Our Last Week Together

This week we will be reflecting on our experience out in the Philippines and sorting through all our photos for a slide show. For the record here is the whole mega outreach.

Back Home at the King's Lodge

Just to say that we all arrived back at the King's Lodge at 9pm on Wednesday 22nd August, having had nearly a twelve-hour flight from Seoul. The last few days have been spent catching up on sleep, sorting our affairs out and enjoying English food and countryside. Our graduation is this Thursday 30th August which spells the end of our course and most of us will be going our separate ways. Do have a look at Bryan's blog.

Four days left in Iligan

We have been busy the last few days. On Friday we went to a different barangay near to where we are staying. We had local guides to take us around and lead us to the houses where there was a need. Saturday saw us prepare and perform an hour and a half of dance, drama and testimonies in the local park. Several people turned from watching the basketball games and we had many good conversations afterwards.



On Sunday we were preaching and giving testimonies at local churches. We celebrated Sue Johnstone's birthday in the evening with pizza, pork satay, ice-cream an d birthday cake. This was also the leader's way of thanking us all for our hard work that week and to show our appreciation to our hosts.



Early on Monday, we attended the flag ceremony at East Iligan High School and had the opportunity to do many of the pieces that we did in the local park on Saturday. The students responded very well, especially to a piece entitled The Champion about Jesus' victory over evil.

In the afternoon, our hosts arranged for us to visit a local waterfall, Tinago Falls. These are stunning and allowed us to go for a swim and be truly refreshed.



Today we went house to house in a barangay called Tambacan where later in the afternoon we were able to have access in order to minister to about 100 high school students. Again we presented skits and dances and gave testimonies.



This evening was a powerful time of ministry as we prayed and interceeded for each other as the Spirit led us.

Hungry for the Word of God

This afternoon a group of us - Justin, Ali, Cindy, Dawn, Chang Su, Charles, Arwel, Dahlia and Patrick - joined the teenagers' Bible study at Rudi and Nitts house. We started off with some enthusiastic worship and then we presented a drama about how the things that we or others may view as rubbish - our height, hair colour etc- God fearfully and wonderfully made. We need to ask God for His revelation of how well He made us.

Next we looked up a number of scriptures which told of our value to God. Justin demonstrated that despite scrunching, chewing and trampling a 20 peso note, it retained the same value. The same with us - no matter what we do and what happens to us in life, we remain valuable to God.

We then split into groups to pray. Patrick got a group of older teenage boys to pray Psalm 23 over each other. It was so encouraging to see as many as forty young people with their Bibles, worshipping with great fervour and responding so keenly to questions.

Another Farewell - Praise God for Those Who Joined Us!!!

After just 2 1/2 weeks many of those who joined the CDTS and IPHC for their outreach to Mindanao in the Philippines have departed. After seeing what seemed to be an unusual number of healings and 100s receive the gift of spiritual healing through salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, 20+ faithful missionaries are returning their homes in South Korea, Norway, England, Oklahoma, Australia, Malaysia, and California. About 40 foreigners will remain in the Philippines until August 24th and 25th.

We had a great time of reflection together and those remaining were greatly encouraged. One shared how the group had been such a welcoming family; another cried as she said she had never seen or felt such love. One said he would never forget his time praying for and carefully washing a 60-year old man covered with skin sores.

Another prayed that God would enable him to see men and women healed and eyes filled with tears as they received the gospel of the Kingdom in his homeland of England just as they had here. Yet another spoke of how Jesus had given us a message of home and that we had borne it well.

One young woman who had never been a part of a YWAM group before said she had a new appreciation for hte power of prayer, and yet another said she would never forget the look on an elderly Filipina's face as she met Jesus for the first time. Another young lady, returning home to study nursing, spoke of a God-given love for the Filipino people and said she would love to return to minister here.

Finally, one of the staff shared about a family in Marcos Bridge, one of the poorest communities in which we have ministered. He spoke to a woman there who shared that last year when the team from TKL had arrived she was planning to leave her husband and family. One young woman from England had shared her testimony with her and given her a bible. Because of that she began reading the words of Life and remained with her family. She is now following Jesus. Her life was forever changed.

With that the "Mega" numbers of our outreach closed fittingly, with a strong reminder that God's Word never goes out void but always accomplishes God's purpose. That is a message that inspires us all to keep running the race in Mindanao well. And with that we remember that while our numbers may be decreasing, we are still following the same Jesus and therefore we still will be doing a "Mega" outreach in Christ. Jesus is here and He is Immanuel. He is God with us and because of that we will continue to have a Mega-impact!!!! Praise God and thank you for your continued prayers!!!!

After the return of the group from Illigan, ministry here in Cagayan de Oro (known as CDO) has begun to get into a routine. Each day, we have breakfast at 7am, followed by praise and worship and a sharing from the Word. Then we have some scheduled quiet time, after which we gather in our ministry groups and prepare for going out. This may mean putting a drama together, thinking up some games we can play with the invariable throng of kids and working out the logistics of going out.

After lunch, we head out to the different ministry locations in the jeepneys and minister in the afternoon for three to four hours. This usually involves us going from house to house, asking people if we can come in (invariably we can - people are so open to us)and share the gospel with them.

Often we end up praying the sinner's prayer with them and for the needs of the family as well as buying them some rice and giving out clothes. Our Filipino friends are doing a great job as our translators and co-workers, sharing their heart for the Lord as well.

This Sunday saw several of us just here for the mega-outreach leaving to return home, many to the UK but also Australia and the US. Those left went to local churches to preach and to share their testimonies. The afternoon and today, Monday, is time off, so people have been relaxing in their rooms and swimming in the pool. A small group were early to rise in order to have a go at white-water rafting. A few are going to the beach, while others are catching a film and doing a spot of shopping.

Farewell Volunteers!

The mega-outreach is now officially over, the volunteers, well most of them, left yesterday. it was sad farewells, but we hope most of you get the chance to come to the Lodge for graduation. we had a fantastic celebration in Villanueva, the music made your ears bleed, but the dancing was legendary. it was so hot, but such fun.
Thank you to all those who came to share this experience with us, we couldn't have done it without you all. We have some fantastic memories to share with you all.
i will always remember how Tom ended up with his arm in a bandage after i arm-wrestled him!!
The outreach continues, but i guess you guys are home safely, not eating rice and resting after a hard slog sharing the gospel with some many people.
Well done guys, we love you!