like he will be a BIG boy! We played Settlers of Catan with them, only we played the version Andreas had translated into Cebuano from German! Look forward to playing it again, now that we know what it is about! I won, by the way... but just barely!

On Saturday we met Bebeng and Maymay at the dentist. Maymay is our godchild who fell off the top bunk at our house and knocked out her front tooth and pushed three of the bottom ones inward. We arranged for an orthodontist in Butuan to put the bottom teeth back where they belong and fit her with a false tooth in front. The teeth are almost back where they should be, so that is good news!

We also met with the teachers at the language school who are working on the final translation corrections for "Steps to Freedom in Christ." It is almost done. While in Bancasi at the language school we talked to 2VJ (Who now goes by Wesley John) and told him we brought greetings from you kids. He was really thrilled, and I took his picture which I will post above this one.

Sunday morning after an early breakfast with the Staigmillers we drove down to Gingoog and arrived in time for church. It was good to be there and Cezar preached a good sermon on “Where is our hope?” We had several things to follow up on while we were there, and the Lord went before us in an amazing way and made sure we were able to see everyone we planned to see and others we hadn’t yet thought of! I will briefly describe the things that were accomplished.

Pidlagahan is a small village up in the hills above Gingoog. There have been between 6-10 people from there who have faithfully attended the church in Gingoog over the years. A farmer with a little training has been teaching up there, but he doesn’t look like he will become the pastor of a church. The economy is now such that these people can no longer afford the fare to come down to Gingoog for fellowship and teaching. They wanted to all attend a church that was somewhat closer, but still not in their area. We had heard that there was some land available that might be good for building a small meeting place in that area. There were also rumors that some of the people had been offended by Pastor Cezar, so we had two topics to talk about.

After talking to Pastor Cezar and others who were all willing to take turns teaching up there if there was a regular meeting, we went up to Pidlagahan to talk to the folks who live there. We met with about 10 people. They don’t want to come down to Gingoog anymore. We asked if they had a small piece of land (bought by us), would they be willing to put up a place to meet on it, and they said yes, but they didn’t know of any land available. It was agreed that they would look for land and we would ask our contacts to do the same, and in the meantime all pray about it. So we will see what happens with that.

Then Dad asked the couple who have been believers longest in Pidlagahan, the ones who have had a long-standing problem with Pastor Cezar, to go up the hill and talk with him alone. Dad was frank with them, said that he had been hearing little hints for some time from people about a problem, but no one had been willing to tell him what it was. He knew that before Cezar was saved, he was a drunk and had done some carousing in that very place, but that was many years ago, and each of us are new creatures in Christ. He said there must be something else, and that he would very much like to help if they would tell him what it was. Dad really appreciated the openess of the husband as he began to share... Initially he said Pastor Cezar’s preaching was the problem, that he couldn’t stand to listen to it. But then he qualified it to say that, when Pastor spoke from the Bible, it was fine, but the problem was his side remarks to the effect that some people were not interested in the gospel, but only in what they could get from the missionaries.

We had occasionally heard things like this from the pulpit, and we always cringed, but we had not understood the effect it had on poor, hard working people like these. They felt like they were being put down because they were poor, their motives for coming to church, their love for the Word of God and their faith questioned! These are people who had for years been spending about a half day’s wage every week to get down to the city just so they could go to church! Dad said he was sure Cezar had not been thinking of them when he said those things, but that that kind of thing should not be said at all, and that he would talk to Cezar about it, and that he was sure he would understand and change.

Because of a seminar Cezar was participating in, Dad did not think he would get to talk to him while we were in Gingoog and would have to do it by phone from CDO, a dicey proposition to be sure. But when we stopped by the church to pick up Cezar’s computer to repair (an old cast-off Mac), he was there! He and Dad had a very good discussion and Cezar indicated he was probably more guilty of the thing he had been remarking against than anyone else in the church! We are sure he won’t take long in going up there and talking to the people about this. He has a very teachable spirit and, like us through lots of practice, knows how to go about asking forgiveness. :-) Dad was also able to clear up something else that people had been holding against Cezar that was not at all his fault. We get a lot of joy in helping people work through things like this and seeing love restored among the brethren. You can include that in your prayers for these dear folks in Pidlagahan, and that a daughter church will soon be formed there.