Every so often, instead of a news update, we’d like to introduce a particular Palawano to you. As you get to know more about each one, perhaps you will be better able to pray for them and this work of Reaching Palawanos.

First I’ll remind you that we were not the first missionaries in this location (you can find more detail on our web site.) When we moved here in 1982, there was a small handful of Christians here. But they had no Bible in their language, not even portions. They only worship songs they knew were in another language. They were no longer meeting together. They knew the gospel and that was about it.

We came here to disciple these Christians, to get them going on outreach, and to give them the New Testament in their own language. But we could not minister much here at first, of course. We had to learn the language and that took a few years. But we were told the names of the believers. One of the men was Pordinsio.

Pordinsio is a fun guy. He’s one of those who has a presence… he’s friendly and talkative; he loud and funny and loves to kid around. So do I, so we had fun joking around while building our house. We call each other “cousin” because Palawanos normally use kin terms or nicknames instead of names.

One of Pordinsio’s nicknames is simply Dinsio. In his younger days, he was one a blacksmith, too. He made me a really cool machete, which I still own. His wife Iling is one of our local midwives. She and her two sisters were a rare entity in here in that their parents were Christians. Very few in that older generation were believers. Sadly, neither of Iling’s sisters’ husbands were believers.

As far as family, Pordinsio was well-connected. His father Sugim was the clan leader for the whole valley. Since this position passes through female descent, Pordinsio did not inherit the position; his sister’s husbands did. But he still had an inside track with all these leaders by being their brother-in-law.

I’d say that Pordinsio is one of the hardest working guys in our area. He realizes that the Palawano way of life gives you few guarantees of prosperity, so he does the Palawano equivalent of “diversifying his portfolio.” He farms upland rice and plants pineapples, bananas and root crops. Lots of them. He also hunts for wild pigs. When the farming cycle is in a low-work season, he’s gathering rattan and other forest products to sell.

He’s also one that seems to have more than his share of serious injuries. There’s a huge scar on his thigh from the tusk of one wild boar who was less than willing to be killed. He severed the end of his finger when a water buffalo pulled the rope tight and the finger was caught between the rope and a stump. (Yes, ow. And yes, ewwww… you have no idea how dirty that rope was! Guess who he came to for medical help that day. Right… me and Donna.)

But the sad thing is that, or the entire time we’ve been in here, Pordinsio is “missing in action” as far as his faith. Whenever we talk to him, he says he’s a believer. He just “has problems” with some of the others and such. We could never get to the bottom of what the history was… who he had “bad liver” toward, or why. He’s come to church maybe 4 times in 26 years. I’ve always tried to reach out to him: we’ve included him in work projects on the airstrip; I taught an evangelistic Bible study in his home so his unsaved brother-in-law could hear the gospel. But nothing seemed to take care of whatever the deep issue was that kept him from fellowship.

Just the other day, Donna and I were walking the airstrip as we do in the late afternoon. We decided to skip our last lap because dark clouds were blowing in and threatening hard rain. Just as we got to the house, there was Pordinsio, carrying a backpack. I thought maybe he was there to talk about the issue in the clinic (see last weeks Aug 15 update), but he never mentioned it. He surprised us… in two ways.

First he said he had something he’d found and he wanted to show it to us. To see if we knew what it was, or if it was worth anything. He’d found ten of these, he said, stuck in cement, near the river in a place where the Spanish used to live (so we’re talking about a hundred years ago or more). At first it looked like a rock. A gray rock that was hollow and had white quartz-like rock inside. I said, “Cool rock!” But then as we looked at it, we realized it was a CLAM, not a rock. Near as we could guess in our geological naivete was, this was a fossilized clam! But why there was quartz inside… no clue. What it’s worth… who knows! Ten cents at a garage sale, or a million bucks, we’ll never know.

The second surprise was he started talking about the Lord. Said he’d been “feeling sad” about being absent for so long. He said, “unless something happens, I think I will come on Sunday.” I replied that we, and everyone else, would love that. He went home and I was standing there shaking my head, thinking, “Well, we’ll see!” Maybe he just said that while there with me, thinking that’s something I’d like to hear. But maybe he really WAS feeling sad, and the Lord was working in his heart. So we prayed for him.

This morning was one of those days we don’t know if we’ll get to church or not. Black clouds blowing in with gale force, then hard rain. Being August, this kind of weather can mean tons of rain in a matter of minutes. People stay home from church. The river can flood quickly, so those of us on this side of the river may decide to stay home. But the rain slacked a bit. Abil passed on his way across and asked, “Will you cross?” I said we would, since the rain stopped.

So we went to church, expecting small numbers. Donna and I were the first ones there. The second person to arrive was… Pordinsio! There he was. He had come after all. Gradually others arrived and by the end we had around 23 Palawanos there. That’s down from our recent higher attendance, but not bad for a stormy day!

For the last song, Iping suggested the “Welcome Song.” We have the “Welcome to the Family” song in Palawano. Everyone sings and walks around greeting each other. They call for this particularly when there’s a visitor or someone who hasn’t come in a long time.

So Pordinsio came. He was greeted warmly. He heard worship music for the first time in years. He heard the teaching of God’s Word as I shared on our hope as explained in 1 Thess 4 together with the newly-translated Acts 1, “This same Jesus… will return… from heaven…”

We’d like to ask you to pray for Pordinsio. Pray that God will continue to work in his hear and that he will respond, that this won’t be another once-every-ten years event. Pray that he will be encouraged in his faith, grow and begin to use his gifts and energy for the Lord.

This is God’s work here. We don’t make it happen. The Word of God and his Spirit are the only things that will change lives.

And that’s where you come in…. praying for us as we translate, and for the Palawanos here, for people like Dinsio and Iling.