Road Food

As far as Donna is concerned, the best part of any road trip is the snacks. Munching makes miles move. Especially on Palawan buses, if my taste buds and tummy are happy, my twisted spine doesn't complain so much from sitting crammed sideways on too-close-together seats. Discovery is the fun part. What can I get to eat here, at this stop? Well, if you were traveling with us on the road heading down the eastern coast of our island, one of our stops would be the tiny town of Abo-Abo. This is where the bus turns from the main north-south highway, and starts heading across the island to the other coast. And the people are waiting for you. This guy has a whole tub of goodies. We like the garlic peanuts. They contain all the best ingredients - peanuts (that's protein, right?), garlic (lots), salt (lots) and grease (again lots). Yum. He also has some boiled peanuts, cashews, banana chips and hardboiled eggs.

And what road trip wouldn't be complete without fresh crabs? Pick some up here, and carry them the rest of the way home. Just caught this morning, and still wiggling. Your seatmate on the bus won't mind. Go ahead, get a few.

I passed up the crabs.

When it was time for our return trip, the bus was scheduled to leave at 5 am, so the afternoon before, I headed out to scout for some kind of bread product to pack for our breakfast. I went from little store to little store in the little town of Sikud. I have to tell you, Sikud is not the Consumer Capital of the World. In other words, they ain't got much there. But then I finally found it. How could I pass it up? This bread was machine sliced.

But I think my favorite spot on this particular road trip was the gas station in the town of Narra. And I didn't even buy food there. I just made a run to their CR, or Comfort Room, the nice Philippine euphemism for bathroom. And I saw a cat or two. Then I saw another one. When I stopped to pet them, the proprietors of the gas station saw me enjoying their cats, so they gave a call, and a whole bunch more cats came running. They told me they had thirteen cats! By the food and water dishes in evidence, they were obviously loved and cared for. And the cats were tame and friendly, which is unusual in this country where a lot of people have cats for their utility (catching mice and rats) but don't really like them, or treat them as pets, the way Westerners do. This gas station wins the Cat Lovers Award for Palawan.

Puerto Ponderings

I am way overdue on updating my blog. Life would be simpler for me if I had a different personality. But as it is I am a mess of conflicting emotions much of the time. I so admire my friends who are straight-forward. They just make a decision, implement it, and don't look back. Not me. I get tangled up. And that is what has happened to my blog site. Previously, it focused on the Palawanos and my life with them down in the tribe. But now we've moved to the city of Puerto Princesa, 'Puerto' for short. So, why don't I just start writing now about my life in Puerto? Because:

Part of my heart is still down in our little house in the jungle

Part of me feels sad about leaving the people

Part of me feels bad about leaving our partners alone in the tribe

So, if I write about how much I am enjoying life here in the city, and all that we see God doing in this new location, those parts of me feel like I am being disloyal to the Palawanos and our partners.

BUT I think the time has come to just get over it, plunge in and start writing about life here nonetheless. And it has been an amazing ride.

Back in September of last year when the cauldron of the insurgency on Mindanao got stirred up and boiled over to Palawan, Bill and I had to evacuate our station in the tribe. And almost immediately we both became convinced that we weren't supposed to return to live in the tribe. At the time we thought it was because of the instability of the political situation. But as the weeks went by and the cauldron of insurgency went back to a simmer, with all the activity based on Mindanao, Southern Palawan became a safe place again. Our co-workers began to return to their stations. But Bill and I still didn't feel we were supposed to return to the tribe. We each had a strong check in our heart against returning home.

Now, we have to admit we aren't the most mystical people. We do believe in God. We do believe that He is active in our lives and is active in the whole world. But we aren't prone to hearing Him speak to us the way He did this time. Yes, He speaks to us through scripture. Yes, He speaks to us through our pastors' sermons. Yes, He speaks to us through the lives and the words of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But this was one of those rare times when His voice just came us a word to our hearts, 'You aren't supposed to go back. You are supposed to move to Puerto.'

During our time in the U.S., we visited our dear friends Jeff and Helen Jackson. Jeff has a great library. In our guestroom was a book by Dallas Willard, Hearing God. The whole book is on the subject of hearing God's voice. Willard had some timely words for us. He says many things, but I'll just share one thing. . . one of the ways we can recognize God's voice is by the 'weight of authority' that comes with those promptings we receive from Him. Willard says, "The quality of God's voice is more a matter of the weight or impact an impression makes on our consciousness. A certain steady and calm force with which communications from God impact our soul, our innermost being, incline us toward assent and even toward active compliance. The assent or compliance is frequently given before the content of the communication is fully grasped. At least I find it so and others do as well." Bill and I both experienced that calm weight of authority. It wasn't like our minds wondered, 'Maybe we should stay out of the tribe and move up to Puerto now.' No, it was more like, 'It's time to move to Puerto now.' Bill has expressed it as, 'The decision was already made for us. We weren't the ones trying to make the decision.'

As I ponder this move, I wonder IF God was the one behind moving us to Puerto, and IF we weren't being relocated for negative reasons -- to avoid the insurgency-- then might there be positive reasons for us to be in Puerto? Maybe the Lord wasn't causing us to flee a bad situation, but instead was forcing us to move toward some good He had for us.