On July 9th, with our two children en-towed we finally departed for the Philippines. Our trip is serving a double purpose. My wife is visiting her aging parents and we also thought we can do some work for the Lord in bringing more people to Christ and live up to our obligation of the Great Commission. Thanks to the great folks at World Missionary Press we packed several hundreds tracts in the three main languages of the Philippines---Tagalog, Cebuano and Illonggo. When we got to Manila I did not know how to get the first part of the work done. I prayed in my heart for guidance and God answered my prayers in the form of my wife's young niece, Cherry Ann.
As we were unpacking our luggage Ann-Ann, as she is affectionately known, saw the tracts and asked my wife what they were. She was surprised to know that I was very religious---which in fact I am not. I'd like to consider myself more spiritual than religious, but that was beside the point. I took the opportunity to ask her if she would be willing to help me pass out the tracts and she happily obliged. But first we had to come up with a plan. The plan was that as my wife stayed in the hotel taking care of our two children, Ann-Ann and I would walk the streets of Manila and give the bible tracts to the people. I was told to keep quiet, and let her do all the talking. My task was to walk right next to her and keep watch for signs of trouble. What transpired was eye-opening.
Our first distribution was on the 10th. We took 25 samples and walked about two blocks. Ann-Ann was a natural. With her kind voice she asked the people in the street if they wanted to read what she was passing out. We ran out of the 25 booklets in less than a five minutes! I could not believe how fast the people willingly took the tracts. Some people even called us from across the street wanting to see what we were passing out.
On the 13th of July we would try it again. This time we would try to pass all of the remaining Tagalog tracts. Again I was a bit nervous because I did not know how the overall population would react. Now, I need to clarify that Manila is a very large city that has many homeless people living in the streets. The things I got to see where totally heartbreaking. I saw mothers sleeping on the streets with their babies---one child had no eye. I will never forget this. Others are living in cardboard boxes. While others are living in their cars. All the while gray water is running in streams along the city curbs. The sights and smells are very vivid to say the least. There are also many ran shacked buildings were the homeless have taken up residence. And mind you, this is in a major metropolitan city.
On our second day, we started slow. In the beginning, the first few people we approached did not want to take the booklets. But as soon as we crossed the street, people started to take them again. One by one people readily accepted the word of God. Many of the people said thank you. Others that were sitting by the curb, quickly leafed through them wanting to read about how God could help them. One man that was sitting read the title of the booklet and shouted out to us in Tagalog "Thank you for saving me!" Another woman that was going to work and stopped to buy a street snack, took a booklet from Ann-Ann, read what it was and turned around to ask me for another one! As they spoke I asked Ann-Ann to translated for me what they were saying. What did I realized in this venture? That people are hungry for the word of God. People are looking for hope. Who else can give them that hope? Jesus Christ no one else. On July 14th we are slated to go to General Santos---the heart of Mindanao. Once we get to this city we will once again distribute more booklets to the people. Once we start and finish our short term mission I will post how it went. Please pray for us, the safety our family and that we are successful in sharing the word of God.
