NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

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We would just like to touch base and share some of our experiences from the last few weeks.

One thing a missionary in a ministry of “support” has to do here in the Philippines, sooner or later, is to get a driver’s license. (Our USA driver’s licenses were valid for 90 days so they expired at the end of April.)

Well, they just passed a new law here in Palawan that all foreigners have to go to Manila to get a drivers license. So, a few weeks ago, off we go to another island to Manila . . . about an hour’s flight. Fortunately we had one of the NTM Filipino workers, Marvin, accompanying us through the process. We left the NTM office at about 8 am. We tried to flag down a taxi for about 15 minutes and finally succumbed to the fact that there were no taxis to be had so we took a jeepney to the tax office. (Before anyone can get a drivers license, one has to have a tax I.D. number.)

We rode in the crowded jeepney. . . cheek to cheek. . . for about 20 minutes. Then Marvin said, “time to go”. So we made our way to the back and jumped out to find ourselves on a busy street with badly cracked 12” wide sidewalks. Trying desperately not to break an ankle, we dashed in and out of small alleys until we came to a non-descript building that in no way looked like a government building office. (There was no sign on the building to identify it.) We entered. Bravely, we got in an elevator that looked like it would crash from use. Surviving this, we disembarked onto a crowded floor and was told to have a seat because the employees “were not finished eating breakfast yet.” Curiously, Becky watched them eat their rice at their desks.

About 9 am, the employees were done and soon we had our tax I.D. number. (Now we qualified to be a resident and pay taxes. The day before this, we had to be finger printed before we could be given an I.D. number.) Once we had our I.D. number on a piece of paper, we had to go across town to get our drivers’ licenses.

After a few minutes, we found a cab this time and rode for about an hour. When we got out of the cab, there was a lady at a desk near the curbside. We wrote our names down and gave her a few pesos. Immediately two young ladies latched on to us. They wanted to “help”. (They were called “fixers”.) We all crossed the street and went to a “doctor’s office”. This was a very small smelly and cramped dirty room full of people. Someone brushed off the dust of the one bench near the wall with her hand and motioned to Becky to come sit down. Next, a lady gave us a bottle so we could give them a specimen for our drug test. We waited our turn for awhile. And then the dreaded moment, the lady called Becky’s name. There was a small “comfort room” in the corner. . . standing room only when the door was closed. . . that was hardly adequate for our needs. . .no place to put anything and no toilet paper. We paid them some money and in a few minutes had a paper saying that we had passed our drug test.

Then we went to the “eye doctor” who was located down the alley in another small dirty room. The room was too small to accommodate the standard eye chart. Thus they had a mirror on the wall with the eye chart on the wall behind us. We did pass this test also and again paid some money. Then we went to another desk that seemed to be in an outside convenience store. We had a choice of paying $5 and waiting or paying $15 and getting expedited service. We paid the $15. It was now 11 am and the lady who had taken our money told us to come back at 1 pm for the “expedited service”. We did complain a little because we had no place to go and the closest shopping center was half an hour ride away so she phoned someone on her cell phone and finally said “okay, come now!”

So they walked us across the street to the Immuclate Conception Church. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It was a church with windows on one side. Beyond those windows was the licensing office. We were able to give someone who just seemed to be walking around out papers and passports. (He was probably the man that the lady had talked to on the phone because he seemed to know what we wanted.) He said “have a seat, I need to get you a number”. We waited about 15 minutes and soon he brought us both numbers. A few minutes later, they called our numbers and took our pictures and our signatures. Then we sat down again and just before noon we left with our drivers’ licenses. Becky was thankful that she did not have to take a “driving test” in Manila after the long ordeal.

As we were leaving our two “helpers” showed up. We gave them one hundred pesos (about $2) and thanked them for their help.

It was an interesting experience and we were grateful when it was all over. I have never liked going to the Oregon Drivers License office, but now I am so thankful that they do it all in one building and it does work smoothly!

We spent a few days in Manila and came home on a Sunday night after sitting 10 hours in the Manila airport with 4 delays. Becky did not enjoy the plane ride but we were happy to be in our own beds again.

The next day, we hosted a Summit team of 13 people from the United Kingdom but most of them were from Ireland. There were two girls on the team, Rebekah and Rachel, who did a wonderful job of indexing our library at the Center. Then, they and the men worked very hard for 5 days building our new apartment complex consisting of a studio and a

2- bedroom apartment. We are anxious to get this building done due to the fact that the Palawan field is growing. We, now, have 12 missionary families on the Island that need lodging and we find ourselves fully booked all the time.

After, the UK team left , we hosted the Mini-Conference with 8 families staying with us at the Center but 3 families had to stay in hotels because of lack of space. This became expensive for the families and the leadership did decide to subsidize their lodging costs from staying off the Center.

If any of you builders would like to come and help us for a week or two, we would be grateful. We do not have funds to complete the building so we will work on faith until we have to stop and then resume again in the future.

Thank you for your continued faithfulness in the Lord’s ministry through us here in Palawan. We appreciate your prayers and financial support so very much. We consider you to be our coworkers. We have not felt like we have built strong friendships yet here in the Philippines so we rely on your love and friendship to keep us going. We are very much dependent upon your prayers and financial support.

Much Love,

Darryl and Becky Jordan

New Tribes Mission

Website:www.ntm.org/darryl_jordan

Blog:darrylandbecky.spaces.live.com