Helicopter Mission Video
For an exciting, first hand view of PAMAS helicopter mission, watch this Documentary and Love Story of Dwayne and Wendy Harris in the remote jungles of Palawan, Philippines.
“Homes” for the holidays
Hangar trusses coming up
Dear friends and family,
We're wrapping up a most wonderful time of busyness and fun! Besides a couple trips to Balabac for medical evacuations and a medical mission to Abo Abo, most of our time has been spent working on the houses. With lots of help from friends and God we were able to get both mission houses to a livable state before everyone arrived. We moved in on Sunday the 20th and went to pick up our family a couple days later on Thursday. We had such a great time with my family! They didn't even complain about the enormous amount of bugs (no screens yet) or trickle of water for showers (still working on a decent well). Sabbath we worshipped with the Cabar church, including the newest church plant group from Limbasan. My family donated Tagalog/English hymnals to each family and a guitar for the Limbasan group, which will greatly help their spiritual growth.
After "camping" at our place for the weekend we enjoyed a few days in Puerto relaxing and snorkeling. We all opted to be together for the travels so we had lots of bonding time crammed into various vehicles and hanging out the back! New Years Eve we travelled back to Manila (to my parents place) in time for some games and fireworks with friends. We had a delayed "Christmas Dinner" on New Years day, then on Sunday Scott and Mindi (my brother and sis-in-law) and Dwayne and I took a road trip up north to visit an S.I.L. aviation project (Wycliff Bible Translators) and the famous Banaue Rice Terraces. Unfortunately the terraces were socked in by fog the whole time, but we still had a great time (Scott and Mindi are headed to a remote hospital in Niger so it was the last time we would be able to spend time with them for awhile).
Thursday night we picked up Andrey from Puerto and then his wife and daughter arrived at midnight from the Ukraine. It has been a grand reunion for them! They were able to spend some good time making friends with the Ukrainian/Russian community here at AIIAS campus. Today we all head back to Puerto where we will hit the ground running!
Hope you all had a great holiday season. Thank you so much for the "gifts" and prayers from many of you this Christmas! We will try to keep you updated, though our internet will be greatly limited in our new place.
It is obvious and sobering to see how the time is so near. We don't want to miss any opportunities to reach more people before it's too late. As God continues to bless this work by providing month by month for our needs, we are grateful to Him and each of you for your part in making this happen.
Enjoy these pics of the housing progress and hangar trusses coming up by hand (with pulleys)! and time with our visiting family.
Bing and Mario arrive at church
Andrew rides a Caribao
Watching the heli take off
Second truss coming up
Student Joanne helped also
Bathroom coming along
First truss up
Andrey over Balabac
Welding the last truss
Tedious work
Sponsored students came to help
Medical Mission to Abo Abo
Sheryl helps paint
Dwayne on the job
Andrey tiling the bathroom
Visiting with church members
Trusses coming up
Andrey and Andrew are glad to be done
Visiting Kemantian
Dwayne in the heli
Grandpa takes a ride at age 86
Neighbor kids
We're moved in!
Scott, Mindi, and Wendy
Our family in Puerto
Chickens and Blood Bags
We just got back from an inspiring trip to the PFM Tagbanua 1 project. They were finishing up some evangelistic meetings and we went to support. This is one of the places we took our last medical group. It is helpful here to bring a medical team in before evangelistic meetings so they can invite everyone to the meetings while they're getting physical help as well.
Rolly with foot washing
We were impressed by the work going on there. The whole weekend was refreshingly well organized, all run by the PFM missionaries, church members, and some supporting pastors from the city. The church members were growing spiritually and the baptized members seemed truly converted and ready. They had a nice footwashing service Sabbath a.m. and baptism in the afternoon.
We plan to bring another medicl team to the Tagbanua 2 project in a couple months in preparation for their upcoming meetings as well. A road has just been completed into the project area so it will be easier to access with a team. We hope to have a projector by then to assist them with their meetings.
We are in a push to get the housing construction finished on our land by next month. Our pilot Andrey's wife and daughter will be coming soon as well as returning missionaries Danny and Rovelyn with their new baby. We are so thankful God has blessed and things have gone relatively well, all things considered. Putting the trusses up for the hangar roof will be the last big project. We are also excited about my parents, brother and siter-in-law and her parents coming for Christmas and we hope to get things done and moved before then!
Dwayne in kitchen
Thanks to our recent medical group (and many of you) we now have 8 worthy students in Palawan Adventist Academy. The government has a special grant for the school for first year students so we are helping the school reach their goal as well as giving students an opportunity they would never have otherwise. The grant also gives us p5,000 off each student every year for the rest of their 4 years!
Praise God for new bike!
We also praise God for providing transportation for our medical and missionary work with a new motorcycle! Michel especially keeps it busy running back and forth to the hospital helping patients. I realized the other day that we had a unique life when I stopped to think about the chicken in my lap, cocounts in my backpack and rice under the seat! Later that night it was confirmed as I felt the warm blood bags on my lap between Michel and me as we sped to the hospital with our donors clinging behind. We would like to purchase a couple more bikes for some worthy layworkers and missionaries we know that are walking hours every day to visit interests and do Bible studies.
Keep praying for the revival of the churches around here and the Holy Spirit to fill them. Praise God for a small breakthrough with the Brooke's Point youth who have 3 new Bible study students and are learning to be more organized and consistent with their outreach.
Wendy's Birthday
Coming into shape
Medical Mission Group Visit
This was truly amazing! Here he was, a short, muscular, healthy appearing Palawano man, lying on the wooden table in front of me, his face showing not even a trace of concern or apprehension and his friendly, intelligent eyes reflecting complete childlike trust, even though I had just slithered into his mountain village on a very slippery, steep and exhausting path a few minutes earlier, prior to which we had never met. My scrubs and hair were drenched from the constant rain, I had given up on my wet shoes and socks, was barefoot and had mud splattered on me in all kinds of places, certainly miles short of any kind of professional or trustworthy appearance.
He remained perfectly still and cooperated without showing any pain as I proceeded to prep his forehead and inject the local anesthetic around the fatty tumor which measured nearly three inches in greatest diameter and had been an unsightly bother to him for a couple of years. Rain was pelting the tin roof with such intensity and force that communication short of yelling was impossible in the nearly completed new medical clinic of Kamantian, a small hovel consisting of a few scattered huts, the George’s home, a school and a clinic with a couple of inpatient beds.
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Missionary life
Dwayne:
The hanger construction has been going well. We poured the second apartment roof last night. I learned Filipinos can work twice as fast at night than they can in the day. We got the second roof poured in 6 hours instead of 11 like the first one. It is a relief to have the roofs poured. That was the last major hurdle in my mind.
Andrey has been welding hangar trusses together. We have one done and are working on the second now. We finally got the problems worked out with our generator/welder. After the second voltage regulator burned up, I threw it away and replaced it with a resistor. It is much simpler and more reliable now. Now we can change the welding amperage by changing resistors.
I have been flying more with Andrey to get him trained in our helicopter and used to the type of flying we do in the mountains. We have had a couple of emergency medical calls from the mountains but problems with the helicopter kept us grounded. Problems consisting of rats chewing the new spark plug wires through for the second time and drive belts turning themselves on their sides for reasons I have yet to figure out. We have things worked out now till something else breaks; we just installed a new starter relay so we don't have to start it from the outside with a wrench anymore.
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Helicopter Hangar/Duplex Progress
We're excited with the progress of the construction for our helicopter hangar and duplex housing. Thanks so much for your help in making this happen! We praise God for providing this land for our base in the perfect location and in a beautiful setting with the coconut trees, creek, and green rice patties all around. Enjoy these pictures and see the progress on the building. Check back regularly for updated photos and news.
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From above
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Missionary work report
A BIG THANK YOU FROM A LITTLE CHURCH
New church for Cabar
God has blessed the little Cabar church near our land in many ways lately. They would like to send their thanks to each of you who have helped our project which has also benefited them in many ways! First of all, they praise God for the donation for the building of their new church! (Their present church is literally crumbling down with termites!) We encouraged them to step out in faith and start planning even though they had put in all they had which didn't amount to much in starting to even build. They are now praising God for being able to focus their energies on their 37 new members from the recent baptisms and begin the process of building without worrying about where they will get the money.
Demon possession and Baptisms
Step of Faith
We had a faith-building experience the other day. The head elder, Lito from the Cabar church and his family had been humbly asking for our help in finding a sponsor for their daughter to be able to go back to the Adventist academy here on Palawan. She had gone last year but they were unable to afford for her to go again. They had asked a couple times and I had to tell them we still hadn't found anyone but we would keep praying. Then school started and I forgot about it until a couple weeks ago while Jim was here. On Sabbath afternoon during one of the Bible studies, Jim leaned over and asked who the girl was helping with the children's program. I know God was impressing him to ask me because how would he know to ask about her when there were half a dozen young girls there. I told him she was the elder's daughter and from a very dedicated and sweet family. I told him it was sad that she was not able to go back to the Adventist school this year (so I thought) because they didn't have the money. Most of the young people here are not able to go to Adventist schools because they can't afford it. He asked how much it cost for one year of tuition here and we told him $300.
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Dedication through Adversity
Wendy:
Eric's departure
Here we are in Manila again, but not for much longer. Dwayne is doing the dirty work of going into the smoggy city every day doing business while I'm enjoying a cooler, more comfortable time at my parents' home, getting some work done also. We came out with Eric (Dwayne's brother) since he was leaving to go back to the States. It was also time for Dwayne to do his yearly license renewals and fun stuff like that anyway. It sure is nice to see my parents more often these days!
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Mobile Clinic Adventures
Wendy:
Miracle in Manila
It's been an exciting few weeks. First of all we went to Manila to do some errands and it was so nice to be "home" again with my parents for a little while. One of the biggest reasons for going to Manila was to pick up some medicine we were ordering from a company that sells to mission organizations like ours at a much cheaper price. We had no idea what the total was going to come out to, but the day before we went to pick up the meds, we received some money that a church in the States had donated specifically for the medical work and what a surprise when it turned out to be almost the exact amount that we needed! God is good!