Tinago Falls

Yesterday we went to Tinago Falls with some of the youth of Holy Trinity Lutheran Catholic Church. They are all related to Irene, our contact. Big family! To get to these “hidden falls,” you have to walk down over 400 steps! It was a long way down but it was so beautiful once we made it down there. We had a great time with the kids, taking the bamboo raft over to the falls, jumping off it, swimming, and climbing up some rocks. Our team also walked down the river a little ways and climbed from rock to rock, down the river. I have decided that this is my new favorite activity. After some lunch we swam a little more and Jenny, Dave and I swam over by the falls. It was really hard to swim against the current and if you stopped swimming you would go backwards. We made it to the rocks right next to the waterfall and climbed up. There was so much water coming down and mist that you could barely see where to climb. We made it to a little ledge and jumped off…Dave guessed it was probably a twelve foot jump. It seemed so high up but looking at the falls we were only at the very bottom. It was a long way back up those 400 steps and we were very tired when we reached the top but it was definitely worth it.

We did a program last night at Freedom Stage which is a small concrete stage in the street near Irene’s home in Linamon. In order to do our program here we had to go to the municipal building and meet with the mayor to get a permit. He was very nice and he also sent two guards to be with us when we went to falls. We have felt safe the whole time here, it was just a precaution. Most of the kids that were at our program the night before and that went to the falls with us were at our program, along with many people just passing by on the street. We guessed that there were probably 250 people there. In our program we talk a lot about unity and peace in the body of Christ. The Lutheran Church of the Philippines is split into two groups and they are undergoing reconciliation talks currently. I think that unity is an important message for them along with all of the church to hear. I don’t know how to spell it but “Calinow geekansa Dios,” (the peace that comes from God – in Cebuano) has become a phrase that is very important to us.