I received this e-mail update on Nurgina from my dad.  He gave me permission to publish it here.

Part 1

It seems as though the Devil in all his labors targets primarily those who are a major threat to his Kingdom. Sleeping Christians are best dealt with by letting them sleep. Those in Satan’s ranks who bear the name of Christian but are actually his emissaries are given help and encouragement by him. Then there is that pesky branch of Christian who will actively advance the cause of Jesus Christ and at any cost will stand for the right no matter what. This is a small segment of Christianity and is the most feared by the Prince of Darkness. These Christians are the ones who will experience the full fury of Satan’s animosity and except for the protection of a loving father they would be silenced. I think that in this last group we will find one of our

most faithful church members. Her name is Nurgina and for those who make it a regular practice of reading AFM frontiers, she is no stranger. She has twice been attacked by demon harassment where for a day or two she was surrounded by demonic forces that made her blind and deaf to all that surrounded her and she was not even aware of the closeness of friends and believers. During these times of darkness, as she saw demonic apparitions dancing about her and telling her to renounce her Christina beliefs, she stood firm for God. Only through the prayers of fellow believers and the intersession of God’s Holy Spirit was she delivered.

Once again Satan has conspired to attack Nurgina ,. The story begins about 14 years ago when Nurgina was a little baby. At that time for unknown reasons she was promised in marriage to a young boy named Gardi. Time passed and when Nurgina reached the age of 11 or 12 the subject was once again brought up. Since she was of marriageable age it was now the time to fulfill the promise and marry Gardi. A bisara (meeting of the elders) was called and the gunggarangs (elders) told her she must marry the boy. Through the power of God she by herself with no other support other than her prayers to God resisted the wishes of the gunggarangs and she was not forced to marry.

However after the passage of a few more years, Gardi decided that he had fallen in love with Nurgina and it was now time to marry his rightful bride. He is not a Christian and he comes from a family that has always been hostile to Christianity. But in spite of the decision of the previous bisara he went to the gunggarangs and they agreed to help him obtain his purpose. Unfortunately in Palawan culture the wishes of the male will almost always prevail. Young girls are treated as a piece of merchandise on the equality of a pig or a dog. And so the bisaras once again began. In this culture it is not appropriate to use outward force. A raised voice or angry words are not good, so the method that is used is a calm attack that involves hour after hour of circuitous reasoning, trick questions and the ever present threat of fines and punishment for not cooperating. The more people involved in this attack the better as far as they are concerned.

And so the gunggarangs began their task of intimidating Nurgina into agreeing to follow their wishes. Each bisara became longer, some of them lasting almost all night. Nurgina had no one to stand by her. Her father is dead and her mother and one brother, who are supportive of her wishes are for all practical purposes not allowed to speak in the bisara.

Her only support was her prayers to God and His support. She was told without her cooperation she would have to be punished and pay a fine that consisted of: 5000 pesos, 100 kilos of rice, 50 chickens, and a large number of blankets and articles of clothing.. this was a gigantic amount for a Palawano and was easily equal to one year of work for a grown man. Finally in desperation she asked if she could just pay 5000 pesos ( That would be something comparable in work hours, with an American having to pay about $10,000) and be released from their demands. They agreed that this would be possible for they strongly suspected that she didn’t have enough money to pay such a fine. After this bisara Nurgina came to us for help. We had been very aware of what had been going on and we had all been praying, but had been waiting for God’s direction. She asked if there was any way she could borrow that enormous amount of money from us. After prayer we felt that was what God wanted us to do. Nurgina left happily with the money thinking that here troubles were at an end. However when she attended the next bisara and presented the funds, the elders were first incredulous and then angered by the appearance of the money. They questioned her repeatedly until they found that the money had come from us. Upset and angered by this development they said that she must return the money to us. This was a Palawan affair and the the missionaries had no right to be pushing their noses into business that

did not concern them. It was fine for the missionaries to provide free medical help for all Palawanos, it was OK to provide the only schooling available to all Palawanos in the mountains and it was alright to have a church but other than that we were only to help people the gunggarang felt should be helped. To go against their wishes we be considered a crime by them.

A gunggarang came to visit us and let us know that we must take back the money. This we did but along with this was the proviso that we could attend the next bisara which was to make the final decision on the case. He was not eager for us to come but it did not look good for him to refuse our request. Part of his reticence was due to the fact that the Palawano penglima (Most powerful of all the local leaders) in the lowlands did not like us or our work and had forbidden us to get involved. At this same time rumors began to circulate that if Nurgina did not cooperate and marry then she and the missionaries would be killed. We suspected that the threats were only rumors started by those on the other side trying to get us to cooperate. However one does not enjoy such threats even though it is suspected that they are only words and nothing more..

Part 2

Sunday evening just before dusk, Nurgina came out of hiding and arrived at our house so that we could all go to the bisara together. As we were praying for divine guidance we were interrupted by the appearance of Gardi. He said he was wanting to buy a rice sack but it was obvious that he was there to escort us up to the bisara where he would finally received his rightful bride. He was dressed up hair combed and seemed just a bit too cocky for the situation.
We put on our packs and headed up the steep trail as the sun sank behind the jagged western mountains. Gardi, followed behind and carried on a light hearted chatter. We had decided in advance that if things got out of hand or if violence erupted we would immediately head out of the mountains, our family and Nurgina. We would work with the Palawanos as much as possible but if Nurgina was threatened by physical force then we would cut off all negotiations and leave. We knew that the laws of the Philippines are on our side. It is not only illegal to force anyone into marriage but it is extortion to ask anyone to pay money for the privilege of making ones own decision about such matters. We were hesitant to take such matters to the police because
in a sense it would be like opening pandoras box. The governmental powers here are not always noted for their speed or accuracy in dealing with such matters, and in so doing we could end up in a situation which might be equal to the problems that we were trying to solve. As the Palawanos would say we were between a rock and a precipice. We wanted to do what was right but not in such a way as to endanger our work here or to cause unnecessary enemies. Leonda and I had agreed in advance that she would do the talking and I would write down what was happening, listen and pray. In a sense a woman addressing the gunggarangs is less intimidating to them. We did not want to win the battle but lose the war.

As usual everything happens slowly. By 8:00 the bisara has begun. About a half dozen gunggarangs and 25 other interested parties filled the room and many more milled about in the darkness outside.. Nurgina, Leonda and I sat together, we felt the weight of the collective disapproval of our position. A whole history of the entire affair droned on for what seemed like hours. This was punctuated by other stories from other gunggarangs .Sometimes the stories had little to do with the matters that were being dealt with but whether or not, the hours crept by until they came to the point where they asked Nurgina what here decision was. I was proud of her. She had already made her decision and she made it clear that she would not marry Gardi, even
if they were to kill her, she would not do it.

This was quite a stand for she was taking a stand against what seemed like the desire of almost all present. Many of those present sided with the gunggarang, others may not have agreed but they would not speak up in Nurgina’s defense. Sadly to say there were church members present who had fallen under the pressure of the herd mentality and had actively attacked Nurgina for the stand she had taken. Other than Nurgina, Leonda and I , There were only two who spoke anything in her favor. One was a young man named Jiji. He had come to church at times. And even wanted to be a Christian but his temptations with alcohol were so great that he had fallen away many times, He was discouraged but of all the ones sitting there he was the only one I heard who saw that what the gunggarangs were doing was wrong. He did not speak out straight to their face but to me he kept saying, this is crooked, this is wrong. He was the one big encouragement we had.
After ward I told him. You are a true friend indeed. I think God has a very special place for Jiji

The hours wore on and I am sure the elders began to realize that things were not going in the way they had planned. They repeatedly said they had never forced Nurgina in any way. It sounded just like a little boy repeatedly denying that he had stolen the cookies from the cookie jar. Each time they denied that they had forced her, it only solidified the fact that in their guilty hearts they realized that force had been used. Finally around midnight they agreed that Nurgina would not have to marry Gardi if she paid a P5000 fine, and that it must not be borrowed and must be paid immediately. We countered that she did not have the money and they insisted that it was forbidden for us to loan her the money. Finally one person spoke up for Nurgina. Agus
one of our school teachers said, When a boy gets married he is allowed to borrow the money to pay the bride price why is Nurgina not allowed to borrow money to keep from getting married. To be chastised by one of their own people and someone younger than they, was a bit too much and they agreed that she could borrow the funds. But it was prohibited for us to give her the funds as a gift. They asked for the funds immediately and we said that we would have to wait for the morning, that was a lot of money and we don’t just carry that much money with us at all times. They agreed that all the funds should be brought early the following morning. The bisara ended some time after midnight. Leonda and Nurgina were happy to see how God had worked out
the problem. Unfortunately I was upset by the outright force, intimidation and crookedness that had taken place that night. I was happy for Nurgina but sickened by the gunggarangs quest for power and their lust to force a poor defenseless little girl to do the evil purposes that they had planned for her. We returned on the narrow steep trail and were into bed by 1:15.

The next morning I was up at 5:00. There was no way I could sleep. I mulled over the actions of the gunggarangs and asked God to give me a text to help put things in perspective. I Don’t often like to pick a text at random but this morning I asked for a text to settle the turmoil in my soul. I then opened the bible and there before my eyes was Ezekiel 34.. It is talking about the rulers of Israel but it could equally apply to the leaders of any people. “ Son of man prophecy against the shepherds of my people….should not shepherds take care of the flock?;;;;;but you do not take care of the flock, you have not strengthened the weak, or healed the sick or bound up the injured….you have ruled them harshly and brutally…therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says…I will remove the shepherds… “ The whole chapter was about the misguided harshness of the gunggarangs., It described their attitude exactly. I realized that I did have a right to be unhappy, God himself was unhappy. But I must wait on the Lord and ask Him how to direct that anger into constructive channels.

Soon after this we made the journey backup to Nyug where the bisara had taken place. The gunggarangs were still eating, so we waited while they ate in front of us. Then came a time for more lectures. Once again the same old litany of repeatedly saying that nobody had forced Nurgina in any way. I bit my tongue and said nothing. I did not want to spoil anything for Nurgina. At this time, if we displayed any anger, they could easily decide that we had another sin to deal with and say that more money needed to be paid. We brought out all the money. About 5 kilograms of coins and bills. We had to scrape up all the money we could find to pay the bill. Gardi sat down and happily counted it all out. Each time coming up with a different amounts and trying to impress us by the fact that he could count in English. Finally it was decided that 20 pesos was missing. I counted it quickly and since I had no money left, Leonda paid that amount. Once it was over Leonda, Nurgina and I had to go around the circle grasp the hand of each individual and apologize that we had caused so many problems. Leonda and I departed up the trail where we sat and talked. I said that I would be leaving the mountains for the time being. I really needed to process everything before I met these people again. I was struggling with the inequality of the whole system. A Palawano man can rape of young girl and in turn be given a fine of 50 pesos which he doesn’t have to pay because he just happens to not have the money with him and then a young girl is forced to pay P5000 pesos on the spot to keep from being forced into marriage with a non Christian that she has no romantic love for.

Satan means for it all to discourage us, but all it means is that time is short, the battle is heating up and all must choose sides.

In spite of all that, I am ever so happy that the Lord through Nurgina has been victorious and that she is free from these latest attacks of Satan. There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord has great plans for Nurgina and for the Palawano people. I look for the day when even the gunggarangs will see the light. I ask for forgiveness for their short sightedness, and that some day they may leave the darkness of Satan’s kingdom behind and may live in the light of God’s love.