Motorcycle Diaries

I am blogging at the end of one of the most extreme journeys I have experienced. What you are about to read will excite you, encourage you, and make some of you squeamish. Just remember, we are back in the city; we just got back from dinner at Chow King where we ate Halo Halo and laughed out loud at the memories of the past three days. We are safe (now), we are dry (now), and we have finally stopped moving. I’ll catch you up.

We arrived in Davao on Wednesday night after a day and a half of travel. We had been on four airplanes, two taxis and two jeepneys. We were greeted by a team from the church and taken to one of their ministry houses for dinner. They prepared a feast for us and put on a show that was fantastic. The house is for the purpose of getting kids off the street and into a discipleship atmosphere with a family. They currently have four boys and four girls. Along with other youth from the church they sang worship songs, including a great demonstration of one simple song sang in eight different ways to reach eight different cultures. It was so creative!

That night we stayed in a hotel in Davao City. When I heard that we were going to be staying at a hotel I was disappointed. I wanted the students to be stretched and wasn’t sure that a hotel would best house that desire. However, I am now very thankful that they have a warm (or cold, if desired) shower, privacy, air-conditioning, and a good bed to rest in tonight. They already got their stretch and they did incredible.

We woke up at 5am on Thursday to start our big adventure. We caught a jeepney to the bus station and then took the bus a couple of hours to Sto. Thomas. Our team also consisted of five Filipinos, including Pastor Alan from the Davao Vineyard. Our destination was the villages of the Ata tribe, who live in the mountains outside of Davao. In the past three years seven Vineyard churches have been planted in seven different villages. Our goal was to meet with all seven pastors and to visit four of the villages.

This is where the motorcycles come in. (Mom’s can choose to look away for the next couple of paragraphs if desired- actually, I request it.) Where we were going cannot be accessed by vehicles. The last time a vehicle with four or more wheels went to this area was almost forty years ago when the mountains were stripped of their trees. The jungle has reclaimed all but a walking path that can be driven by a dirt bike, at least to the first village.

You’ve seen the pictures before- a whole family on one motorcycle, including boxes, bags of rice and a live chicken or two. Well, that was us. Pastor Alan had hired a team of riders who are experts at this trail. They use the same group whenever they visit these churches and are developing a good relationship with them. Our drivers strapped our backpacks, food supplies and our bodies onto their bikes.

For those of you who doubt my decision making, I want to defend myself. I actually made three great decisions. The first was the $100,000 medical insurance I took out on each student for the duration of this trip. The second was that I wouldn’t allow any of the students to sit on the handlebars. The third, although met with loud protest, is that I wouldn’t let Andrew drive one of the motorcycles himself.

There is much that could be written just of the motorcycles, but I won’t take the time to do so now. But if I did it would include words like thrill, views, vibrations and skill. It took over two hours for us to reach the first village. It meant crossing rivers and streams to the extent that I lost count. It meant getting off the bikes several times and hiking to a place where we could get back aboard safely. It would include words like steep, remote, and mud, but thankfully not exposure. I don’t like exposure and I really don’t think I’d like it on a motorbike.

We arrived at the first village and learned of the next part of the journey. We would have lunch there in Labo and then power hike through Tulay, Mangani to finally get to Mirol-o where we would spend the night.

Six of the Vineyard pastors met us there in Labo. They had all hiked there from their villages to meet us. I couldn’t quite take that in.

The hike to Tulay is a tough one- all up hill. So the students found the method in our madness of having them prepare for the Race to Robie Creek. They knew they had over three hours of hiking in their legs and that it would be required of them that day. At Tulay we re-hydrated and found some shade to rest in. Then we pushed forward to Mangani. It was a beautiful hike with many ups and downs. It became very clear on this path why this journey is only made on foot.

We were exhausted by the time we reached Mangani at about 3pm. We stretched out on the church pews to recharge. The pastor’s wife had some of the local boys climb the trees and get coconuts for us. To have a villager chop off the top of a coconut and hand it to you to drink the coconut water is an amazing treat. Each of us got one. It was nourishing, clean and good for the internal plumbing. When we finished the water she would chop the coconut in half for us to eat the young coconut inside. This is something you just can’t get at home.

Isaiah looked at the clouds as we were leaving at 4pm and said he would love to see it rain. Well God heard that prayer and then some. It poured. And poured. And poured. The path first became slippery, then a mud blog, and finally a river. Any idea of keeping anything dry was washed away. By the time we arrived in Mirol-o everything was soaked, including most of our luggage and the changes of clothes we had brought. Journals, Bibles, iPod’s, cameras and my Filipino cell phone all are still trying to dry out days later.

We all showered, in the rain, at the water pump in laughter. We ate a hot meal and crashed for the night, exhausted from our journey, on the floor of a nipi hut that had been given to us for our use.

As we ate, the pastors of the villages all lined up in front of us to tell us their testimonies. They had made the trek with us, carrying the supplies up to the villages that the motorcycles could no longer transport. I have more to share of them and more to share of the next day, but I will end this blog with the payoff that made the whole day’s journey worthwhile. As we listened to the stories of the pastors and saw the way we were being treated, I asked them a question. “I know that last year two ladies from the USA who live as missinaries in Davao came to these villages for a medical outreach. Besides them, have you ever had any American visitors to this village?”

“No,” Pastor Paulo responded, “Your team is the first.”