We were screaming and talking like hillbillies as we made our way along a muddy jungle road. It is the rainy season here, and the mud was deep. Josh, Ryan, and I were in the back of a two wheel drive pick up truck. With the three of us and all our bags, there was enough weight for us to make it through, but there were a few spots where we needed to take a few tries.
We pulled into this village, and we arrived back in time. We have electricity, and as I type I can hear buddhist chants on the radio. They sound pretty cool. The pigs are squealing below us, as we sit in a house on stilts. The floor I am sitting on is made of the same hardwood that everything is built with, wood that would be pretty expensive back home, wood that nice furniture would be made out of. Some of the floors are thin bamboo and I need to look through the cracks to find the parts that are supported so I don’t fall through.
The people are all very shy here. The girls and Linnea and I are staying in the house of the pastor, who looks about 18 years old, but might be 50, I can’t tell the age of these people at all.
We just went and looked at the area where we will be clearing land for the new church building. Walking around the area made me think of Stanley Albert Dale who hiked into the Heluk valley of Irian Jaya, which we now call Indonesia. He and a buddy waltzed into this cannibalistic tribe’s village and started building an air strip. None of the tribe’s people would speak to them, and for months these two cleared land to bring in a plane while the people watched. The people had a theory that these two were some of their own, reincarnated, and their skin was white because of being bleached during the cremation. This must be the returned spirits of their priests, because who else would be able to tear down the sacred places of the spirit ‘kembu’? The missionaries walked right into the most sacred area and set up shop. It was 11 months of labor for them. In incredibly harsh environment, these men were determined to bring the ‘good news’.
We came back from looking at the land, and Tim had already made friends with some of the kids. Tim just has a gift of connecting with the people, then I came along and scared all the kids away. Go figure.
We have not had accomadations as nice as this since Utupampa, and I am really excited to be here. I really like the tribal society and the experience of living with the people. I just don’t know how some of those missionary pioneers did it for so long…we are here for 5 days, then we move on, I can’t imagine the determination of Stanley Dale and his buddy, working so hard for so long on such meager supplies, cut off from any other interactions. I know I would have quit in their situation.
The End.
