Daniel's Philippine Report

Well, last Thursday Daniel came back from the Philippines after traveling for almost 24 hours straight to get home. There was the traditional unpacking of the little gifts for the kiddies, the mounds of laundry, the uploading of pictures from the camera, the catching up on family life issues and the missionary stories...

Usually I try and sit down and post some sort of "report" here after a few days of Daniel walking around the house telling me, "Oh yea.... and this happened too.... and you wouldn't believe.... and did I mention..." Well, yesterday I walk downstairs to see "Mr. Missionary" typing wildly on the computer to "save me some time" on writing about the trip. I smile and say "Oh...[big pause]... thanks, hon." [for those who know, laugh now.... for those who don't, my dear husband is anything but short on words]

Yep... it's a small book... but instead of re-writing it, I thought I'd cut and paste a little and give some words from "the man, himself"...
[comments in brackets are just my sarcasim and can be completely ignored!]

"Corregidor Island is located in the mouth of Manila Harbor giving it strategic military benefit. In fact it was during the Spanish era of the Philippines that bonfires were lit to alert Manila of incoming ships. Still recognized as having military benefit, years later, American forces placed gun batteries all over the island as part of a harbor defense system of Manila bay. Big guns were placed to repel sea invasion and smaller mortars were placed to prevent land invasion during the 1920’s, but guns were never upgraded to newer weapons by WWII. It was on this island that Gen MacArthur fled the Philippines, after promising his eventual return. After Bataan fell on April 9th, 1942, American and Philippine forces held Corregidor for 27 days and surrendered to Japan May 6th 1942.

What does this history lesson have to do with a medical trip to the Philippines? Well, we like so many Christians have built our churches “forts” if you will. Trusting in our “forts” and our church services we can ignore the gathering forces around us. We are already seeing this as churches have less and less services during the week. Church attendance is down and membership is declining. The state is granting less favor to benevolent giving to the church and is making inroads into the basic liberty of Christians. We are not upgrading the “guns” just like on the Island of Coregidor. Just what are our “guns” you ask, souls, adding as many Christians to Lambs Book of Life as we can possibly see.

In any mission work we are preparing “forces” or more Christians for the Lords army. Reaching souls that will be accepted into God’s kingdom. Rather than be just on the defensive (although often necessary) we need to be on the offense – being part of a church outreach or plant. In the Philippines just that occurred. The local missionaries were Dave and Debbie Johnson. They partnered with two local churches in the Bicol Region."

[told you he was wordy...good stuff though]

"There are active volcanos in the Philippines. One volcano that we worked right at the base of is called Mayon. As one counsoler said “ we have to see these people saved they live in the shadow of death from the volcano”.

Mayon did erupt 3 years ago and the gov’t doesn’t know how many people died est, are 1000 individuals. Roughly 70,000 people were displaced during that time."

[and you thought your neighborhood was rough..]

"Supporting the out reach was the Pilipino equivalent of our Health Care Ministries the Philippine Health Care Ministry, PHCM. This team supplied a full dental team including 3 dentists, support personnel and two different local doctors that traveled with us for the clinics."

[these people give up their time away from their jobs/families too]

"During the clinics we saw a total of 1,835 people and 1,069 people accepted Christ as their Savior. Never have I seen a response like this. Even Dave Johnson, the missionary made a comment that not all those professing Christ as Savior were true conversions. But he did make one important point – with all those “conversions” we definitely have two churches planted! In addition all the people will have a follow-up with pastors, relationships will be started and if not before then hopefully soon true salvation will occur."

[can you just say "Wow!"]

"Gen MacArthur eventually returned to the Philippines and Corrigedor was recaptured – history tells us what happened. The cost was tremendous in men, women, and resources.

We as Christians, however, know the spiritual war for this world is already won, but the “battles” between now and then have lasting effects on us as well as those around us. Lets make haste than to save as many souls for Christ and keep the casualties to a minimum."

[see why I married this man?!]

There is so much more... but you just may have to give us a call to hear some of those good stories.

James 1 (NIV)
27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.