I never get tired of saying God likes to show off. It’s like the shampoo bottle that says wash and repeat, but I hear it as, “Watch and repeat”. We’ve been blessed to partner with a medical team to offer their professional services to the needy of the Philippines. For a solid week, they went from each of the Assemblies of God churches on the east side of Mindoro giving free dental, glasses, checkups, and medicines. It was amazing to be able to join them for a couple days as I had a mandatory meeting to attend to in Manila. Anybody can use whatever God given gifts they’ve been given to glorify our savior Jesus Christ!
As they are giving their professional services to the people, the veteran missionaries and I are translating while I’m attempting too! Learning and speaking another language is no joke, but I know many are blessed by my efforts. While all these things are going on, I’m also on the lookout for those with incurable sicknesses during the medical missions. The first woman I found had a high-risk chance of having TB in her lungs. After spending time praying with her, she no longer had any restrictions on her lungs. As the doctor recommended her though, to visit the local hospital, so did I. I don’t believe that the only thing we should do is pray, but rather do everything you can to get well. Something as serious as that needs to be dealt with right away!
I witnessed headache, heartache and eye problems all get healed in that course of time. But the one that really stood out to me was this young boy at the end of the second day. He explains about his back pain he’s been having for one year. The only thing that the nurse could for him was offer some pain killers to temporarily numb the pain. I asked him how much pain he was in from 10 to 1, most pain in your life, to just a little bit. He told me he was at an 8 pain level nearly being the most pain he’s ever experienced in his life. After praying with him briefly he said it went down to 5 or so. Then I prayed one last time with this young fellow, and asked him to stand up. As he’s standing up I proceed to ask him to try and ‘find the pain’. He could not, and was healed by the living God! Jesus is not on the cross anymore, He’s not in the grave, but Jesus is alive!
I have a few quick updates to share, as God has been so good to me! After the New Year I’ve got some emails from two different couples that I had prayed for. They told me how God had listened to our prayers and each couple had their healthy baby despite the doctors giving them a slim to none chance! The favor of God continued to shine as I’ve been given the honors to speak to a Christian elementary school on a weekly basis as well as being guest to give a graduation speech. My ultimate goal here is to help the pastors plug into this school and help outreach to the parents whom many are not Christians. There is also an orphanage nearby who has opened up their doors for me to lead devotions at their staff meetings. The kids there are so precious, despite their lack, they never stop giving their smiles and hugs!
The next three weeks I’ll be in the trenches helping to plant a church in Bicol, Philippines. I’m guessing the trip there is going to take most of the day. Last year’s SOS (Summer of Service) church plants were a great success here in Mindoro. Those two churches are still operating well and many passionate people for the Lord are being discipled. My favorite story from last year’s SOS was about when God helped us lead a quack doctor and his apprentice to the Lord. He told us a few days after his conversion that he’d quit his practice as a quack doctor and become a fisherman. To this day, he is fulfilling his dream as a fisherman in the Visayas region.
