The Market- Chapter 8
Preview from Prince of Sumba, Husband to Many Wives
I woke up refreshed and ready for the new day. I felt every bit as cleansed as last night’s converts must have felt, with two exceptions; my mouth tasted like garbage from going to sleep without brushing my teeth and my ankles itched from sleeping with my socks on.
Mary was already cooking breakfast when I heard a knock at the door. It was Sam and Sarisa. I hurried to the bathroom to clean myself up and a few minutes later came out.
Mary was following our family tradition of forcing food and beverage down our guests’ throats, hungry or not. Mary’s efforts met little resistance since it was a Philippine tradition as well.
“Good morning, Sam, Sarisa.” I nodded to Sarisa and reached out to shake Sam’s hand.
“Good morning, Ish.” Sarisa replied for Sam whose mouth was stuffed with one of the brownies Mary had just baked.
The air had a wonderful smell of chocolate. I couldn’t resist. I stuffed one in my mouth too.
Sam, having recovered from his overfull mouth, took a sip of coffee. Then he leaned back, stretching, as if rising from a long nap.
“We need a change from the monotony of Cagayan de Oro.” Sam said through a yawn. “Wouldn’t you agree, Ish?”
“Monotony? Are you kidding! If yesterday was monotonous, what kind of adventure do you have planned for today?” I said.
“Just a little drive in my old truck and there won’t be a better time to leave than right now.” Sam said.
Mary couldn’t contain her excitement.
“I’ve already packed our things.” Mary said. “It might be a few days we’ll be gone, Ish.”
Mary had packed more than enough for a few days. Her telling me that it might be a few days was her way of shushing me about her excessive packing.
“Are you ready?” Mary asked.
“I haven’t even had a chance to eat my breakfast and drink my morning coffee.” I complained. “Is this some kind of a conspiracy!”
I repeated the words that a dear but overly dramatic friend had shouted during a church board meeting.
“Well, Ish, you might say it is a conspiracy.” Suni nudged her way into the discussion.
Suni, Asina, and some of the other girls had been sitting uncharacteristically silent in the corner. Suni continued:
“All of us decided to let you sleep late while we were preparing everything. You were so sleepy last night. We wanted you to have plenty of energy for today.”
“And no time to object.” I objected.
“And there’s no better time for an adventure.” Asina said, “We want to keep you humble. After the most fantastic revival that Cagayan de Oro has ever seen, the last thing we want is for you to become a local celebrity. Being famous might change you.”
“I’ll withdraw my objection, Attorney Asina.” I replied.
I remembered the song I’d sung before falling to sleep, Grace grace, God’s grace. It was then that I realized Asina was right, for as I sang, I felt no small sense of pride in having been part of that revival.1 I understood moreover, that Satan’s plans for the destruction of a man’s ministry go into high gear with the ministry’s first great success. I prayed silently in my heart:
“Lord, keep my thoughts pure and toward you in all ways. Gently keep me humble and let me lean on You and Your word only. May I give You the glory and honor in all things.”2
Grabbing my breakfast, which had been waiting for me on a paper plate, and my mug of freshly brewed coffee, I headed for the door.
“You couldn’t be more right, Asina. We’re outta here!” I said.
Sam’s vintage pickup truck was parked at the curb. It had benches in the truck bed that faced each other. I took my seat; Mary on one side of me, and Suni on the other. Four of the girls from the church faced us, balancing out the load. There was Modelisa; resident actress and one on one evangelist extraordinaire, Cherry; the girl with the testimony about coming out of prostitution, Asina; her speech always with grace though seasoned with salt,3 and Tisay; the young girl who’d just turned to the Lord after leaving a life of whoredom. I could barely recognize her. Wearing modest clothing and without makeup, she didn’t look older than eleven. It was hard to greet her without choking up, but I managed to get out a sentence.
“Hi Tisay, it’s nice to know that you’ll be accompanying us.”
She smiled simply. I wondered what had happened to her folks.
“So where are we headed?” I asked Sam.
“We’ll begin with the Marawi Brass Market. It’s close to Lake Lanao.” He said, then added with a wink, “You’d have been rude according to our local customs had you not accepted our invitation, so sit back and enjoy the ride. You really have no choice.”
“Ha ha. You really have no choice!” Suni mimicked, making a sound more like a parrot than a young lady.
We were all laughing now. Imagine me, laughing before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee. The excitement of going to the Islamic City of Marawi had obviously hastened the effect of the caffeine.
After Sam led us in prayer we were on our way.
Mary and the girls quickly went into their chatting mode. They were doing their best to hold a conversation but the jarring from Sam’s old pickup hitting potholes won out as we were treated to a concerto of rattling steel. I managed to move the food off my plate and into my mouth without dropping so much as a crumb and guzzled down the last of my coffee. I smiled at Mary, assured of my neatness, but then that one last drop of coffee, with which I’d been having an ongoing battle over the years, found its place on my shirt. Fortunately, I was wearing brown.
I’d heard about the brass market. It was a place where mountain men and lowlanders mixed in a clattering of brass from all over the island. Sam said we might inquire as to some remote places to go where the inhabitants weren’t entirely hostile to foreign missionaries. Our purpose for coming here, after all, had been to go on a mission. What better way than to spontaneously set out in search of adventure.
As we got closer to the Marawi brass market, the pot holes increased as well as the hammering from inside the market. I had a hard time telling between the clattering of Sam’s truck and the chattering of my teeth. Had I really had that much dental work? Now I understood what Paul meant when he said in his letter to the Corinthians that practicing gifts without love is as sounding brass.4 What a racket! Between the pounding in the brass market and Sam’s old pickup groaning ever closer to its final bump, my aching ears were able to make out that one joyous sentence from Sam.
“There’s a parking stall. Shall I pull in?”
“PLEASE!” We shouted in unison.
“Well, it’s good to hear we’re all of one voice!” Sam shouted back.
We beeped and edged our way past carts and vegetables laid out on woven mats to squeeze into what I was sure would be the final resting place for Sam’s truck. The sputtering sound when he turned off the key convinced me. Then it sputtered once again as if to say, *“Wanna bet?” And yes, the truck won the bet.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Sam said.
He got out and walked up to an old man who was sitting behind the counter at one of the stalls. The man was wearing a kerchief wrapped around the upper part of his head like a turban. His teeth were like the rutted road we’d just come in on; clay colored and broken, except for two; they were gold. They glistened as if signaling to each other. Beacons among hills of clay. He was selling bolos and butterfly knives. They glistened too.
There are stories of Moros attacking military compounds in the early 1900s armed only with such bolos.5 They were usually able to hack up a dozen or more soldiers before falling dead from gunshot wounds. In order to give themselves that extra thirty seconds of life needed to carry out their mission of death, they would wrap their arms and even their chests with bands like tourniquets. The 1910 45 caliber pistol was designed specifically for defense against the Moros. After it arrived on Mindanao, the attacks stopped.
My knowledge of these and other facts made me acutely aware of the divisions between Muslim and Christian. The Muslims’ grandfathers had correctly told them that before the discovery of penicillin, Roman Catholic priests were seen unashamed in public with open syphilis sores on their faces.6 So till now, the Muslims had no reason to see any difference between Western decadence and Christianity. But these new Born-Again Christians weren’t decadent, and they were gaining more converts than the Muslims could breed. Truth told; it wasn’t the decadence that the Muslims hated. They had decadence. They just kept it underground. It was the Christians they hated and they’d put them under ground too, if they had a chance.
Sam was still chatting with the blade vendor when I noticed a tall mestiso7 making his way through the aisle that divided the vendors’ stalls. He had a full beard, quite rare on Mindanao, and a black glistening head of hair. I felt like I was viewing a scene in a movie. He looked like someone who could have starred in one of our American action films, but there was something more about him than that. He had the air of royalty about him. All eyes were on him. His steps were deliberate. His boots clopped on the wooden sidewalk which creaked under his weight. He was easily six foot and of no slight figure.
As he approached the place where Sam stood, the knife vendor greeted him,
“Mabuhay po, Datu!” (May you live long, Prince!)
To anyone else, mabuhay would simply have meant welcome, but I was certain his greeting carried the more literal meaning. The vendor had some very large boxes waiting for this intriguing stranger. I wondered how many bolos and butterfly knives must be inside. The stranger now turned to Sam and shook his hand. They were conversing as if they’d known each other for years. Could this man have something to do with the adventure Sam had planned for us? I’d find out soon enough. He accompanied Sam as they walked over to us.
Shaking my hand through the slats in the canopy of Sam’s truck, he introduced himself.
“I’m John.”
“Nice to meet you, John. I’m Ishmael and this is my wife Mary and some of the girls from our church; Suni, Asina, Modelisa, Cherry, Tisay, and I’m sure you’ve already met Sarisa, Sam’s wife?”
“Yes, nice to see you again Sarisa, and nice to meet you ladies.” John tipped his hat, then spoke to me again. “So you’re an adventurer, are you?”
“Well, not unless you could call teaching Sunday school an adventure.” I replied.
“Sunday school teacher or no, I have it on good word from a twelve-foot-tall angel that you have adventures in store for you that few men have ever dreamed of. Isn’t that right, Sam?”8
John turned to Sam who’d taken his place again behind the wheel of his dilapidated pickup truck.
“One thing I can tell you for sure.” Sam declared, “If John says he spoke with a twelve-foot-tall angel then he spoke with a twelve-foot-tall angel. And if that angel told him you’d have an adventure, then we’ll be praying you’re ready for the ride.”
Was my skepticism that obvious? I guess so. The girls looked at me with scolding eyes and Sarisa cautioned.
“We’re serious, Ish. John’s had numerous visions concerning our ministry and all of them came true.”
John motioned toward a nearby jeepney9 full of women and children.
“I only brought a few of my wives and children today. The rest are back at my place, preparing lunch. Keep a distance, Sam. I wouldn’t want the dust to get you folks sick. See you at the top!”
I remembered an old book my cousin gave me when I was trying to make a career decision. It was by a super salesman who spent his last years teaching Sunday school. He went to be with the Lord years before I’d gotten the book. It was titled See you at the Top. Well, John with that many wives and kids must have had his own kind of sales talent that matched that of old Zig Ziglar.
John patted me on the shoulder and walked over to his jeepney. He backed it up to the vendor’s stall till it bumped against one of the boxes where his sons had been keeping watch, then he got out and walked over to the old man with the rutted teeth. After a few minutes of animated discussion, they opened each of the boxes. Pulling a machine gun out of the last box, the old man held it out and said, “NBSB,” then winked. He was applying the Christian acronym for No Boyfriend Since Birth to the gun. I figured he must have meant that no cartridge had ever been chambered. John smiled, shook the old man’s hand, then paid him. His sons loaded up the boxes and we were off to his place. I wasn’t worried about the guns; John was a Christian and if anyone knew responsibility with guns, a man with so many children would.
Sam prayed blessings on our trip, then put the key in the ignition and said:
“It runs on gasoline and prayers, but mostly prayers.”
Yes, the truck won the bet.
And so we were off to John’s place, about thirty miles into the mountains. Not a long trip on a freeway. But this wasn’t a freeway. And the potholed pavement that began the journey, soon became a dirt road. We arrived at John’s place two flats and one radiator hose later. By the clock, that’s about three hours.
Sam pulled his truck to a stop inside the gates of John’s property. This time the engine sputtered just once and was silent. Within moments the silence was replaced by the sounds of the jungle; birds chirping, parrots cawing, a monkey’s angry call echoing across the canyon.
Chapter 8 Footnotes
1. Proverbs 11:2 When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom.
Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
2. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
3. Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
4. 1 Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
5. Moro – Muslims in Mindanao were called Moros in the early 20th century.
Bolo – A small sword used by natives in the Philippines, mostly as a tool for clearing vegetation but also as a weapon.
6. “And, among the Reverend of the Romish Creed, we see, that matrimony, in any sort or degree, is utterly thrown out of doors; though we daily see persons, most Sir Reverendly noted for filthiness, promoted to their chiefest church dignities!” Page 57 Dialog on Polygamy
From the mouth of Telypolygamus Dialog on Polygamy By Bernardino Ochino. Buy Here!
7. Mestiso – A person of mixed Philippine and White ancestry.
8. Angels appeared to many of the apostles in the years after Jesus’ resurrection and there is no reason to doubt that they are still appearing to various Christians around the world today.
Hebrews 13:2 “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Angel encounters after Jesus ascension: Acts 5:19, Acts 8:26, Acts 10:3, Acts 12:7, Acts 12:23, Acts 27:23
9. Jeepney: A long vehicle for passenger transport with a hood and fenders reminiscent of a WW2 era jeep but with a canopied truck bed behind the cab. Two benches stretch the length of the bed so that passengers face each other. Each bench seats 8 passengers.
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