Missionary Stories

I realize that after I’m gone, many of my missionary stories will be gone, too.  So, for preservation’s sake, here are 3 stories from my first year in the Philippines.  The year was 1981 on the big southern tropical island of Mindanao…

“Sir,” the pastor asked, “after you preach this Sunday, would you do the baptism?  We have 3 who are ready, and it would be an honor for them to be baptized by an American.  

“Uh, sure,” I replied.  “I can do that.” 

The little church was located in Lamsugod, near the town of Surallah.  There was no baptistry.

After the sermon I asked, “Where will we do the baptism?”

“In the river, sir.  It’s a short walk.”
        About 2 dozen church members traversed across a forested hill to a tree-lined river with swift flowing water from the nearby mountains.  Two carabao (water buffalo) were cooling themselves in the only deep spot where we could do the baptism.  A couple of farmers jumped into the river to shoo them out.  I waded into the river wearing rubber flip-flops, as did the 3 older ladies who were to be baptized.  We all struggled against the fast-flowing current. 
           The first lady was less than 5 ft. tall, thin as a nail, and light as a feather.  When the moment came for me to lower her into the water, the current lifted her tiny legs and her flip-flops slipped off, floating down the river.  Nearly everyone began running down the riverbank, chasing the valued flip-flops.  Minutes later, after the flip-flops had been rescued, we were able to continue the baptism, with another person holding down the lady’s feet.
 
        On a hot Sunday morning, I had just finished preaching at Magpit Baptist Church, several kilometers north of the town of Kidapawan.  We had been warned of rebel activity in the nearby Arakan valley.  As we stood outside the church, gunfire erupted behind the market across the street, then stopped.  Curious, we walked across the street, through the little market, and stood to the side of a small dirt plaza.  On the ground to my left was the shirtless body of a man who had been shot several times in the stomach, flesh and blood still oozing, obviously dead.  On the ground to my right, also obviously dead, was a man who had been shot in the chest and neck.  Instinctively my pocket camera came out, ready to capture the scene.
        “Noooo!” yelled a man from across the plaza in a dark tattered t-shirt.  Running across the dirt, aiming his Armalite rifle directly at me, he evidently didn’t want his diabolical deed documented.  I quickly pocketed the camera, held my palms up, then he turned and walked away.
 
          “Sir, we think Dan is demon possessed.  Will you please come help him?”
        I couldn’t recall any of my seminary classes discussing the topic of exorcisms.  But I sheepishly answered, “Uh, sure, I’ll come.” 
         Dan was a college student living with 3 other young men in a native-built, dirt floor, nipa covered boarding house in M’lang, North Cotabato.  I lowered my head to enter the short doorway.  Dan was laying on a ratan mat spread across a bamboo bed, surrounded by a few other students who had been praying for him.  They explained, “When the demons are in him, he will say many strange things in English” (Dan normally could not speak hardly any English).  “Then he starts moaning and thrashing wildly.  It takes all of us to hold him down.  After the demons leave, Dan wakes up, shaking with fear.”
         We took Dan to the house of a pastor where fellow Christians set up an around-the-clock prayer vigil.  After each “attack”, Dan would tell us, in the dialect, what the demons did and said.  On the 3rd day, while we were reading Scripture to him, he woke from a particularly long and loud attack, sweating profusely, and said excitedly, “Wala na sila!” (They are gone!)  Dan explained that the demons told him he was too hard to persuade and that they would never come back.  As best I know, they never did.