Reach the Unreached

I grew up in a family of Christians. My Dad and Tatay Lolo have been involved into Mangyan mission in Mindoro for almost a decade already. When my family goes to Mindoro, it's either the Mangyan will go to my Tatay Lolo's house or we ourselves will go to wherever they are to conduct a worship service. I once went to Rosakara, one of the places in Mindoro where Mangyan tribes live, where we travelled almost 2 hours car ride and 1 hour walk to go over the mountain of Mangyans. We distributed brand-new shirts from the radio personality Maloy Maliviran-Salumvidez and held a worship service. Three missionaries from GCI stayed for three weeks and got to empathize with the Mangyans.

After 3 years, I got to be part of the Mangyan mission again. It was really not my plan to go with my parents to Mindoro in the first place because since I'm in my OJT during weekdays, I just let myself do nothing and relax on weekends. But since children are obliged to obey their parents commands, I just found myself sailing through the sea of Batangas to Calapan habang tuma'Titanic feel ako and my churchmates. Mangyan mission started on Sunday, we left Tatay Lolo's house at 6am, had 2 hours car ride, and almost 2 hours walk/trek/tawid ilog/hu ha hu ha kind of lakad adventure. I wasn't easy, I tell you! I asked my Tatay Lolo "Tay, malapit na?" when I thought I walked 87624629 miles already, then he would say "Nako! Di pa tayo nangangalahati!" My reaction: -_-

The entire journey through the mountains and the mabatong ilog was fun kasi ang dami namin. My family, of course, Daddy, Mommy (na nakuha pa mag-payong), little brahw, cousin Pam, cousin Merimae, cousin Kuya Boy, Uncle and Auntie, two mangyan helpers from Tatay Lolo's house (Dory and Munting Atay), Tatay Lolo Narding. And my churchmates from GCI Mla. South, Gem, Arvie, and Papang. Oh di ba? Isang buong barangay lang? Three mangyans from Sigaw had to pick us up for them to carry the galvanized roof (a.k.a. bubong) that we donated for their service hall.

After several pataas at pababa passage and mala'ice cream flavor na very rocky road, we finally reached our destination! We went straight to their service hall, there they have wooden chairs that can occupy less than 20 people and a little podium. The mangyans were kind enough to give us free buko as we regain our strength from our 2-hour walk (na for them would them only 30 minutes to walk, according to Tatay Lolo).
Tatay Lolo gave the opening remarks and introduced us to the mangyan community. Papang shared how blessed we are to get to be in their place and be welcomed by them. He stated that God has a purpose why He brought us there and gave assurance to them that we are willing to help with whatever they need. Tatay Lolo shared verses from the Bible, followed by Daddy's message about how they are highly favored and deeply loved by the Lord. As the service goes on, I saw Arvie talking to the kids and showing photos from her camera, I took a photo of that scenario and tagged along. The kids barely spoke for they don't understand Tagalog that much, but some of them understood "Anong pangalan mo?" Their given names is not as normal as Ana, Ben, Marie, Mark, no. They have very cool names that you won't understand at the first time you hear the name but you will surely remember. One named Ambon, the other is Bolbolod, there's one girl named Maisek, and a little boy named Puge. We thought Puge was just a bansag like "pogi", hindi pala pangalan pala talaga yon. We showed them how to make pogi pose, they just smiled and let us do it ourselves. I asked one kid if they go to the near river to take a bath, and I got a smile. We went to the river and played like little kids na sabik na sabik sa ilog. We stayed there with the kids and exchanged smiles.