MANILA : LITERACY WORKSHOP LITERACY

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1 MANILA : LITERACY WORKSHOP LITERACY Why are these people smiling? This is one of the 3 church planting teams who have been attending the literacy workshop here in Manila. Despite what seemed like huge obstacles, they have completed their first primer, which represents over 100 man hours to complete. It is the first of 4 books which will teach the Agta people to read. It was interesting to hear how the team couldn't believe how much they were actually able to accomplish. Each team brought their respective tribal people out to the mega city to work alongside them in creating a literacy program, which will benefit future generations to come. What a blessing it will be. Interestingly, they also develop a pre-primer which introduces symbol recognition and sentence direction from left to right, and then works towards recognizing the letter shapes and how to draw them. Please pray that these teams will be able to get their respective primers finished. This is just a rough draft and they still have to do the work of checking it all later for revisions. MK

2 The guesthouse in Manila can be incredibly boring or the best place in the world for MK s. It depends on who s around. Well there were a few MK s here and I remembered doing a youth group for the MK's back in 2012 so we gathered them together to have a Saturday night youth group. Noa one of the Mk s led worship and Andrew Smith led games and taught. We related the game to transitions in life and Andrew taught from Deuteronomy when the Israelites transitioned from Egypt to the desert and how God used this transition to teach their hearts.

3 Then we talked about the major transitions that MK s face and the losses that occur in those transitions. Loss of friends, identity, loss of attachment all occur during those transitions. Grief is natural outcome of loss. Then we talked a little about how to transition well. We were amazed at what they shared. Well, hopefully they know their not alone. The MK s represented were from Germany, Australia and Canada. Probably though, the only thing they will remember is the ice-cream and the chocolate sauce with gummy worms. However, underneath it all I am sure they will know that they were uniquely appreciated for being themselves, MK s. Tribe On the weekend I zipped up north by bus to get up to the tribe. Only an hour into the journey we were at a crawl and on the side of the road was the remains of a horrible accident that occurred earlier that morning. Another reminder of God s grace over the years of driving up north, we were spared what could have easily happened us. Finally after 8 hrs on the bus we reached the last town before expecting to hop onto a bike for some rough road, I was delightfully handed the keys to a nice 4x4 that I was able to take in and out of the tribe instead. Rene who is one of the national missionaries has helped me over the years in various ways. This was more than generous. I accepted and off I went and reached the tribe shortly after nightfall. It was really nice to talk with Nelyn about the happenings in the tribe and with my neighbors long into the night by the fire.

4 CHURCH They allowed me to teach the next morning when people gathered for Sunday service. Lots of surprised faces when I appeared unannounced. They had a sharing time which in the past has been very quiet. Four people shared and a young girl named Jeni was one of them. She has shown a true hunger for the Lord and wants to be baptised. They said they wanted me to baptize her. However, I responded that they are the rightful ones to take this privilege on. It was encouraging to see Derek and Leya settling in and how Derek has grown in stature there in Bolo. Their baby is a cute, chubby boy 7 months old and I know it is blessing for the people to see them raising a child in the village. They continue to refer to Grace as Bolo girl because we brought her up after only 2 weeks being born. Please pray for them as they seek to disciple those who are capable teachers and future leaders.

5 Why literacy? From coming up with a orthography for the language to narrowing down the language to it s basic components of syllable combinations and consonant clusters; then slowly introducing each letter in a keyword one by one until you have taught them all and stringing them into sentences and stories,it is a ton of work!! As fluency grows so follows comprehension and good understanding means the ability to teach well which helps with the maturity of the church. Imagine having no literacy and not being able to be fed by the word of God. Romans 1:21 23 (NIV) 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. I imagine it is a very dark place. I believe being illiterate only proliferates this reality. There are several men in the tribe that are trapped in all sorts of animistic machinations without a way out. After talking with the Bolo team, I think they are on board with doing literacy program in the tribe. Please pray as they will look to the Lord to move forward in implementing a literacy program. Literacy would be a great way to show love to demographic of people who haven t had a second chance to learn to read or write. Perhaps, they will open their hearts to the word of God and be saved. PRAY

6 Please pray for encouragement for the Bolo Team. I believe that God is going to do great things this year. Please pray as well for the continued negotiations for a permanent structure for a chapel. The current structure was not meant to be permanent. Derek will continue discussions for the team. Please pray for the unique lives of MK's, it has been good to show love and talk with a few of the parents about their amazing lives. Pray that parents have wisdom to lead their MK's and MK's will have a deep sense of God's love and sovereignty in their lives. Thanks to all of you who have taken care of my family while I was away. Thanks boys for taking care of Grace. Thanks Grace for giving me blessing to go. The MK's and parents here have expressed how much they appreciated taking time to make your video to the field. Good job!! Goodbye Philippines!! Hello Canada!! Love, Harada Family