2009 Trip

I want to start by apologizing for the exceptionally long silence since my last update!

As most of you know Pops had a profitable last week in the tribe last April and God answered our prayers about keeping the malaria flare up in check. Resting a lot during the days, he managed to keep all of his meetings in the evenings and even a few lunch/afternoon appointments. The major focus of these last gatherings with the elders and leaders in the 6 villages was to challenge them to maintain the level of interaction with each other that he had modeled while there and to continue working on conflict resolution. He left them with a number of very specific goals to work on with the understanding that he would be following up on these during his next visit.

Pops has currently set the dates for his next trip loosely from the middle of January to the middle of March. The main goal for this trip is to continue modeling and teaching the people about living Christ and Christianity rather than simply going through the motions of religion. Last year the format and duration of Pops trip was very conducive to this message and we anticipate this year being more of the same.

Another objective of this trip will be to continue prodding the current leadership to choose and disciple members of the younger generations who can both take over the leadership of the current body of believers and take the message of Christ to new areas. In line with this objective Pops’ sons Ty and Ryan are both considering joining him in the tribe for a week or so in order to reconnect with and challenge some of their childhood friends.

The final objective that I’ll mention here stems from Pops’ recent acceptance of the role of an elder at their Maryland church. A number of leaders from Bay Area have expressed a desire for Pops to share his experience with missions with the local body. One of the ways that has been considered to do this is for some members/leaders of Bay Area to visit Pops in the tribe for a week or two during future trips. There are currently a couple potential takers for this coming trip and we’re excited about how God can use this opportunity to both encourage the Tagbanwas and to challenge the American believers that are able to go.

As always, thank you all for your continued prayers! We have been very blessed by the level of support that has been continually put forward and I know that it is very encouraging to the Tagbanwas too. I’ll try to make more frequent posts throughout the coming months while we’re gearing up for the coming trip. For now, please just be praying that God would give clarity for those considering a visit to Pops during this trip, and for provision once the clarity is there. Also, please continue to specifically pray for the Tagbanwas. The infighting and corruption that has resulted from the nickel mine has greatly enhanced the importance of local believers living their faith daily, and this at a time when there are more temptations than ever from the outside world. Finally, please pray for Pops, that God would give him wisdom and grace both in preparing for and in implementing this next trip.

Thanks again for your support,

In Christ,

Tim Mewmaw

Bittersweet

My week with Pops was very encouraging for both he and I, as well as for the people there in the tribe. While his two month stay there began with some discouragement,—due to the peoples’ lack of initiative—by now it is apparent that the trip has had a significant affect. For the past 6 weeks Pops has been meeting weekly with both community leaders and members from five other local sitios as well as Lamane. He has been challenging the elders from the local churches to be proactive in both discipleship and evangelism. While admonishing them in weekly meetings, Pops has given his words credence by filling his own time with daily scheduled meetings and using his free moments to make unannounced visits.
Another major focus of his time there has been to convey the principle of “living” Christianity not just being religious. As has been the case since before Christ even walked this earth, there is a general tendency for us to let our worship become rote activity with no real meaning or life. Pops has been challenging them to think of how this happens and to take action to apply Christ and their Biblical knowledge to their everyday lives. From discontent regarding situations concerning the mine to the simple difficulties of surviving he has been encouraging them to try to think and live as Christ taught and did. While it took some time for these thoughts to become more than simple words, over the past couple of weeks we have seen consistent growth. The elders and leaders from all of the communities have been asking very tough questions about how to live out their Christianity. Leaders told me that Pops’ consistency and attention to reach out and encourage those even outside their own immediate spheres has challenged them to be more proactive in encouraging and supporting one another.
All in all Pops’ time there has been a significant success. He feels like the amount of time for this trip was vital to allow consistency and to engender real change and accountability. Further, due to my presence over this past week, we were able to have some very frank talks with the people concerning logistics and we all feel that it would be ideal for Pops to continue taking this type of trip annually for the next several years. In this initial stage we’re thinking that he would try to make a two month trip every year, with ten month intervals, for the next five years and that we would re-evaluate the situation at that time.
On the downside of things, both Pops and I could use some real prayer concerning our health. Pops came down with malaria on the day that I left and the fact that this is his last week there makes it particularly difficult for him. Many of his meetings this week will be very hard for him to cancel due to his upcoming ten month absence, and for those of you who know what malaria is like, you know that it’s nothing to play around with—especially when you’re hours away from any hospitals, where it is very hot and there is no electricity!
On my end of things, I took a fall on the motorbike on my way out of the tribe. I was going down a very steep hill on a very poor road with a lot of loose gravel and ended up on the ground before I really knew what happened. Aside from numerous minor scrapes and bruises I’ve got extensive lacerations on my left knee and upper shin and a large second degree burn on my right calf from the tailpipe. On top of these injuries my body has been fighting the drugs that I’ve been taking for it and I have been pretty ill and in a lot of pain throughout my travels home.
As always, thank you so much for your ongoing prayers and support, I’m very blessed to report that they’re bearing good fruit! We pray that you are all doing well and that this report will be as encouraging to you as the reality of it has been to us. If there are any other details or questions that you’d like answered please do not hesitate to contact one of us. Thank you again and God Bless,

Tim Mewmaw

Ps. My email is: timmewmaw@yahoo.com

The Trip In and the Results of the Trip Out

Learning to pack Pinoy style

Keeping Uncle Scott in Business
Mufflers are not made to be leg rests!
...And, steep, rocky roads do not make the best slides!

A Quick Look at Transportation--Videos

Crossing Bridges, Fording Rivers and Climbing Mountains

On the way to a Bible Study

Marnuk

Fording Rivers

The view from the mountain top between Marnuk and Lamane

Pops In Action

Pops Listening and Teaching

Encouraging Couple of Weeks

Well, it's been a really uplifting couple of weeks for Pops. His partner for the Lamane ministry was there for a week with a short-term team from Korea. Jody was really excited to see Pops there and they had some good times of fellowship/admonition with some of the team and the local leaders. Pops has been meeting individually and in small groups with elders and potential leaders every day for the past couple of weeks. He has been very encouraged by their grasp of the Scripture and their understanding and acceptance of the challenge for them to be a Spiritual "light" to those around them. Pops says: "I've been working us in the sermon on mount. Narrow gate...Kingdom, and effectiveness being dependent on taking on the beatitude mentality. Really getting into meat of challenge/discipleship. Then at Lamane on Sunday PM, last week, went into James about the tongue [Jam 1:26], and read a lot. It got very quiet. Now, I've digested that even better, and see such a relation between that and the Mt 5 attitudes. I've been loving it." Pops also said that in his meetings many of the elders and others have had ah-hah moments where they are seeing connections between knowing Christ and how that should affect their interactions with each other and outsiders.
In other news, I leave for the Philippines tomorrow afternoon. It'll be a marathon trip taking 36 hours or more to go each direction, but I'm looking forward to seeing Pops and pray that I will be an asset to him and that God will help us to accomplish the goals that we believe he has put on our hearts. I could use prayer for safe and speedy travels and that I don't get sick either there or on the way. Overall, we could use prayer that God would continue to bless our work there and that He would use us to further His will, and help us to know what that is in this particular place.
Finally, thank you all for your continued prayer and support. I'm happy to report that, on top of the encouraging news from Pops, we have received all but a few hundred dollars of what we needed to fund this two month trip for him and all of what was needed to fund my own trip. Thank you all for, as James says, allowing your faith to be shown through your actions and not merely through words. God bless,

Tim M

Ps. I'll try to post another update on my way back home next Saturday or Sunday to let everyone know how the trip went.

Tim Going To See Tim

Hi everybody,

The most recent development in the Lamane project is that I will be going to visit Pops for the second full week of April (April 11-20). This trip has come up for a number of reasons and actually came on my heart during conversations I had with him before he left. At that time the missions director of Pops' church was strongly considering going to see the work in Lamane while Pops was there for this trip. The director had been looking for another individual to accompany him who could perhaps eventually take over some of the mantle of this work. However, due to a personal emergency his trip was made impossible and that became the catalyst for me to begin seeking God in earnest concerning the possibility of making the trip myself.

Tanya and I prayed audibly at the beginning of this process that the Lord would make His will clear to us by making everything simple if he desired me to go. Well, I do not believe that I have ever had more clear direction than in this case. Every element of this trip has simply fallen into place with almost no effort on our part at all. Though even now I would be lying if I said that I do not feel a little daunted by the responsibility, I believe that God has a purpose and am anxious to see how He plays it out. I should be in Lamane for five full days and hope to be an encouragement and asset to Pops while I am there. Please pray that God would give me a clear and calm mind in order to accomplish the goals that we believe He has put on our hearts. As always, thank you for your continued prayers, support and interest. God bless,

Tim

Two Weeks

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. Pops has held and attended numerous meetings with the Lamane church elders and others in the community and these have been mostly encouraging. At the first church meeting he was present for Pops refused to speak publicly with the idea of simply observing and trying to get a feel for how healthy the teaching and leadership is. He was very blessed and encouraged saying that the worship was good and that one of the elders delivered a very good message. Likewise the results of numerous Bible studies have been very uplifting and encouraging both to him and the local leaders--he has likewise taken a backseat at some of these meetings in order to get a better feel for how they are doing without his input and they have shown themselves well founded and versed in Scripture.

Another encouraging factor has been that a few individuals in the community have repeatedly stood up to negative elements there. In one disturbing but revealing instance there was apparently a public altercation at a meeting concerning mine royalties where someone publicly denounced the "disappearance" and squandering of royalty money. Other instances have involved repeated private confrontations concerning expenditure accountability and there has been subsequent public disclosure of these wrongs whenever they are not redressed. These events have thus shown that there are at least a few individuals in the community who are willing to work hard to maintain public honesty and accountability even in an environment where that is difficult.

However, on the other side of things, Pops has discovered that relations between the mine and the affected indiginous people have become very strained. This is largely due to complications that have evolved from/since the transfer of royalty money and from the fact that the mine has undergone National scrutiny caused by a local scandal that became public. Much of the money released to date has been spent on projects or items that local leaders say "will not last more than 5 years." This, combined with the expected increase of "partying" in several of the areas and a general attitude of lethargy and isolationism has been very disheartening for all of us. Pops can specifically use your prayers at this time that God would use him to help motivate the Lamane leadership to both exemplify Christ before their peers and to challenge those about them to do likewise.

One of the greatest desires and goals of Pops life and ministry with these people has been that they would use the example he has been to them in order to reach the communities that surround Lamane. While several of the communities in this area have had churches planted in them, some of these have faltered and many other regions are still completely awash in Animism. It has been no little disappointment for Pops to find that so many of the people he has worked with have grown complacent and unmotivated to reach out to their neighbors with the Good News of Christ. He has been encouraging and challenging them toward this end over the past couple of weeks but it is difficult to predict what results there will be--particularly due to the increased societal complexities that the mine and its windfall profits have brought.

Thank you all again for your continued interest and support. This trip has been a sustained challenge for Pops in spite of his preparation and experience. Please continue to remember him and the Tagbanwas in your prayers. God bless,

Tim Mewmaw

Pops back home

Pops has arrived back in Lamane as of yesterday. He left here last Wednesday (March 5) and took a couple of days in Manila and then a day in Puerto Princessa to get oriented, packed and make some connections before heading into the tribe.

One of the connections that Pops made in Manila was with the Grossmans' long time friends Scott and Cindy Nelson. Scott is a physician who has set up a clinic on the outskirts of Manila to provide free medical treatment for poor homesteaders there. One of Scott's hobbies is researching sustainable agriculture and acquaculture in the local climate. He has created a system of producing fertilizer from rabbits that are raised on a nitrogen enriching ground cover. This fertilizer has subsequently been used to grow a great number of varieties of crops that are otherwise difficult to grow in the regional soil. Scott has also created a hydroponic system that runs off of water used to raise tilapia. Pops time with the Nelsons was very encouraging and provided more ideas for sustainable projects that could be duplicated in Lamane.

So far his time in Lamane seems to have been encouraging. He spent most of the day yesterday touching base with some of the Tagbanwas and is preparing to meet the local church elders tonight and with the church leaders from all of the surrounding communities tomorrow.

Pops asks for prayer specifically that he would be given wisdom to share with the people there and that they would have hearts to receive. He could also use prayers to help combat the emotional difficulties of the prolonged estrangement from Ma and outside support. Thank you all for you prayers.

Some History

Arriving in Lamane by sea

I just thought

that some of you would probably enjoy seeing some pictures of things the way that they were.

Living in Lamane

Food Delivery!

Cooking Fire

Traditional House

Banka

A Picture Says A Thousand Words

Landing in Lamane

Look for the Grossman's old house on the right.

What's Going On

My wife and I returned from a two and a half week trip to see her home in the Philippines on September 16, 2007. We had wanted to take this trip sometime before we started having kids, and with her being over 5 months pregnant, that window of possibility had become very small. The goal was simply for me to see, smell, touch and taste all of the wonderful things that she grew up experiencing in a tribe located in a remote jungle of a third world country. Though we did accomplish this, we also encountered a lot more than we had expected.

Tanya grew up as a daughter of missionaries in a tribe of Tagbanwas on the west coast of Palawan in the Philippines. When Tanya’s parents moved to Lamane (with their 8 month old Manila-born daughter) it was a quaint little community with a picturesque strand of beach. The way to get to this piece of paradise was, first, to catch a flight or boat from Manila to Puerto Princesa, then ride a bus over halfway down the rest of the east coast of Palawan (approximately three hours of curvy, pothole-filled roads), then take the only road across the island and finally hire a boat from Quezon[1] for the three hour ride to the tribe. By the mid-nineties they could skip the boat ride and take a jeep another hour back up the west side of the island before walking the last couple of hours into Lamani. Needless to say, neither they nor the Tagbanwas came or went much.[2]

Tim and Karen Grossman lived and raised their four children in a small house on stilts there in Lamane from 1980 until 1992—when Tim felt that the new church would be better served if the local leaders were made more autonomous by his absenting himself. Following a year furlough back in the States, the Grossmans moved to Puerto Princesa for two years, allowing Tim to maintain periodic contact with the Tagbanwas yet still providing them with the independence they needed and freeing him up to work in other fields. The Grossmans remained in the Philippines until Tim and Karen decided to stay in the States after their 2003 furlough for family reasons.[3] However, throughout the years Tim has maintained contact with the people of Lamane through visits, extended stays, and more recently, through email—even since being in the States Tim has taken several trips back to Lamane.

Though the church has done very well during the fifteen years since the Grossmans lived full time in Lamane, there have been a lot of changes and these have, of course, brought challenges with them. In 1997 a gravel road was put in along the coast and now there are three jeepneys a day that take passengers, produce and mail to and from Quezon. As a result of this accessibility, a number of people have left the tribe to seek work in towns or cities—even as far away as Puerto Princesa. Also due to its recent ease of access, Lamane’s beaches are frequently visited by pleasure-seekers (in spite of it being private tribal land) and land prospectors looking to buy, cheat or steal from anyone they can in their never-ending quest to turn a profit. New found “relatives” have even moved into parts of the region to “help” some of the elderly in exchange for inheriting the rights to their land. Because of these challenges, the church/community leaders have repeatedly been stretched beyond their capacity to make decisions and have consequently begun to solicit help from their younger, more educated counterparts. However, even with the help of the more experienced youth, the leaders are increasingly finding themselves in situations larger than they know how to handle.

Into this atmosphere has entered the most recent and significant challenge that these people have had to face. In 2002, a mining company began to court the Tagbanwas in order to gain their required consent to proceed with proposed operations—as early as the 70’s, exploration efforts had revealed rich nickel deposits within the ancestral domain of the Tagbanwas. Numerous people in the tribe were offered bribes to help convince the community to embrace this project. Eventually, a full on campaign was entered into—complete with a comic book portraying imminent infrastructure and agricultural developments to be paid for by a royalty and promises that at least half of the jobs created at the mine would be given to the tribal people.

In October of 2005 the Tagbanwas were given a Memorandum of Agreement outlining Berong Nickel Company’s offer and told that they would have 150 days to deliberate on it before an answer was needed. Three days later a group of leaders and tribal people were taken into Quezon and hosted by the mine officials for a day. That night the Tagbanwas were visited by a group from the NCIP[4] and six of the less than reputable members of the community secretly signed a contract with the mine in spite of the fact that the leaders had agreed not to sign it just the night before. The mine began full scale operation in January of 2007 and has made been making shipments of ore since that date.

During the past year the affected communities have been racked by internal struggles. Large scale division has erupted over what should be done with the royalty that is being set aside for the affected communities. This division has been fueled by rumors that the mine is not dealing fairly with the people—these rumors being started by the same locals who secretly signed the agreement and were the mine’s initial arbiters within the community. The goal of creating such unrest is so that the mine will break down and start making cash payments instead of funding infrastructural development as was agreed—these individuals, of course, have also worked very hard to make sure that they are the ones through whom such handouts would be channeled.

I do not have to tell you that seeing and hearing of all of this has been incredibly difficult for my wife and, consequently, myself. However, there is a great deal that can be done. While talking to JJ Rasmussen, a twenty-five year veteran missionary who has known the Grossmans almost since they moved to the Philippines,[5] I began to think about whether it would be possible for my father-in-law to re-invigorate his connections with the Tagbanwas. JJ informed me that he had rarely met a missionary of Tim Grossman’s caliber. He said that not only is Tim uniquely qualified to meet the needs of the tribe,[6] but he has a heart for Christ and ministry that is evidenced by his own 25+ years of service in the Philippines and the fact that his four children are all walking firmly with the Lord.

Since our return to the States, Tanya and I have talked extensively with Tim about his being willing to reinvest in the tribe. He has wholeheartedly engaged. He took an initial three week trip back, in early November, and is now gearing up for a two month stay in Lamane. The primary goal for his upcoming trip is to promote Christ centered unity and responsibility within the community. Secondarily, he will look for opportunities to advise/challenge the people to use the royalties that are being held for them in ways that will ease their own transition into the 21^st century and provide lasting resources for their future generations as well.

Subsequent to Pops November trip, we have had a number of long talks about what can and should be done to help the people ease into the 21st century. We have discussed possibilities and dreams ranging from electricity, water and sanitation to schools and renewable income sources in agriculture and acquaculture. However, when Pops shared with Tanya and I a conversation that he’d had with the church elders while there, we were all three struck by the reality that the biggest issue is not a lack of vision, but rather a lack of unity and Christ centered love. Christ said that His disciples would be known by the way that they "love one another." There are countless references in the New Testament to the centrality of unity and love, from the sanctity of communion to the conceptualization of united believers being the current incarnation of "His body." John reports Jesus as saying: "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." While there are many projects that could be done to help the Tagbanwas progress their economic and natural condition, we believe that all of this is "as filthy rags" when compared with the greatness of knowing and living in Christ.

Modeling, challenging and teaching this kind of unity and love is the vision with which Pops wants to return to Lamane. His strategy for achieving this is to return for an extended period of time throughout which he would be meeting routinely, both individually and jointly, with the elders mentioned above and with a select group of young leaders in the community in order to mentor and challenge them. While we remain concerned about the direction that the community will go developmentally, and will of course keep advice in this regard as a very high priority, we are convinced that the division and self centeredness that so easily surrounds vast monetary windfalls can only be overcome through developing and maintaining a Christ centered mindset.

Due to the nature of the tribal system in Lamane and the surrounding villages, the church elders and leaders are often times the community leaders as well. Right now we are in a position where these leaders are still very open to external spiritual guidance. Further, due to Pops' 25+ year relationships with many of these leaders, he is currently in a unique position to impact the leaders' spiritual walks—and, subsequently, the community as a whole. It is our belief that if these leaders can be challenged to think and act in accordance with Christ's character, then this royalty could be used not only in a responsible way to develop their own communities into sustainable and independent entities, but it could in fact be a catalyst for their reaching out to their neighbors to become the "blessing to the nations" that Christ has called us all to be.

Pops has set the departure date for his next trip to be March 5^th. The plan is for him to be there for 2 months in order that he can maximize the amount of relational/mentoring time that he will have. As was the case before, due to the fact that he'll have to miss 3 months of work, we need to be able to raise enough money to cover his State-side expenses as well as his traveling expenses. We have calculated that both of these combined should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $14,000 for the two months. We hope that you will prayerfully consider how you can support this effort. Thank you for your prayers and interest,

Tim L Mewmaw

For more information please email me: timmewmaw@yahoo.com. For tax-deductible donations, checks should be made payable to Bay Area Community Church with "Philippine Project" written in the Memo/For line. Bay Area's address is:

884 Chesterfield Road

Annapolis, MD 21401

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[1] Quezon is the closest real town, complete with stores, a market, internet access and a port.

[2] Previous missionaries had put in a small, bumpy grass airstrip but private plane rides were both expensive and weight restricted thus they were reserved for necessities only.

[3] Three of their four children have married since then and their first grandchild has arrived with the second on the way.

[4] National Commission on Indigenous People—a government entity whose main responsibility is to protect indigenous people, their land and their customs.

[5] JJ and his wife worked with the Molbolgs on Balabac until their mission pulled them off of the island due to Martin and Gracia Burnham’s capture by Muslim extremists. JJ has been working on a translation of the Bible into Molbog ever since and it has just been submitted for publication.

[6] Tim is fluent in Tagbanwa (the tribal dialect), Tagalog (the national language and the Filipino language of trade) and English (the legal language of the Philippines); he has personal relationships with all of the tribal leaders; and he has a very solid grasp of both the local and regional culture.

Beautiful faces!

A joyous home coming!

Home sweet home!!!