Back Home Until Next Year

Pops returned home a little over two weeks ago and had an overall good report from his time there. He had good concluding meetings with the Lamane church leadership in which he challenged them to take steps to reduce the roteness and monotony of "church as usual." Specifically he encouraged them to change their traditional "Sunday school" to smaller group settings throughout the week in the various sitios (the idea being to encourage greater community interaction and less "religious" activity).

Pops also spent a significant amount of his time during the last week encouraging the laity in both Lamane and each of the other outlying sitios to increase their fellowship with each other to promote spiritual stimulation and greater accountability.

Though some of this will be redundant for those of you who have been following the blog, I thought that you would enjoy seeing a letter that Pops just wrote to summarize his '09 trip. It is as follows:

Thank you for your interest, prayer, and financial contribution to my
recent ministry to the Tagbanwa church in the Philippines.

There are seven different Tagbanwa church communities. Only
one has elders. Some of the others have relatively solid leadership, and
some have so little that they can hardly be called a New Testament church.
I met at each of these weekly, as well as with several subgroups. For over
half of these meetings, I traveled a short distance by
motorcycle.

While I am frustrated with the lack of true spiritual
leadership in the church, I am also encouraged by the level of interest in and
hunger for God’s Word. I taught Ephesians. I had enough time to be
repetitive with the message – an important component in teaching the
Tagbanwas. People loved it! They looked forward to our meeting
times. We shared together, prayed together, studied together, strategized
together, and learned together.

I encouraged them strongly to view
my time there as a training time; a time when they would particularly focus on
reading and studying daily. As much as I enjoyed giving, I told them it is
not about my joy, but rather about their learning, their recognition of who
Christ is, and His glory being manifested in and through the church.

Ty, my second son who grew up there, came midway through my time
there. Mike McMahon, from Bay Area Community Church, our home church,
traveled with him. Mike was able to share almost daily at various venues
in the greater community, using a Tagbanwa translator. Mike’s story was
relevant and dynamic. Ty met with the younger men in the church. His
objective was to encourage them on to being good fathers and to begin seeing
themselves as leaders. The people aggressively embraced both of them and
their efforts.

The bottom line was that Christ would be
elevated to His proper place of authority in life – both theirs and ours.
Let’s pray for each other to that end.

Again, thanks for your
investment in the greater body of Christ

May He be
glorified,Tim

As Pops said, thank you again for your continued investment in this member of Christ's body. We were very blessed to hear from so many of you that you have been supporting Pops and the Tagbanwa churches with your thoughts and prayers. Also, we were again amazed at how God has so effectively provided for the financial needs of this work with so little effort on our part.

God Bless,

Tim Mewmaw

More Encouraging News

The latest from Lamane is a series of heartening news.

Pops' leg is on the mend; he's finished with the antibiotics and says that his leg seems to be healing well.

Pops agreed to teach last Sunday and he said that it went very well (this has not been his typical practice because he's been trying to encourage the tribal leaders to be more autonomous). His text was Colossians 1 & 2 and he said that people were very attentive. After preaching they worshipped for awhile and he said that it was very good (nearly brought tears). They then read several texts and sang again while taking the Lord's supper. Pops said that the whole service was very stiring and was a real blessing to him.

Later Sunday night Pops got together with a group of the elders and they had a very encouraging meeting. They discussed bringing a new member into the leadership and it went very well. One of the real challenges over the years has been the tendency toward factionalism and resistance to change. Pops felt like the meeting went a long way toward starting break from those patterns.

The last exciting piece of information is that one member of the church has begun meeting with another member of the tribe to seek some public reconciliation. Pops says that this is a direct result of Ty and Mike's interaction while they were there.

All-in-all a lot of good news. Of course there continues to be a lot to pray for: Pops is only going to be there another week and we need to be praying that he ends strong and that the people will continue to ruminate on the things that he has worked on during this trip. Also, while it is healing, we should continue to be praying for Pops' leg to fully recover. Finally, the realities of the local economy are far worse than we can even imagine. Please continue to pray that the Lord would provide for his people there.

We have been talking some about ways that we could practically help with the current food crisis, so please pray that God would give us wisdom in knowing how to proceed there. Also, please consider combining some "works" with your "faith" if/when we can get a relief plan organized (see James 2:14-26).

Pops At Work

Sharing Christ still means hiking on dirt paths and getting your feet wet.

One of Pop's weekly activities has been tutoring children in English

This is the Lamane church building where Pops frequently meets with some of the men to dig into the word

Still no electricity? No problem, lanterns work too!

The Way It Is

Lice picking--A favourite past time for any kid! : )

Beautiful!

Beautiful!! The sea has been a bit rough lately--makes it tough to fish

New and inescapable evidence that alcohol use is significantly higher than it ever has been.

The Important Things

Being a relatively new father (soon to be of two) I couldn't help but share this string of pics.

Ty & Mike Report A Good Trip

Ty and Mike are both back from their trip out to the tribe and had an encouraging report concerning spiritual things there.

Pops had arranged a pretty rigorous speaking schedule for Mike and the report is that he was received well. Ty met numerous times with the group of guys (now men with families) that he grew up with and they had many encouraging talks! Many of their generation (24-30 year-olds) are actively pursuing Christ and are taking steps to lead their families accordingly. There have been some difficulties with their increasing involvement in the church because the elderly leaders have maintained relatively tight reigns on their positions. Further, the younger guys unanimously acknowledged the difficulty of balancing the survival of their family's with making time for spiritual/church things. Which brings me to a significant prayer request...

As I have mentioned before, the collapse of the price of nickel has caused the mine to cease operations. They have kept a skeleton crew on site to maintain security, but pretty much all of the local workers have been laid off. The significance of this is very big for Lamane and the surrounding sitios. The creation of real paying jobs and the influx of cash that they and the traffic to/from the mine has produced over the past couple of years has significantly inflated the local economy. Further, the global recession and the droughts of last year have nearly tripled the price of rice. Finally, the fact that many people had begun to work and were relying on paychecks to provide for their needs has meant that they have not maintained their own private rice fields. These factors combined with a significant decline in the local fish population are adding up to a very serious and difficult situation. The prospect of not having enough food to feed their families is a very real threat.

That being said, this problem should not be met by simply going in and handing out bags of free rice. Among the locals there is already the frequent expectation for handouts from foreigners. Many see foreigners as a bottomless source of wealth and do not understand that the handouts they receive are only available because someone else has worked or sacrificed to make them so. Foreign generosity has frequently enabled irresponsible behavior and encouraged laziness amongst the locals. Hence, if we are to help we need to find a way to do so that encourages them to be proactive to combat their situation as well. Please pray for wisdom in this situation and that God would continue to provide for them.

Going back to the spiritual work that we are doing there, Ty said that he was struck by how much Pops is out. He said that Pops is rarely at the house and that he is maintaining a weekly schedule that has him in each of the 6 villages multiple times a week. Pops is loving the work. His goal for this trip was to concentrate on Ephesians and he has spent the whole past month on Chapter One. He says he's been "going from the spiritual blessings to man to the God-ward glory that is to flow from the church." Several of the groups in the outlying sitios have been very responsive and passionate in his discussions/studies with them. However, some of the others have been the opposite. Pops says that he feels like some of what he's sharing may be going over some people's heads, but that's okay as long as the leaders are following and being encouraged and he believes that they are.

There are a number of other encouraging things as well, a group of the elders collectively sought reconciliation with a member of the community over a situation that had alienated this individual for the past couple of years. This reconciliation was successful. There is also a young man (mid-twenties) who has returned to the tribe after getting a theological education from outside and Pops has been working with him quite a bit. Pops says that he is very "dedicated and capable" and is motivated to be involved with the church. All in all, a good report.

Please continue to pray that the local church leadership would be motivated and inspired to include and disciple the younger generation. Please pray for the physical sustenance of the people--having enough food is a real concern for them. Finally, please continue to pray for Pops' physical health and well-being. He got a relatively minor burn on his shin from a motorbike muffler (while Ty and Mike were still in the tribe) but it has now become infected and could be serious (infection is serious a serious concern there in the jungle). Thank you all for you ongoing prayer and support! It is truly a blessing to be able to experience this instance of the unification and physical outworking of the church as Christ's body. God bless,

Tim Mewmaw

2009 News & First Impressions

Pops has been in the tribe for about a week now. Texting with him last night he sais that he's finally feeling rested and settled in. The personal situation I mentioned in my last post has been at least temporarily resolved and so it should not have much effect throughout this visit.

Pops said that he's worked out a pretty full schedule of studies and visits with church leaders in both Lamane and the five daughter churches in the surrounding area. Figuring out his schedule was particularly difficult because he does not have the use of a motorbike for this visit (several of the daughter churches are miles away from Lamane).

So far, Pops' observations of how the church has done since last year has been pretty disheartening. In his words:

I'll have to say that I am disappointed with what I'm finding with the
Tagbanwa church. While enroute, I reviewed the things we talked about
last April. I had addressed things way below the surface...and hoped
that it made a difference. At first survey, I'm not so convinced.
The elders are telling me that the world continues to encroach on the
church...that alcohol use is on the rise, and that daughter church leaders are
still feeling adrift.

I come (annually now) and pick up in a
discipleship role. I find it so easy to encourage those non-elder leaders,
just spending time with them in the Word. It is disappointing that the
elders can't figure out a way to do the same. I'm really attempting to do
what I had intended for them to do.

Basically, last April Pops challenged the Lamane church leadership to follow the example that he had set during the two months he was there. Namely, to meet regularly with the leaders in the outlying communities in order to both encourage and disciple them as well as be encouraged and sharpened by them. ...this has not happened.

In other news, the Berong nickel mine has been shut down due to a total collapse in the nickel market over the past year. Global nickel prices have dropped well over 80% from what they were one and a half years ago. The effect of the mine closure is of course both good and bad. Though the local economy has been dramatically inflated by the influx of capital from the mine, this influx has also created new avenues for meeting basic needs (food, shelter, medicine, etc.). Now with the mine closed these needs will have to be met through other means; further, the newly inflated prices will make it even harder to find these "other means." However, on the positive side, the reduction of traffic to and from the mine will likewise slacken the speed of modernization that is taking place in the tribe. Along with this we are hopeful that there will also be some reduction in the "encroachment of the world" on the local churches that Pops alluded to in his above quote.

Finally, we're really looking forward to hearing what effect Mike and Ty's visit will have on the youth. Most of the logistics have been worked out for their trip and they will be leaving in about a week. The plan is for them to motorbike into the tribe which will give them maximum mobility during the week they are there.

Please continue to pray for Pops health, the spiritual health of the church (as we know from our own lives, complacency is one of the most difficult challenges to overcome), safe travels for Mike and Ty, and encouragement by means of fruit for the labor that all of them are giving. Thanks for your support,

Tim M