Home

We are back! The trip back to America was long but we made it. It was all the more exciting because when we were driving to the main city in Palawan, Puerto Princessa, we encountered a bridge that had washed out. The solution was that the van dropped us off on one side, porters carried our things over a wooden bridge, and then another van continued the journey on the other side. It was all very well organized and left me impressed with the way everyone was able to work together. Both Chris and I have mentioned that it feels like our year in the jungle never really happened. The feeling is kind of like we were in a time machine. Life is so different between Palawan and America that it is hard to connect the two. I guess that is our challenge, to take what we have learned this past year and apply it to our life here. We also attended a long weekend at the AFM training center in Michigan. It was helpful to debrief with fellow returning missionaries as well as meet the new trainees going out into the field. We want to thank everyone who has supported us this past year financially as well as with prayers. You have helped save countless lives and helped bring the gospel to many who are hurting in Palawan. We couldn't have done it without you! Chris and I have learned so much this year and one question we get a lot of is, "Would you do it again?" The answer is yes. Despite the challenges and growing pains, we would do it all over again. The next step in our lives is to pay off some student loans so that we will be financially free. After that, who knows what God has planned for us. Thank you again for supporting us!

Chris and Amy

June 15, 2012

We are winding up our time here in Palawan, just six weeks left as I write this. I alternate between being excited and sad and the closer it gets, the more I realize how difficult it will be to leave the Palawanos. They have welcomed us into their lives with open arms. Quite often someone will ask, "When are you leaving?" and since their sense of time is vague, I've been answering, "Not for a long time." For most people here, one or two weeks is a long time. They view life as cyclical. There is planting season, harvest season, and rainy season. Unfortunately the incoming and outgoing of student missionaries is cyclical too. With five of us leaving on the same day, I'm sure word will get out as to when we are leaving. You might wonder why we don't want to tell them. I think I've mentioned before that when someone leaves it is like a funeral to them. One of my Palawano friends asked me, "Do you have a house and job in America?" I said no and she said, "Why would you leave? You already have a house and job here." Hmm. It made me think. But we have earnestly prayed and feel like our next step is to pay back Chris' student loans. After that, who knows where God will send us. It is tempting to feel anxious and scared about the future, but we know God has a plan for us. We don't know where we will live or what kind of jobs we'll have, but God has provided for us in the past and we trust He will provide for us in the future as well. A song we have come to love is "Day by Day." The first verse reads:

Day by day and with each passing moment,
Strength I find to meet my trials here.
Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment
I've no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best.
Lovingly, it's part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Propane

Before we arrived here and didn't know what to expect, living in the jungle sounded so primitive. Living in a bamboo hut, having to carry supplies in, fearing the hot climate, not knowing how we would cook, all these things were unknown. Then we got here and realized that living in a bamboo hut isn't much different from a house back home except we have the added benefit of slats in the floor. When something spills you can just nudge it and it falls to the ground where chickens are eager to gobble it up. We realized that there is plenty of food here and that we wouldn't shrivel away to nothing. The hot climate we feared turned out to be very pleasant and now we are fearing the cold winter back home. Cooking turned out to be easy because we have a propane stove. And we have gotten comfortable with it. We have to replace our propane tank about every three months. Six other houses here use propane and it is very unpopular to carry the tanks into the mountains. You can imagine a 50-pound metal tank would not be much fun to carry. All of this means that propane is not usually immediately available when we run out. When we don't have propane, we cook in a little cement fire ring called a "pugen." We fill it with charcoal and start it on fire with a sap called "selang." It's kind of fun to cook on when we want to be adventurous, but it is slow. One hour of cooking turns into three hours of cooking. The first time we had to cook on the pugen was challenging. We wouldn't plan ahead and would find ourselves hungry for lunch with the only option to wait for the food to cook. We learned to plan better, God gave us patience and endurance, and we didn't go hungry. After we got more propane we thought, "Phew, we're glad that's over. And just look how God grew us through that trial." Well, turns out that God still wanted to grow us more. We ran out of propane last week and for a few days it was fine. Chris is quite good at cooking on the pugen, but after a while my patience was wearing thin. On Friday a lot of men were going to carry supplies in and we asked many of them to carry the propane for us, so I was certain that we would have it by the evening. When it didn't come, I was frustrated to the point of tears. It wasn't that I couldn't cook on the pugen, I just plain didn't want to. Earlier Chris had prayed, "God, if you want us to have propane, work it out so someone will carry it." I didn't agree. I just wanted propane. After struggling with this for a while, I asked God for more patience and asked Him to take away my frustration. I had to repeat this prayer many times, but God answered me. I decided to not even think about when the propane might come. A few days later I was studying in James and read, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4) So I rejoiced for this trial I was going through. Funny enough, someone carried the propane in that evening. God continues to provide for us and grow our faith in Him. What a loving God that He is willing to use us and be patient when we don't trust Him.

Snake bite in Kulban

     I was standing on the clinic porch going through my mental check list of things that needed to be done for the day when a teenager walked up. "Bing Bing" told me that a man named Ma' aw was sick because he had been bitten by a snake and that he needed medicine.  I asked when this had occurred and Bing Bing replied "sambatu lingu," about one week ago. I asked if he could walk and he said no. "Is there anything else wrong?" I asked. "Yes," Bing Bing replied, "His leg is really swollen, and his face feels like it is on fire."  I asked what type of snake had bitten him, hoping I could identify it and possibly read up on the problem, but Ma' aw had been bitten at night and did not see the snake.  I tried to explain that I did not have medicine I could send for Ma' aw and that they needed to bring Ma' aw to the clinic where I could assess the problem and possibly send him to the hospital.  Bing Bing gave me the usual look and said "Oh Chris, it's too far and steep to carry him".  I kept insisting that they needed to bring him to the clinic and finally Bing Bing left.  He never said if he was going carry Ma' aw or not.  I figured that 1 of 2 things would happen.  Either they would carry Ma' aw to the clinic if he was really sick, or I would never hear about it again and I would assume it was not a big injury.  I had thought about hiking to this village to see Ma' aw myself, but a few months ago people from this same village asked for medicine for a man who could not walk due to a skin disease. I decided to hike the hour and half trail that is extremely steep only to find the patient reclining outside and perfectly able to ambulate.  His only problem was he had a skin rash in his groin area and I had a suspicion he was to embarrassed to walk to the clinic.  Unfortunately this jaded my trust in this village and I was not so willing to rush out and see what was wrong with this new patient.  However, later that day Bing Bing's father also came to the clinic and asked me to come.  I called Leonda, the career missionary, and told her the situation and she thought it would be a good idea to check it out. I brought the clinic backpack with supplies in it and also a box that generates electricity for snake bites.  It's a water tight ammo can with an alternator inside that is turned with a handle on the side to produce electricity. The electricity is then delivered to the skin via two cables tipped with a pen like object.  It's very medieval and I heard from another missionary that it really hurts.  It's the only snake bite therapy we have, though according to the pamphlet inside it has not been proven to work. 
     I found Elias, a fellow missionary, and asked, "How would like to go on an adventure?"  He was up for it and dropped off his back pack. I asked, "Don't you want to bring your water and stuff?"and he said "No, it's not that far."  I shrugged and said "O.K." assuming he knew where we were going.  Later I would found out that he had misunderstood and thought we were hiking only about half an hour away.  Needless to say he was very thirsty by the time we made it to Kulban.  We arrived to find Ma'aw on the porch, and I could already see his right leg was massive.  Elias volunteered to wash the leg while I got vitals and asked other medical questions. Once the leg was clean it was obvious that the main problem was that the bite had become infected and he had cellulitis and an abscess.  His leg was very red and hot, with three out of four pitting edema.  I could express pus from the bite site so I decided to drain it.  I made a 1 cm incision over the area and was able to drain about a cup full of purulent material.  By this time it was dark and Elias and I were using our head lamps to finish up.  I packed and dressed the wound and then we stated our case that Ma'aw needed to be carried to the clinic.  We explained that his wound needed packing everyday and that I had not brought enough antibiotics to give him a complete course.  They agreed and said that when they got enough people they would carry him.  They offered to feed us and we enjoyed palm heart and potatoes with rice.  I was thankful and ashamed that I did not trust that these gracious people would take care of us.  Elias and I asked if we could sleep in the village and they showed us a hut.  I had only brought a very tiny blanket and our clothes were wet with sweat.  Elias and I laid down and tried to share the blanket but it only covered our upper bodies.  Bing Bing later brought us two more small pieces of material that we wrapped around our legs and feet. Needless to say it was the coldest night in Palawan since my arrival. Morning finally came and with a reminder to bring Ma' aw to the clinic, Elias and I headed home.  Three days later two church members who were passing by finally carried him to our clinic.  Ma' aw spent 15 days at the clinic so we could pack and dress his wound before he could walk home. 

Chris Kinney

May 2012

Just when we think that things will get easier, that we’ve got everything under control, something else happens reminding us that we are not the ones in control, God is. We are feeling pretty tired because we have had inpatients for most of the month of April and May. Getting up in the middle of the night to give meds wears you down pretty quickly. Most of the patients have had typhoid but we have had some cases of pneumonia as well. One older lady was carried to our clinic. She had been sick for a long time and had called all her children to her house because she thought she was about to die. Eventually someone convinced her to come to the clinic. She actually recovered fairly quickly and when she realized that she wasn’t going to die, she was full of gratitude. She was hugging us and telling us that we were her children now. We were a little embarrassed and surprised too. Most people who come to the clinic seem indifferent. A lot of the time we have to convince them to take medicine or they are angry because we want them to take medicine and they don’t want to because it’s bitter. We’ve tried all sorts of tricks for getting children to take medicine and hiding the medicine in crunchy peanut butter on a cracker seems to work the best. Anyway, it was nice to have someone say thank you when we were so tired. With everything going on here, we just have to lean on God’s strength and not our own. And while it is challenging, we can see how God is growing our faith and trust in Him.

                We also had our 1^st patient die. While we have heard reports of deaths in different villages, this was the first patient that we were involved with. A family came with three children and all were very sick. They had been sick for two weeks already and were just now coming for help. Chris assessed them and got clearance to send them all to the hospital in the lowlands. They were too sick for the care we could give them in the clinic, so we arranged for them to be carried out. Unfortunately, the oldest girl died on the way down. Because the others still needed to go to the hospital, one of the missionaries brought the body back to our clinic and the church members buried her the next morning. It was weird because there was no funeral, not even a family member there to say goodbye. I’m still struggling with that a little bit, thinking of how different a funeral would be in the states. But the good news is that this little girl has hope. The next thing she sees will be Jesus Christ coming to take her home to live with Him for eternity.

                Other than working in the clinic, in my spare time I’ve still been helping with farming. For some reason I thought that once the rice was planted, the hard part was done. But that’s not the case. Once the rice starts growing, the weeds start growing too. So we have to go through the field and pull them up. I have discovered that I really like weeding. Maybe it’s because I can see the results of my hard work instantly. I was weeding the other day and I had a thought. The farm is like our life and the rice is like the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.). When we spend time with Jesus every day, it is like letting Jesus work on the farm of our life. He wants to plant these good things in our life. But the weeds are like sin, selfishness springing up everywhere trying to choke out all the fruit. It is not possible to grow rice with the weeds, it won’t produce any fruit. Also, this weeding process is continual. I can’t go and weed a whole farm in a few hours. Maybe I’ll finish a little section, but to keep up with the weeds I have to spend time weeding every day. It is the same with spending time with Jesus. If we only spend time with him once in a while, the weeds get thicker and choke out our spiritual life. Only by allowing Jesus to work in our life, by spending time with Him every day, can our lives produce fruit.  

              We appreciate everyone who is praying for us. It really makes a difference! Thank you!

AFM poster

April 6, 2012

A few people have asked about the outreach we are doing in Lep Lep. It is still going strong. We actually go to three different villages near Lep Lep because everyone moved after the Cholera epidemic and no one lives there anymore. It is exciting to see the growth of our high school students as they give Bible studies and to see the interest of the families.

The past few days we have been in the lowlands meeting the Georges and working on team dynamics and communication. One day we did a cultural study comparing the cultural values of Philippinos, Palawanos, and Americans. It was so interesting to see the things we have in common as well as realize the differences. We also had time to do some fun activities. This time together was important because as with any relationship, it's vital to evaluate and improve communication and set goals for the future.

We have a few prayer requests. The first is that God will give the church members strength to resist the attacks and temptations that Satan throws at them. The second prayer request is for more teachers for the high school. They are not learning science and history because there are not enough teachers, but these high school students are so eager to learn. We appreciate your prayers so much! Thank you for taking an interest in the people of Palawan.