Pastor Matthew Stuckey here, giving you a missionary moment on the ethnic group of people
known as the Bajau.
The purpose of these videos is to give you an informative, non-biased perspective on
the topic.
But at the end of this video, I will give you my personal experience when interacting
with this ethnic group of people known as the Bajau.
The Bajau are nicknamed as the Sea Gypsies.
They will exist mainly in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Essentially, they are nomadic people that are simply sojourning without really having
a permanent dwelling place.
In terms of their population, there's around 470,000 here in the Philippines, around 436,672
in Malaysia, Indonesia 345,000, and Brunei 12,000.
Generally, their skin tone is going to be darker than the average Filipino that you
will see here, although they are not the only ethnic group that is here in the Philippines
that has darker complexion.
So just merely someone having darker complexion that looks like a native, that doesn't necessarily
mean that that's a person that is Bajau.
In terms of their language, they speak Sinama is the name of the language.
From my experience, for those that are in Metro Manila or Pampanga, we have a decent
amount we've run into in Pampanga, and their Tagalog was, I could say, okay.
We were able to have some communication, although there was certainly some trouble with communicating.
In terms of their English, it seemed pretty much non-existence from my experience, although
what I've read online, that can vary depending on who you're around.
It seems like the group of people that I experienced actually had better Tagalog than the reputation
they have in terms of their ability to speak the language.
There are Visayan speaking areas here in the Philippines, and I would assume in those
areas, the people that are the Bajau living there might have.
Some might have an okay understanding of Visayan, others probably not very much.
And English, as I said from my experience, not that great in terms of their ability.
In terms of, number two, besides who are they, number two, what is their reputation?
Well, they're known as the sea gypsies.
Of course, if you are from Europe, you know who the gypsies are.
If you grew up in the United States, you've heard of the gypsies, and of course, the gypsies
do not have a good reputation.
There's the old song by Cher where she sung, you know, gypsies, tramps and thieves, and
she lumped them in with people that are con artists, people that steal, people that scam.
And I could say that the Bajau have a pretty similar reputation here in the Philippines,
probably not to the level of the gypsies have in the United States in terms of being successful
in scamming, but in terms of just begging and just being nomadic and everything, there
is definitely a lot of similarities with the gypsies, at least in terms of their reputation.
Some people give the reports that when they're begging for money, if you do not give money,
they will actually hit you and basically force you to give them money, although I have not
experienced that personally myself.
So number one, who are they?
Number two, what is their reputation?
Number three, what is their religion?
Well, if you're going to go online, what it says about the religion is that they're primarily
Sunni Islam, but they're also worshiping their ancestors and, you know, just kind of animistic.
And from my experience talking to them, it didn't really seem like they were tied down
to Islam or necessarily anything.
It was pretty hard to actually tell what they believed.
And it didn't necessarily seem to be that important to them, at least the group that
I talked to.
But what you're going to see, at least from statistics, is they're primarily Sunni Islam.
They're very into ancestor worship.
And they also have a lot of characteristics of shamanism, divination, mediums, amulets.
There is a lot of sorcery here in the Philippines.
And with the Bajau, they do have shamanistic elements in terms of their culture.
How about number four, the way that they live their lives?
The Bajau are known to be incredible fishermen.
They have the nickname of the sea gypsies.
And the reputation is that they can basically just go under the water for long periods of
time and they can be very successful at catching fish and other sea creatures for their food.
And I can say that my personal experience just watching videos of them on YouTube, it
actually is far greater than, you know, what I've even heard.
I mean, I was amazed that because I've read that they can stay under water for more than
10 minutes.
And, you know, you can watch videos literally where somebody will dive underwater wearing
pretty much no clothing with just like a spear in their hand and they will just go down to
the bottom of the water and other people in the water have so much equipment and have
to get a lot of oxygen.
They can only stay under for so long.
Whereas many people that are in the Bajau community can stay under water for more than
10 minutes.
I mean, it's one of the most remarkable things that I've ever seen.
It has been the way for a long period of time of how they have been able to get their
food and living by the water.
They had to become experts in catching fish and aquatic animals, and they certainly are
very good at that.
They commonly will sell fish and pearls at markets in Cebu City, and they basically will
be living generally by the water.
My experience from the group that I ran into, they were basically living on the side of
a mountain, kind of a makeshift house with just kind of wooden boards without indoor
plumbing, but generally you're going to find that they live by the water.
Let me just give you my experience from soul winning to this group of people.
Let me say this, that my first few years here in the Philippines, I was not easily able
to distinguish where people were from.
There's a group of people here in the Philippines known as the IDA's, which I'm sure I'll have
a future video on, and I would just see groups of people that had darker complexion, but
I didn't really know what ethnic group that they were a part of.
In my first few years here in the Philippines, I did actually have a lot of bad experiences
with people that were some sort of natives in terms of begging and being very aggressive
in terms of trying to get money from me and my family, but quite honestly, I don't know
for sure whether that was the Bajau or not.
It could have been, but I do not know that for sure, but I do know for sure just going
back about a year and a half ago, my experience that I had with them.
The Japanese, they will commonly ask for money.
I've never had them get violent with me, but it is very common to see that, but in terms
of my soul winning experience one day, I went soloing with someone from our church, and
the first half of the day, we were in basically a squatter's area, people that were living
in houses that they did not necessarily own themselves, but they were just kind of dwelling
in them because they had been abandoned, but the people were generally hardworking people,
very respectful, and I think we had like five salvations in a couple hours, which is phenomenal
even here in the Philippines because door to door is not how we get big numbers, but
it's incredibly successful, and we decided on the second half of the day, let us try
the other side of the water.
There was a small body of water there, and we decided to just try the other one that
was on the side of the mountain.
We did not realize that it was a Bajau community, and people were living in these areas, and
they were, it was the poorest area I've ever seen in my life.
Outside of just people not having indoor plumbing, which is something I have seen a decent bit,
it just, the houses were very makeshift, very small, I mean there was a few tents people
had, there's no way it could have protected against the weather or the rain, and I can
just say that from what I saw from them is they would just use the bathroom on the ground,
and they were just walking on the same ground that they had just used the bathroom on like
it was no big deal, which was bizarre to me.
I can say it was the dirtiest place I've ever seen in person in my life, and while we were
giving the gospel, I was a silent partner at a door, and my soul-winding partner, while
he's giving the gospel, I had about 50 to 100 flies on me at one time, not just in the
area, but literally they were on me, and there was just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of flies just flying around, and after that experience, I was sick for a couple weeks
afterwards.
I remember just praying inside my head and my heart for that person to get saved, but
they did not get saved.
But in terms of the other experience we had with soul-winding in that area, pretty much
everybody listened, not a single person came close to getting saved.
None of them came close.
In fact, I asked a group of people, a family of like eight people, we approached there
in the early afternoon, I just said, nakasala kannabadati, have you ever sinned before?
And they just kind of looked like, no.
They're like, no, and they kind of looked at each other like, of course not.
And I was thinking, maybe they just don't understand Tagalog.
My soul-winding partner also went through and explained stuff, and they understood,
but they said they've never lied, they've never sinned, and I was just thinking, we're
arriving in the afternoon, and all of you are asleep, and none of you appear to have
full-time jobs.
I'm pretty sure laziness is a sin.
But we just kind of moved on, and just people would listen, but just not even close to getting
saved.
And then my soul-winding partner did go through the gospel, and the one that I mentioned earlier,
and the lady listened for a while, I was praying in my head for her to get saved, and I was
trying to be like, God, forgive me for being upset about how dirty it is and all the flies,
but just please help this woman get saved, it's worth it to stay here if just one soul
gets saved.
Sadly, nobody got saved, and we actually ended the day after that.
We went about an hour and a half in the second half of the day, because not only was I not
receptive and extremely dirty, and I was just already feeling sick, but I just didn't feel
very safe there either with the group of people that I was talking to.
So I would absolutely give the gospel to Bajau, again, if I had the opportunity.
In terms of that specific area, I can say it was by far the least receptive area I've
ever been in my life, and we're probably not going back.
So from my personal experience, it's not great, but I've only had a few times I've had interactions,
so I can't necessarily guarantee for everyone who is Bajau here in the Philippines.
Anyways, thank you, and God bless.