Stories From the Field

We held on white-knuckled as the little six-seater plane zipped through the mountains, barely skimmed the dense treetops and landed on the most remote airstrip I had ever seen. We found our English-speaking guide in Bario, a village that was perched among mountain peaks. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder, feeling as if we were in the clouds, as he pointed out the jungle below. I heard about this place from friends who searched for weeks and left with their goal unfulfilled. It was a simple decision for us, go deep into the jungle, pick up where our friends left off. We were relying on our feet to take us, and faith to keep them moving. Backpacks on and hearts filled with hope we set off down the trail.

Our guide grabbed David with a fast tug and in the same motion his other hand lashed out and killed the poisonous snake. We looked at each other with eyes wide with shock. David Philips and I watched our steps closely as we hiked through the jungle underneath the canopy. It quickly turned from looking out for snakes to carefully choosing each step so the muddy trail wouldn’t cause a sprained ankle or worse, make us slide off the side of the 300-foot embankment. It was like finding a needle in a haystack as we zigzagged up and down the jungle hoping we didn’t overlook a section to search. Our GPS couldn’t connect to the satellites because the treetops blocked any view of the sky. Nomad was no longer just a term we heard on National Geographic, as we tried to find the families that moved their homes from week to week. We held onto our faith that we would find the nomadic tribe and share the Gospel with them.

Each step left us with no sign of the nomads and our guide began to show his frustration by the distance he made between us with each step. We woke up the next morning in a logging camp and heard him say, “You are never going to find these people and I am not going to waste my time.” It was clear that he did not share our desire to find the Penan tribes as he traced his way back the way we came leaving us stranded at the camp. Without him all communication was paralyzed. Our faith was the only thing that kept us moving to search for the Penan, without it we might have marched out of the jungle with the frustrated guide.

We were wandering around the camp hoping, praying for some sign or miracle from God to help us find the Penan. The miracle’s name was George, fresh out of bible school and the new pastor for the logging camp. He agreed to join our God inspired jungle trek. Walking down the path out of the logging camp, David and I stopped and started pointing left then right. George only knew five words of English and we all began to play traveler’s charades. The charades continued up steep embankments, down muddy paths, across a raging river to the top of the ridge. On top of the ridge two 10-foot spears broke through the jungle and out onto the path, carried by two men. Their faces smudged with paint, animal skin loincloths and straps that held darts tied around their waists, they were Penan warriors.

With another round of hand signals we realized that we had at last found signs of the Penan! Then we followed two members of a people group, a people group that we spent seven days looking for. They led us straight to their encampment, the product of our faith. For weeks we had planned, dodged dangers, crossed rivers and never lost the desire to find and reach them. Then there we were standing in the midst of a Penan family. We sat down with the family to share the word of God with them. When I say we, I actually mean George. Everything we thought we would say about how much God loves them through what he did in Jesus Christ could not be shared because we had no means of spoken communication. Did we really hike through the jungle for days just to pray over these families in a language they didn’t even understand? George stayed busy sharing with them from the bible while we sat back unsure of what was being said. Over the next couple of days, the ministry continued to that Penan family, as well as two other families.

The straightforward hike back should have been easy as there was no zigzagging and no more looking for the needle in a haystack. The adventure and anticipation of the mission had been replaced by sheer exhaustion and let down as we made our way to town. There were no amazing ministry memories of tribes hearing God’s love to reflect on as we trudged along that long slippery path, only foreign words and untranslated prayers. Four days later, after hopeless hiking, we finally arrived in Bario and met with a pastor friend. He and George began to talk about the mission.

It was a rapid-fire conversation between George and the pastor as David and I sat there, still in the dark. Then the pastor turned and began to translate the story to us. I remember looking over at David’s smile as the pastor told us of how George had ministered directly to the Penan family. We heard the precious details of how his words of faith had come to speak to their trials and struggles. These were the details that the lack of communication had left out, the details we were so eager to hear. Because of the language difference, we didn’t realize until that point that the Penan had actually prayed to receive Jesus Christ with George. Frustration fell away when I realized that the days of grueling hiking, the close call with the snake, countless dangerous situations and not to mention our guide leaving us without any way to communicate - all of it had been worth it. Even through all of our misunderstanding our desire to find the Penan and share the gospel with them was complete.