Update about Dondon

Before we bring you an update about Dondon – who is still with us but in critical condition – we first want to thank you so, so much for praying with us and for the many emails that have flooded our inbox and that have brought such encouragement and help to us. 

Dondon is still in ICU. The family are taking turns watching him so that each one gets a rest. Yesterday morning he was being watched and cared for by Nayumi and Jubab. Nayumi taught Jubab how to rub his back and help him through attacks of nausea and pain that spikes from his chest into his back.

We finally got the results of his tests back and they show that he has Dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart has become weakened and enlarged, and it cannot pump blood efficiently. The Doctors believe that the cause of this was most likely myocarditis. His heart is only pumping at 38% of normal function and so he is very weak and finding it hard to breath at times and his heart is about 5 times normal size.

He is on medications which hopefully will help to take some of the load off of his heart, stabilize his blood pressure and prevent clots from developing. There was a time yesterday when his blood pressure reached dangerously low and Dondon felt a terrible weakness and like he was losing consciousness. He improved slightly after the doctors in ICU initialized an IV med to help bring his BP back up.

There are some good signs though, like you can see from this photo that he is lying flat. This was something he wasn’t able to do a few days ago because of fluid in his lungs, and he had to stay propped up. But now the medication is starting to help his heart pump slightly better and get rid of the fluid build-up. Another good sign is that his vision is clear, and he can sometimes swallow a couple of spoonfuls of soft food. Another good sign on Tuesday night was that he mustered up the energy to crack a small joke with Jubab when we arrived at the hospital, saying, “Hey brother, we can’t play any games together in here can we?”

We are back in Lapoc today after spending a night and a day out at the hospital helping the family. The roads are bad, sometimes impassable right now as trucks are getting bogged and blocking the road. Late Tuesday afternoon, after hearing that Dondon was deteriorating and very weak, we had quite an anxious trip out to the hospital, getting thrown around a bit on the torn up road and at one point getting totally stuck in a bog. Using the last bit of light left before nightfall, we had pulled ourselves out by hooking the winch onto a nearby bogged truck and thankfully, miraculously God helped us to get out and on our way again.

Something a bit amusing was that you have to wear special shoes to go into ICU but there were none big enough for Paul so he had to wear things like disposable shower-caps over his flip-flops, never mind the mud splashed on his legs from trying to get us out of the bog which we hadn’t been able to wash off yet.

Please pray that in the next couple of days Dondon’s blood pressure will stabilize, that the pumping function of his heart will start working better and most of all PLEASE PRAY FOR A MIRACLE: that he will have complete recovery and that his heart will return to being a normal, healthy heart. The cardiologist says this is possible but that he has to totally rest for 6 months and this is going to be hugely hard for a newly married young man who has been active all his life. Pray that he will accept this season in his life with grace and contentment and just rest in our Lord’s loving embrace. This next six months is going to be a journey for Dondon and Nayumi and for our whole family. 

Dondon is the brother who used to rock Jubab’s cradle when he was only 7 and Jubab was newborn, and he’s the brother who was always good for a wrestle or a fun game. We love him very much and don’t want to lose him but he is the Lord’s and we just wait for God’s plan for him which we know are good plans and not plans to harm him.   

God saved him from dying of accidental poisoning when he was 3,  and God helped him to grow even though he had a problem growing as a child. Now we are asking God for another miracle.

This was our last look at him yesterday noon before we left ICU to come back up here to Lapoc. He was sleeping peacefully. If we don’t send you much news on Dondon for awhile, you’ll know that he is still here with us, not gone home to heaven yet, but he will need much prayer over these next months if you could please pray with us over this length of time.

Jubab's brother Dondon is fighting for his life - please PRAY!!!

Please pray for Dondon, the middle brother of the five brothers. He is Jubab’s fun-loving, optimist, great with kids, easy-going and always smiling brother but right now he is desperately fighting for his life in the ICU of one of the biggest hospitals in Cagayan with what seems to be viral myocarditis.

He got sick on May 14^th with what appeared to be a respiratory infection with slight fever and cough, but by the 19^th, when the family came here to visit us for the weekend, he was starting to get worse and by the 21^st had to be taken to hospital where his condition has continued to deteriorate until during the weekend he was moved to ICU.

He is having severe pain attacks in his chest, his heart is swollen and he is having difficulty breathing. Nayumi, his beautiful young wife, who he married 8 months ago, (photo above) has not left his side or hardly slept for the past days. We were there on Saturday and he was hooked up to IV’s and oxygen and was looking really pale and felt clammy, although he still managed to give us one of his bright, Dondon style smiles.  

The doctors are doing all they can but his condition looks very, very serious.

Please, please take time if you will to PRAY for him. 

Dondon, 20 years old, waiting for his wedding to start.

Rollercoasters........!

Sometimes we find ourselves on a roller coaster ride of emotions living out so many different situations both with our own family and with our extended family in the Lord.  And this last 2 ½ weeks has been like this.

Two and a half weeks ago, our emotions were of joy, excitement and thankfulness as we celebrated Paul’s half a century of life – his jubilee year - and it was a beautiful celebration which started with a dawn birthday surprise pig (the pig was the breakfast) with a lot of friends and neighbors who woke Paul up at dawn with coffee, soup and singing.....and ended with a quick family trip to Manila to for a few days together. 

This was Paul’s dawn

birthday celebration

with about 70 +

neighbors and friends.

This was on April 29,

at our family birthday

dinner in Manila. 

From these happy emotions we were plunged just two evenings later into the depths of tragedy and sadness. Maybe you remember last year, in one of our February 2011 blogs, that we wrote about Mark and Aysa losing their baby at birth. They got through this difficult time – accepted this from the hand of the Lord, kept their faith and kept serving Him.  Earlier this year – on March 10 – God gave them another beautiful baby boy, Marten (for March 10) and their joy knew no bounds! All of us rejoiced with them. 

This is our precious friend Aysa on

baby Marten’s second Sunday at church.

But the tragedy happened last week

on Monday night the 7^th of May. God took

Marten’s life back with a sudden attack of

what was either asthma or maybe a

problem with his heart.

Our hearts felt like they were being wrenched out

of our bodies while we gathered around Mark and Aysa

and listened to their agonized sobs and wept with them.

And while the believers gathered together to help bury the body of this precious little baby boy, another family in the church here began their journey of grief as the Lord took our brother Kukuy Bagas, one of the bible teachers, home to be with Himself after a 6 month battle with liver cancer. So we’ve gone through two deaths in the church family here and it has been a time of great sadness.

While still reeling under this sadness, God blessed our church family here with last Saturday with a time to rejoice through the recognition and laying of hands on two new elders in the church of Colawingon. This five year old church plant has been done by the group effort of many of the bible teachers - even Kukuy Bagas had a part - but one who has had perhaps the greater part in the church planting effort is Ronnie Hanginan, one of the elders from the Lapoc Church. So in the midst of celebration, in the midst of tragedy and death and in the midst of the church leadership being raised up..........Christ’s body here in the Lapoc area continue in the faith and continue glorifying Him. 

Missionaries.....!

We promised in our last update to introduce you to James and JingJing Ladrada, ages 31 and 26, and their little boy Jepoy who are the newest missionaries to be sent out from the Tumpagon church, and here they are!

It is never easy saying goodbye and this was James and JingJing’s goodbye message to their church in Tumpagon which they said with tears and with hearts very full of conflicting emotions – excitement about the new journey before them, sadness at leaving home and family, trepidation as JingJing’s due date approaches in two months for the birth of their second baby and the unknowns of giving birth in a strange place – these feelings and more are very familiar to all who have left father and mother, brothers and sisters, houses and lands.......to serve the Lord in a far-away place.

They have been here in Lapoc for 9 days now, and they will be in the adjustment period for a time where everything is fresh, exciting, strange, lonely, weird, unsettled, unknown, tearful.....for awhile. They don’t feel at home, they don’t have their close friends or Mum and Dad and Jepoy is wondering where all his friends are. So please pray for them. 

We praise the Lord for the way the vision that the Tumpagon Church have along with all the other Dulangan Churches,  to send out missionaries and to support them and back them in every way they can.

And as well as introducing you to James and JingJing who will be helping out here in Lapoc, we also want to give glory to the Lord for the many other lives He has used for the furtherance of His kingdom. If we went through the list starting back from 1992, when the church in Cauyunan sent their first missionaries, Totò and Charlita Sanditan, to Nangcaon right up until this last week when Tumpagon sent James and JingJing here to Lapoc .......well this would have to turn into a book. We praise God for each dear family who left all and went to the places where God called them:

Totò and Charlita Sanditan

Bugsuk and Elsa Duwang

Udi and Jen Sacalon

Jupi and Gagang Mahognay

Rey and JingJing Endag

Biduk Gican

Rodil and Annie Sinan-a

Lita and Eloy Amba

Duyduy and JenJen Alderite

Gabril and Isling Sulatan

Max and Bheng Luminda

Richard and Diding Tamomoc

Ruel and Irene Daging

They are our heroes and each of them have been greatly used. Some of them finished their course and have returned to their home churches or gone ahead of us to heaven, others are still in the heat of battle on the field, others got knocked down in the race but have picked themselves up again and have dusted off the dirt they got tangled up with and they are walking with God again.

But today we want to specifically mention three very special couples who served in Buyungon and have just returned home to their home churches, having completed the task to which their elders commissioned them.  These couples are:

Duyduy and Jenjen Alderite who were sent by the elders of the Lapoc Church in 2008 over to Buyungun to serve for four years with Aussie missionaries Steve and Ros Baird, and to help them establish the already existing tiny nucleus of believers there, to help with teaching the Word and discipling and training of the potential church leaders within the church there.

They went there as newlyweds, and their first child Kyle, was born there. Their missionary training and cross-cultural training (working in a mixed team of cultures) took place on the job which is difficult. They went through many hardships and trials and sometimes wanted to quit, but they hung in there and God really used them in an incredible way. Jenjen discipled the women in the church and trained scripture teachers all the while, going through adjustments to being married, being a new Mum, and being far away from her own Mum and Dad and sisters. Her brother was brutally murdered last year, but in spite of this horrific tragedy, they still kept going and served to the end of the time the elders had asked them to.

Duyduy served and served and taught and taught and there are many believers there as a result of his ministry and also six men who he had a big part in training as bible teachers and future potential church elders who he has now left to Steve as precious spiritual capital to build  upon.  Duyduy and Jenjen are back here in Lapoc serving in leadership capacity in the church.

Eloy and Lita Amba and their son Greggie, were sent by the elders of the Cauyunan Church, also in 2008 to join the team in Buyungon with Steve and Ros Baird and with Duyduy and Jenjen. Their job was to help with maintenance and to set up a clinic and to train health workers. They completed this task as the clinic there is functioning and there are health workers who can continue on the care of the sick and even some who have begun to understand a bit about midwifery.

While Steve and Ros were in Australia, Lita managed all the funds for the ongoing expenses of ministry which is a big job in itself and which she handled with integrity and wisdom.

They went through the same experiences as Duyduy and Jenjen, feeling strained and out of place at times, working through trials and hardships, wondering what was around the corner and if they could make it. But through the grace of God, they did make it and were able to return home to their home church in Cauyunan feeling a sense of thankfulness that they had finished the task the elders had sent them to do.

They were welcomed back to their home with a big family get together as they come from a very large family and they are now back involved in the Clinic ministry in Cauyunan and Lita is involved in women’s ministry, teaching and discipling other women.

Lita by the way, delivered Jenjen’s first baby during their first year in Buyungon which helped them to bond as they had not previously known each other apart from just as casual acquaintances before they suddenly found themselves having to work together on a very close basis for the kingdom’s sake!

Max and Bheng Luminda and their three children went to help out in Buyungon during the time Steve and Ros were in Australia for home assignment. They took to missionary work like ducks to water and just loved it!!

If it wasn’t for the ministries they had left in their home church of Tinaytayan where they are really needed, they would have loved to continue on. In a few years when their church has some stronger leaders and they can leave again, we can see Max and Bheng and their family going out on another mission trip. They are faithful servants of the Lord and have served Him ever since they first put their trust in Him going on 8 years ago.

In spite of Max’s failing eyesight (he has Retinitis pigmentosa) which is slowly eating away at his sight, and in spite of poverty and difficulties, they are some of the most faithful co-workers you could find.

They are much loved in their church and their church is planning a big gathering to celebrate their return last Sunday afternoon.

So this is a message of recognition for these 4 families and their lives and their ministries and for the way God has used them mightily and continues to use them! And it is a message also of thanksgiving for the other missionaries who only got mentioned by name but whose lives would fill books to tell of all that God has done through them and because of them.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.....”  Jn 12:24  These dear ones died to self and brought forth much fruit.  

P.S.  We have ongoing outreach work and ministry continuing almost daily, weekly.........some are involved as full-time as missionaries, others go out for the day, others go and stay out overnight or two nights. Many miles are travelled every week......many hundreds of people being taught. If you would like to be involved in this, we have a ministry fund called the “Tala-Andig Outreach Program” (TAOP) that you could contribute to. Just let us know.

P.P.S.  Are we proud spiritual parents or what????!!!!!!!! To tell the truth, our hearts are just overflowing with pride and joy!!!!!!