Category: 2016 Philippines Mission Trip News

With an excited ripple of expectation we boarded our transport to Trece. The familiar face of our driver and the presence too of Neil and Ambo from BL, heightened our excitement for what the day will bring. As we swung into the familiar traffic jam that clogs Manila, a sense of déjà vu hit me, wondering if we would again crawl for the first 2 hours only to cover just 2 km of our journey! But praise God, our decision to stay in Makati has saved us those 2 hours!!
Upon arrival at the  Southville Trece basketball court, we were all amazed to see that the court had been upgraded with bench seats and fenced thus enclosing it to resemble a humungous cage!!

Walking to the BL building through the village, I was greeted happily by the locals who thanked us for coming (again). A local shopkeeper whom Kim had helped last year, told me her teeth were feeling great still.
Our team has been bolstered by Dr Beth from Nebraska, (kind of filling in for Dr Leo who will join us sometime tomorrow afternoon); Christine, a nurse from Chicago, and Melanie from Vancouver. Again our Lord has provided us well.

It feels like we have never been away, so smoothly did we all swing into action from the setup to the finish!

I loved reconnecting with my translator Chardaina , a scholar with BL who is studying hard to realise her dream of becoming a doctor. I asked her to contribute to this blog…
“Today is a smoother flow of work that I’m more aware of what I am doing being in the pharmacy and what is fun the most is that I learn a lot by just listening in the conversations if the doctors and the whole Australian team including the other guys ?”
Again God is using us to show His love and mercy. Dr Betty has examined and intervened in cases involving a huge abscess with cellulitis where the local hospital had told the patient to come back on Wed ( apparently according to Dr Betty, he could be dead by then if it wasn’t drained immediately to start with); tuberculosis , where again the patient was deemed non urgent by an overwhelmed local TB treatment  centre in spite of coughing up 2 cups of blood daily.
So great is the need here that we smashed the record for dental patients in our first clinical half day session where the team treated 35 patients in just over 4 hours.
The medicos got through 47 patients in just under 5 hours, meaning pharmacy served at least 75 patients in the same time frame!
I’m reminded of a verse that I saw on the back windscreen of a car today as we were travelling to Trece…
“Nothing is impossible with God”
(Luke 1:37)

Carrie

After breakfast this morning we set off to attend Sunday service. Betty had intended for us to attend Sunday service at the same church we worshiped at when we were here last year. It was only when we arrived that we all realise that we were at the wrong church. As we listened to the sermon we were all gob smacked and it was only then that we realise what had happened earlier was not a mistake but in fact a divine intervention. God had planned for us to attend this church to listen to the sermon to encourage, equip and remind us before we start our mission tomorrow.

The sermon today was from Acts 15:36 – 16:40 on the “Great Commission Realities” (GCR). Pastor David Crim listed 7 GCR realities, of which he expand  on the first 2 today.

The first one is on the reality of teamwork.
We must remember that God is the framework of our mission, God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit , the Trinity. He is the one that created our team and mobilised our team for mission. For our
team to be successful our team requires a shared vision, mutual trust and forgiveness as trust and forgiveness works together to build teamwork. We should show kindness, humility, faithfulness and great patience. Teamwork also requires us to have discernment,  so as to keep us from making cultural mistakes. We also need to forsake our cultural biases.
Pastor David quoted an African saying:
” If you want to go fast, go alone.
   If you want to go far go together ” , which sums up the importance of teamwork.

The second reality is on God’s leadership. We need to learn to say ‘no’, saying no for the sake of the greater yes. God’s leadership involves the Holy Spirit. Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us, so we need to listen. God will reveal His plan to us when it’s appropriate and He will not leave us in the dark, which is very comforting.

God’s timing is impeccable. We have come away from the service today knowing that He is there for us. The sermon today not only serves as an encouragement but also a reassurance to us, it energise us to go out and serve Him and bring glory to His name.

As we are starting our mission tomorrow and will be traveling south to Trece, please pray for journey mercies, protection and wisdom.


International Baptist Church of Manila

Kim

Day 2 mission trip 17/9/16
It was a day of celebration and reflection, for Bukang Liwayway turn 20 this year.  It was started in 1996 by Dr Patrick Hobbs, a missionary who has the vision to start this holistic ministry in the slums of Philippines to help the poor to break through the cycle of poverty as well as to help them to come to know the Lord Jesus.
Pastor Fred shared a powerful message about the unfinished task of the Great Commission.  It has been 2000 years since Jesus came, yet there are still 40% of the world (3 billion) not reached by the gospel.  He shared that if every church in the Philippines plant a church in the local community, the 30% of the unreached communities in the Philippines would be reached.  Bukang Liwayway has a 20-year plan to reach 2036 families by 2036.  The unfinished task is to be fulfilled by us, the great potential lies within each of us to share this great responsibility.
Pastor Fred was one of the first students sponsored by the Bukang Liwayway scholarship program.  As I reflected on Pastor Fred, whom I met two years ago, when he was at a low point of his ministry, his widower mother was desperately ill with aplastic anaemia, yet an unbeliever.  He was financially ruined because of the medical bills and was deeply saddened by his mother’s refusal to come to faith.  Yet God did not disappoint him.  During our first medical mission, a final call to submit to the Lord was accepted by his mother, she became a believer of the Lord Jesus.  Today, pastor Fred is a different person, full of passion and vitality, wanting to take Bukang Liwayway to the next stage of faith development.  As Hudson Taylor says, “God uses men who are weak and feeble to lean on Him.”  “There are three stages in every great work of God: first it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.”  Bukang Liwayway has come a long way with 800 people coming together from 6 different slum areas as one body, celebrating its 20th birthday.  One particular group came from an island Calapan.  They took the midnight slow ferry for 3 hours, then bus and arrived at 6 am in order to join the birthday celebration and avoid paying for accommodation.  Such commitment puts us to shame!  We met up with many familiar faces and enjoy catching up with their latest news.  We also got to know some new ones, like Beth Larson, a missionary doctor from the US, another mission team from Malaysia.  We even managed a corridor medical consultation!
As I reflected on today’s message, how many people do not yet know Jesus in our own community?  What is our role in bringing them into God’s kingdom?  We don’t know what part we would play in God’s grand plan.  The important thing is to seek to serve in his kingdom and God will reveal what He has in store for us.  It would be such a privilege to be able to bring people to faith through love.
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Gal 5:6).
By Betty

Welcome to day one of our mission trip. After an early start to the day we arrived at the Sydney airport safely with many thanks to Edward Yu who dropped Carrie,Kim,Van,Leander  and myself at the departure terminal. With plenty of time up our sleeves or so we thought we proceeded to clear security only for Van to be selected(randomly so we were told) for the full body scan. We were then held up while his bag was xrayed a few times for what they thought was a pair of scissors and actually there was a pair in one of the many pockets of his backpack that he forgot to remove from his last fishing trip. After all that we managed to board the plane and arrive safely in Manila. The traffic didn’t disappoint with it taking us over an hour to travel the 7 km to our hotel where Betty was waiting for us and making arrangements for the following day. As we checked into our rooms we noticed one of our pieces of hand luggage was missing. Trying to remember where it had been left, a couple of phone calls were made by the hotel receptionist while we prayed. We were amazed that we had located it in the lost and found at the airport. How amazing it is, that some honest person picked up the luggage and reported it. We felt blessed and protected by His Almighty power.

The Prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16) Jesus has clothed us with the garment of righteousness.

By Cheryl