Luke Parrott

The #1 industry in El Nido Town

It’s not fishing.  It’s not tourism.  It’s this.

 

Bird Nest Harvesting

In China, people will pay anywhere from $30 to $100 for a bowl of this soup! 

 

Wikipedia says “Bird's nest soup is a delicacy^[1] in Chinese cuisine. A few species of swift, the cave swifts, are renowned for building the saliva nests used to produce the unique texture of this soup.  The edible bird's nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. The nests have been traditionally used in Chinese cooking for over 400 years, most often as bird's nest soup.”

Bird nest harvesters travel throughout the islands looking for caves where these nests are located.  And when they find them, they will post up below the cave and protect their find for even up to 6 months!  When the swift is not near the nest, the harvester will scale the steep cliff, take the nest (not the eggs), and then down climb.  Usually all of this is done without rope!

While we were traveling one day, we stumbled upon the sleeping area of one harvester.  Look close and you can see! 

A curious study…

David Sutherland, Chairman of the Board of ICM and Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, lives in Hong Kong.  But he is fully invested in the work of ICM and leads a quite impressive team to apply themselves to the work of poverty at the level of subsistence. 

He and his wife, Deanna, joined us for the final 3 days of our trip. David told us that he had recently been approached by a group that researches the effectiveness of poverty alleviation programs.  The reason they approached ICM was due to a mounting curiosity in the field that religious organizations may be more effective at this work then secular institutions.  While the study is still in its initial stages, I am very curious to find out the results. 

How do secular and religious institutions compare in their effectiveness at alleviating poverty?  The hypothesis out there is that religious organizations are more effective due to the fact that they work with an unmatched social network.  The local church. 

If you think about the local church simply in the context of a social system, it begins to make sense.  The network is generally quite large.  Many communities have multiple churches in their town.  There is an overwhelming amount of trust.   There is commonality and unity.  There is awareness of need.  There is an army of volunteers ready and desiring to devote their free services to the initiative.  Where else can you find such depth in social dynamics?

Compared to an organization that works independent of the local church, one would think the results to be unmatched.  A pastor is an expert in the needs of his community.  He knows what families are struggling the most.  He is able to direct resources to those who would most benefit.  And he likely knows the quickest way to get their attention.

Compare this situation to an organization that is disconnected from the community.  They come in with an agenda of what they think works.  They hire a social worker to move in to the area and figure it out.  They gather together their findings and attempt to implement a strategy through whatever contacts they are able.  This is a scenario at its best.  At its worst, the organization rolls into town with a truck full of supplies, parks in the center of town, and just starts unloading everything from the back of the truck to whoever is present.  (of course, even religious institutions are guilty of this tactic.)

Organizations like World Vision stood out in the Haiti crisis because they worked through a network of long term relationships with local pastors and churches.  As a result, they didn’t need to just unload crates of supplies randomly in villages and in the city.  They were able to use their strategic social network (the local church) to guide relief efforts towards specific groups of people.  As a result, World Vision’s relief efforts to the Haitian people have been well targeted with precision to meet the relevant needs in the community.  Furthermore, they will be more effective in the long term rehabilitation process due to such strong partnerships.

It makes you think about the function of the local church in the United States today.  Are churches connected well enough in their community to reach the poor?  If a crisis hit their community or city, would they be effective in reaching those in the most dire of need?  Are pastors acquainted enough with their congregation that they would be able to direct resources to those most desperate?  Or is the American church just caught up in dealing with the sin management of its own congregation?  Are they concerned more with a building than a people?  Do their financial resources bless the community around them or just the programs and people that walk into the sanctuary on Sunday morning?

The local church can and should be the most socially dynamic institution in the community.  I would like to think that this speculation will be confirmed by the research conducted on ICM.

The Intuitive Gap Between the Rich and Poor

Before I leave the restroom I wash my hands.  I wash my clothes when they get dirty.  I don’t drink water from the puddle that collects in my driveway after a rainstorm.  I know I need to save a portion of the money I make so I have a savings account.  If I create something that people like, I try to offer more of that product to a larger population so I can make a profit.  The more I produce, the more I can sell, and the more I can profit.

All of these statements are intuitive to the American.  But not so to all of humanity.  Our education system has rooted in us a basic knowledge of these values that has become normative in our society.  Not only normative but intuitive.  We don’t even think about whether it is important or not. 

But the world is not America.  The Filipino poor have to be taught many of these specifics.  It is counter intuitive to you and I but that is only because it has been engrained within our culture.  There was a time even in America where we had to learn that we shouldn’t drink water from the same river that we also poop in upstream. 

That is why ICM incorporates in their Uplift program instruction in Health and Livelihood.  Family planning is part of the basic teaching.  The washing of hands is stressed.  In fact, 70% of all communicable diseases would be eradicated if they would simply wash their unclean hands.  Some have to be instructed in cleaning their 1 or 2 pairs of clothes frequently so as not to avoid skin diseases that can fester from dirty clothing. 

When it comes to livelihood, the poor are taught they need to save.  When they bring forth a good crop, they can sell and make money so they can multiply their production.  But often their response to profit is to simply give it away.  To family that need a little extra.  To neighbors they know could use it.  They see their wealth only in terms of today.  Provide for today and give the rest away.  Tomorrow, start the process all over again. 

The Intuitive gap between the rich and poor is pretty blatant.  In fact, many of our teenagers could easily teach the Values, Health, and Livelihood curriculum to the poor.  Is it any wonder that having 15 children may make it difficult to support and provide for a family?  Not so to the poor.  They see value in the work that each child can contribute towards sustainable living.  And they also recognize that many of their children may not live a long life.

What is intuitive to us is not intuitive to the rest of the world.  And it is not because these people are any less intelligent.  They just haven’t grown up in a culture that has fully adopted, developed, and embraced some of these basic standards of living.  They also do not have the accessibility that we have to fully implement these systems. 

How would you resolve the issue of city sanitation if no one in your city slum had indoor plumbing?

 

Here's some video of a festival that took place in town while we were at a medical clinic. El Nido town was celebrating 56 years and so they had some children competing in a dance competition as they marched thru town.

what is the end goal of this mission trip?

 

It is a question we circled around in our devotions about half way through the trip.  Our group of 61 responded with a wide variety of thoughts:

To help others

To bring Christ

To build a house

To give back from what the West has taken

That every tribe tongue and nation would know God

To go home and show people the good stuff I did

To add this to my resume

Everyone has different motives for going on a mission trip.  And while on the trip, everyone gets value from different activities.  For some, they saw value in pouring and mixing concrete to lay a foundation in a home.  They needed to see something tangible, visible goal come to fruition.  Others preferred to play with the children.  They wanted to exchange smiles, laughs, and memories because it was relationships that counted most to them.  Some wanted to pray with each person they met and pray over the village people before they departed.  Their gift was interceding on behalf of the people.  Others tried to talk to the ICM directors or community members to find out all the details.  What are the problems?  What are the needs?  Who is helping them?  How are they doing this?  They wanted to understand the behind the scenes to see how they fit into the big picture of what was taking place.

When our motives, expectations, and giftedness come together, it is what Paul referred to as the body of Christ.  It is a fully functional operating system.  It is Christ expressing himself in full.  And so the end goal of the trip will be seen differently by each member in the group from how they contribute as the body.

The reality is that there is not one single end goal to the trip.  In fact, the reason KIVU has taken students on mission trips the last 5 years is because the outcomes are endless.  These trips teach us so many new things:

To be an ambassador to those back home of what we have seen. 

To expand our global worldview. 

To spur us on to love others around us. 

To find poverty and injustice to address in our own hometown.

To see a model of a ministry that effectively reaches the spiritual and physical needs of the community. 

To be blessed by the faithfulness of Christians serving in drastically different circumstances from ours.

To see that the world is not America.

To apply our time, talent, and treasure to the things that really matter in life.

To spread the love of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the list goes on…

For me it was one step closer to understanding the grip of poverty and what it really takes to engage in Christ centered poverty alleviation efforts.

The Depth of Poverty

A few facts:

The United Nations defines the poverty level as anyone who makes less than US$1.25 per day.

In the Philippines, the poverty level is 76 cents per day.

33% of all Filipinos live below this level.

54 cents is the subsistence level in the Philippines.  (meaning they only make enough to buy food for the day...nothing extra.)

15% of Filipinos live at or below this level.

That is the target audience of ICM.

Friday in El Nido Town

Friday we traveled to a village 20 minutes outside of el nido town.  We came in the middle of the day after a dental clinic in which 107 people saw a dentist for the first time in their lives.  It is a place where ICM has just begun its work.  They have not even initiated the Uplift program as of yet.  They have connected with a new pastor in the community who only has a congregation of 5 families that meet from house to house each week.  There are many new believers in the community.  So our visit drew attention to the ministry of ICM and the work of this new pastor.  When a bunch of white Americans arrive just to play, hangout, and chat with the Filipinos and they are guests of the local pastor, you can imagine the platform of opportunity it creates for him in his own community.

 

You could sense that there was hope rising among this poor community.  Having received the work of this dental clinic and then being visited by a large group of Americans, hope was in the face of these villagers.  The pastor was excited to use the momentum of our group to gather together more believers and see the Gospel spread.  Even the village chief came to visit and welcome us and was very grateful for our short visit.

 

The beauty of connecting with ICM has been seeing the engine behind this program grounded in the indigenous people found in the local church.  It is model of sustainability.  In the Philippines and in most parts of the world, the church is the best institution to work through.  It is trusted, has a well established social network, and is capable of unifying the people and introducing them to methods and practices that can result in increased health and livelihood.

 

Even in El Nido town the work of poverty alleviation through ICM has unified and restored relationships within the larger Church.  It has restored relationships between churches that have split as well as built bridges across denominational divides. 

 

At the end of our day we were able to gather together in one shelter to pray over the community.  We prayed for the children and parents.  For their crops and water.  For rain to come.  For more people to know Jesus.  For the continued work of the church and ICM partnership.  For the village chief to accept Christ.  For relationships to be restored with God, others, self, and creation.

Addressing Poverty in the Philippines...one box of worms at a time.

One of the things that captivates me most about our culture is the wave of interest in ending poverty. But I find this bold proclamation is rarely backed with substantial action in mainstream America.

Here in El Nido Town with ICM we are seeing what it really takes to put poverty to an end. It’s about adopting healthy, effective, localized practices that result in long term benefit.

It is not about handouts. It is about restoring the dignity of the poor. To give them hope by offering a boost and then a process to work their own way out of living off of only 76 cents a day.

ICM believes in working with the local church as the primary avenue by which to reach the poor. And ICM aims for the poorest of the poor regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. They will find the 15-20 poorest families in the community and introduce their Uplift program to bring hope. ICM is about eradicating the extremes of poverty.

We saw a bit of how they do this in the introduction of their Vermiculture Project which ICM describes as “creating a low capital high impact sustainable livelihood for thousands of recipients.”

Here’s how it works: (as explained from ICM’s website)

1. You put 1 kilo of worms in a environment that has lots of decaying organic matter, high moisture and plenty of shade.

2. The result after 40 days is a rich supply of vermicast (organic fertilizer) and about 1 kilo of additional hungry worms.

3. The new worms are then harvested (gently dug out of the bin) and given to new recipients to begin their own vermiculture livelihood.

4. The recipients then take it to be sold for profit (vermicast is one of the most effective fertilizers) OR the organic fertilizer is used to create personal gardens. The produce from those personal gardens can then also be used to sell for profit in the market.

5. In the urban areas like where we were, the new farmers are taught to grow their new vegetables in containers, usually liter bottles of soda. In rural areas, they are taught how to use the organic fertilizer to prepare the ground and create a fertile environment for optimum vegetable growth.

6. In 4 to 12 weeks, the recipients are able to see results. A variety of vegetables are enjoyed by family members as well as sold at their local market.

With persistence, a family can easily make between P100-P300 per week which is roughly $2-$6 US dollars. It may sound insignificant to you but to a poor community it is a major blessing. We saw several recipients taking part in this entrepreneurial farming venture. Take a look at the video above!

How We Begin Our Mornings

Each morning we gather together after breakfast to talk about what it means to believe, behave, and belong to God, each other, and the world around us as followers of Jesus.

It’s an incredible dialogue each morning as we have removed all distractions and get to hear the thoughts from a multi-generational group represented here. The fusion of missions with purposeful vacationing all in a teenager and family friendly atmosphere has been amazing. God continues to encourage and bless each of us in small conversations.  Continue to pray for our work with ICM as we continue our updates.

Pa Peng

Pastor John who works in El Nido town introduced me to Pa Peng at the health clinic.  He told me the story of how Pa Peng was a violent drunk in the town.  But when his wife and kids became involved in ICM’s ministry to the poorest of the poor, Pa Peng’s life was dramatically changed. 

 

ICM began working with his family thru the uplift program to instruct them in values, health, and livelihood.  Through providing practical needs to this poor family, Pa Peng heard the message of Jesus and was overwhelmed that these Jesus followers cared for his own poverty.  In the past 2 months he has become a devoted follower of Jesus and the entire town is shocked that he turned from a violent drunken man into a humble lover of God.

 

Today his family hosts a bible study in their home for 20 others in the community. It is a testimony of God’s mighty work and as the pastors wife said, “it is all for His glory”.  This is a small testimony of how the message of Jesus becomes so irresistible when we show genuine love for our neighbors by helping them where they are most hurting.