Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by archiveworldraceblogs

So, this is my life:  I get to fall asleep to the sound of rain and the cadence of rainforest animals every night here. It’s pretty awesome the way Jesus chooses to lull me to sleep. God is so good.
 
I was very excited when my team got to go into a rainforest village with pastor Jojo of the Riverside Bible Fellowship.
 
Pastor Jojo ministers to the unreached tribal people in the rainforest surrounding Malaybalay, taking the Gospel to them and making disciples one tribe at a time. Having no clue what this would entail, I had no way of preparing myself.

It was dense. It was humid. And in between the tall trees, bamboo and ferns were little thatch huts tucked and nestled into the scenery. It was breathtaking and beautiful as the mist swirled and trickled from treetop to air to ferns into babbling streams and pools of water everywhere! Muddy paths and patches between tall grass meandered in between the little huts erected on stilts.

Trying not to lose my footing between rock, root and mud, I followed the single file that pastor Jojo was leading to the first house we’d be visiting.

I stepped through bamboo framing into a small area where shoes were collected outside the house entrance, indicating for me to remove my sandals before going inside. Sandals off, and stepping up into a hut woven together and up on stilts was surreal.


I found myself in awe of the smoky smell within, the lines of hanging laundry and hammocks above my head.

Soon, I’d be extending my hand and offering a smile to an old man with short black hair, missing teeth, skin that looked like crackled leather painted in chocolate and glimmering small eyes. Greetings would be exchanged as we all huddled into his very, very small hut home.

This was my brother in Christ, a faithful saint ready to welcome in missionaries who would listen to his struggles, pray for him and sing him a worship song for encouragement.

 

His wife arrived shortly after we’d managed to settle seven of us into a snug seating arrangement on the floor. She was so shy. She could not make eye contact, although she could also not keep from smiling. This indigenous woman was slight in figure and had thick, long black hair down past her shoulders and smooth, tan skin that only crinkled around her eyes and mouth. She was so shy, in fact, that she kept covering her face with both of her hands and sat as far away from us as she could.

Pastor Jojo is their pastor and would translate for us, sharing with us their prayer needs and concerns.
 

Pastor Jojo encouraged us to minister freely: share words of encouragement, exhortation or prophesy, impart to them bible knowledge, pray for them and worship God with them.
 
We did all of that for them, and could see how blessed our indigenous brothers and sisters were by hosting us for a visit, despite how shy they were about their humble home and encountering people from the west.
 
The afternoon seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, as we went from hut to hut and family to family.

The routine was the same: hike through the mud, remove sandals and step up into the stilted hut.

I met a 10 day old baby in a small hut with his dad, mom, grandmother, cousin and other small children all living together.

Another baby was sleeping soundly in a flour-sack sling hanging from a bamboo pole as his grandmother bounced him up and down inside their home.

I met a little old lady that reminded me of my own great grandmother, Abuelita Petra, and I immediately took a liking to her. She shared with me that she was very thankful to God that all of her children had faith in Jesus and that she always tells the babies and children to follow Jesus. And I met a woman with eight children, and a husband who had just recently come to Jesus.
 

 The cutest kid faces would appear and disappear quickly from gaps in the walls and open-air areas around the ceiling, as village kids stalked us from house to house giggling with curiousity.

 

Each home was filled with beautiful, brown people with shy smiles, hungry bellies, heavy burdens and budding faith in Christ Jesus.

My heart was breaking with the stories of eating whatever could be dug up from the trash bins on the outskirts of the city, families having had infants dying due to sickness multiple times, men who desperately wanted to work and provide for their families but having no jobs for years, countless children too poor to afford to go to school and all of them requesting one prayer: more faith.