Your Voice in the Philippines

Rev. Michael and Luann Petit
E-mail: mpetit57@yahoo.com
Support address:
C/O Free Gospel Church Missions
P.O. Box 477
Export, PA 15632
or
C/O Tim Petit
322 White School House Rd.
Dawson Springs, KY 42408

Foreign Field Address:
Rev. Michael C. Petit
P.O. Box 88
2900 Laoag City
Philippines

"How shall they hear without a preacher? Rom. 10:14
Pray with us for souls to be saved as we minister.

Dear Friends,
            Greetings from the Philippines!
I thought that I would give you a human interest update, just to show you how life here is for your missionaries. Maybe,  it will give you a couple of laughs. So I don’t forget, one good thing was that we had basically only brief showers the whole time we were in Eastern Samar. Normally, it rains hard every day while we are there and sometimes for an extended period of time. Thank you for praying.

I left Laoag on April 9 to go and visit several of the churches that I have not been to in Eastern Samar. I had two Filipino pastors with me. We left on the bus at 7:15 in the evening. It was very difficult to sleep on the bus since this trip they kept the lights on and the TV blaring. Then we flew from Manila to Tacoloban, Leyte and then took the 4 hour van ride. We arrived at our church in Maydalong around 7:30 p.m.

At supper we discussed the plan for the following day to go to Guiuan, our furthest work from the first church. Pastora Fenilyn said that we needed to be on the 5:00 a.m. trip, since it was 3 ½ hour trip, which meant we had to rise at 4. Around 10, we finally made it to bed, exhausted from missing a night’s sleep the night before.

At 5:30 the next morning we finally caught a jeepney to Guiuan. What a trip! There were so many potholes. Part of the road was basically a rutted dirt road. By the time you road to our destination and back on this road you really needed chiropractor. On the way though, we had to stop at Mercedes to have a service. I was told this would be the only service that day.

Our work at Guiuan is on the island of Tobabao, barangay Trinadad. It was after 11:00 when we got to the place to catch a boat. We had to wait for a half hour. While we were waiting we found out that we had to stop at our work in McArthur to help the pastor with a problem he was having with the barangay captain about Daily Vacation Bible School. We travelled out to the island and had crabs and rice for lunch. They apologized for serving it because to them it is too common of a food for visitors. They have them all the time. They were so large and delicious. I told them it would be fine.

After lunch we had another service, yes, I was informed about it as we travelled  to it. There were many children and a few adults, who responded wonderfully at the altar service. We were also supposed to visit another barangay by boat, but we decided if we were going to have any time to settle the problem that our pastor was having we needed to get going.

We returned to town by boat and had another trip on the rough road. These jeepneys are different than the ones in Laoag. Normally, they pack them tight in Laoag, but on these there was a center wooden bench where people sat. The jeepney had 4 or 5 holding on the back and several on the roof. How they never fell of can probably be attributed to the rail around the outside edge of the roof, which they held onto for dear life. Even in the doorway there was a slat they put across and sat two people. If there was an accident the people inside would have survived, there was no place to go.

We arrived in McArthur around 4:45 p.m.  By the time we got the whole problem solved it was 6:30. The jeepneys had already stopped for the day. Our only hope was if we could catch a van. We tried standing  along the road longing for a ride.  Two vans passed us and did not stop. We texted Pastora Fenilyn and asked what to do. She said that if we went into the main part of the town they might pick us up there. It took 30 minutes to find a tricycle to take us to town in the rural place we were. The first van came and stopped at the terminal. It was full. I was hoping that if there was one seat we could each take a different van and get back eventually. Pastora Fenilyn texted  and told us there was a fairly nice place to stay there. I am sure for Filipinos it was fine, but there wasn’t even a place for me to get a safe cooked meal. I told Pastor Jun2 who was with me, great to have a place to stay, but if you take a bath without clean clothes you just put the same dirty clothes back on. 

Finally, a van stopped with 4 seats available. We were shouting. Only these were Filipino size. Pastor Jun2 and I are quite large. Normally, I buy two seats for us each, but we smashed in to be able to get back to Maydalong. We arrived around 8:30 p.m. At supper we discussed where we would go on Thursday. It was 3 hours to Delores which would be our destination the next day. Again, we would need to catch the first trip the opposite direction at 5 a.m.

Obviously, space or time does not permit explanation of all of the other trips. Although there were many difficulties it was such a joy to see how the work is expanding in Eastern Samar. My wife had some of the cutest kids at her Vacation Bible School class. At Youth Camp we had 300 campers present. Our church people were so receptive to the messages at Holiness Convention. My wife and I felt the trip was one of our most profitable yet to that region. Thank you so much for your prayers and gifts that make all of this possible through His grace.

            Until He comes again

            Bro. & Sis. Petit

May 2012     30