Johnny and Orpha Macad are fellow Northern Luzon Missionaries with New Tribes Mission. They have planted a church among the Kalinga tribe and are now working on a second church plant in a different province. The Macads asked me to speak at their Kalinga youth conference this year and I was glad to accept because I’ve been wanting to visit the Kalinga for a long time.
I was offered a ride with some people who were coming from a province south of the Kalinga if I would meet them at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t do the math and rushed to get to there ahead of the ride. I beat them by two hours therefore I had plenty of time to take pictures of interesting vehicles. There were lots of rototiller-mobiles and top loaded jeeps.
Finally, Kuya Jessie and Kuya Rene, New Tribes Mission missionaries came and rescued the local farmers from the photo shoot.
It wasn’t long before we left the lowlands behind and started gaining elevation as we drove through jungle covered mountains.
The folks in these mountains have done an amazing job of terracing the mountains to make rice fields. We drove on and on and around each corner was either beautiful jungle or amazing rice terraces. At dusk we turned off the road onto a steep rutted track and ground our way up the mountain for an hour. At last the van could go no farther and we got out and walked an hour in the dark before reaching our destination.
In the morning I woke up and had a look around.
A dedicated group of cooks had breakfast ready for us and kept us fed well for three days.
After breakfast and singing time I met my students. They were a great bunch and we spent four hours learning together.
The conference theme was the coming of the Lord and we covered Jesus’ earthly ministry, the rapture, and millennium events. Johnny team-taught with me.
When I was not teaching, I had plenty of time to visit with folks and practice speaking Ilokano, the Northern Luzon trade language.
As I sat and visited and as I roamed around the village, I noticed I had a little shadow.
I actually noticed when I was reviewing my pictures and found that a particular pretty little face was in a lot of my photos.
On the third day it was time for me to start my trip home. My friends with the van had left a day earlier, so I had to find a different way home. The first hour was on a motorcycle. Johnny was kind enough to stop at picturesque places I has missed coming in in the dark.
This is just one example of the many beautifully terraced valleys I saw. By the way you can just stand on the road to take pictures because there are no unsightly guard rails to block the view or to hinder you from driving down for a closer look.
I didn’t know if I would be able to catch a ride when we got to the road, but we arrived just as the bus drove up. I saw some white faces aboard and was surprised to meet up with some French folks I had met the previous Sunday in church in the big city. It was nice to have friends to travel with on my way back to our mission center.
I arrived in the late afternoon, washed my clothes, and packed up. The next day I flew south and Heidi picked me up at the airport where I introduced her to my French friends who must be good friends because they also accompanied me to Manila.
I’ll be posting additional photos in a Facebook album. Thanks for reading and for your prayers!