Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Teachings, Inspirations. category.
Something “AMAZING” – Crazy People like US
In a world where people are often looking for “excuses” for so much of what they don’t do, it is not all that often that you find “families” that are looking for “reasons” to do things for Jesus.
We have a family of 8, mum, dad and 6 children (all under 18) who are coming to live and work with us in Baseco for 3 months…notice they are coming to LIVE IN BASECO with us. How amazing is that…they could have all the excuses in the world, too many kids, kids are too young, too many commitments, too busy, school, work, business, all just too hard etc…but they don’t…they have a reason.
Jesus is ultimately their reason, plus they want their children to experience another worlds normality. Incredible. James is a pastor in Australia and runs a decent size computer business, Cathy is a mum, a teacher (they home school the children) and a child care/mid wife professional.
My wife and I have moved out of our little home and moved right into the middle of the slum, into our Prayer House, so that James, Cathy and their children can have our house. Our house is great by Baseco standards, it has power, running water, small aircon’ in one room, is relatively rat and bug free and is safe and lockable…but by western standards it is nothing and a family of eight is going to move in there for 3 months – no space, sleep on mattress’s on the floor, pack everything up every day, no shops close by, everything very manual, leaks in the roof, floods in a heavy rain or high tide, huge rats playing in the roof every night, constant noise, no internet – these people must be crazier than us – no doubt God will use them greatly.
Pray for them as the Lord leads you too – there will be some many challenges and adjustments for them all.
If you would like to follow their adventure, please click on the link for “Cathy” on my blog roll.
Mark
Trip to Thailand
As some of you know we were recently in Thailand for a combined Aussie Missionaries Sumitt for the Pan Asia Region. It was great…
We stayed in what was for us, a luxury resort, Club Andaman…beautiful, quite, peaceful and a great swimming pool. Maybe 100 metres from the beach (although a bit rough for swimming). We both enjoyed the rest.
But the Conference was the focus of the trip. There were perhaps 100 Missionaries from India, China, Japan, Thailand, Parts of the Ukrain, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines. It was so inspiring hearing what the Lord is doing through them all in the countries He has sent them to. Some of them are really doing things that are effecting the whole nation. Stuff ranging from church planting, orphanages, clean water services, building of whole villages, drug rehabs, work amongst Muslims, lots of work amongst the poor…but the scale of some of the works was incredible…”we were like grasshoppers in our own sight” as we got to spend a few days amongst “giants of Faith”. So inspiring, way too much to say, except, “Thank you Jesus for sending us there.”
The most amazing thing, is that none of the Missionaries there were amazing, they all were amazing in so many ways, but really they are just ordinary people with an extraordinary God, who does incredible things through them all…
Baseco Missions TEAM…
Three of our best, Pastora Marivic, Pastora Annie and Riza went last week as our very first self funded Missions Team from the slums of Baseco to work with and bless, Lucy Longdon in the incredible work that her and her team are doing in Cebu.
The stories and testimonies are still coming out of our team, as they are now back in Baseco, but it is very clear that they were both blessed and a great blessing while they were there. They saw another world of ministry. The Lord used them to see baptisms in the Holy Spirit as they ministered in youth meeting, with women, in prisons, in the cemetery…many different places.
What did Jesus say “Go into ALL the World”…and do what…”Preach the Gospel”, and then what will happen…”Signs will follow…”. Amen. How simple is that.
Notice that He never mentioned “do this when you are FREE”, or “do this when you have some extra cash”, or “do this after bible college”…imagine, girls from a slum, with so little education, no bible college, definitely no spare cash, the 2 pastors still have small children at home…but still, they have enough faith TO GO on a “self funded” missionary trip…have you ever heard of anything so crazy in all your life….WHAT’S YOUR EXCUSE…
Mark
Some of our Youth
Here are some exceptional young people, current youth leaders, future Nation leaders. These guys, and others like them, run our childrens ministry (which Sarah Harrison did alot of work on setting up), they also run the youth ministry…this is Allan, Rodelo, Riza…the secret to their greatness is…
We PRAY…
Slum Missionaries – “He said GO…”
History in the making…we are sending a “SELF FUNDED” team to Cebu for four days to work with another Aussie Missionary, Lucy Longdon.
They will fly there and back using their own money. Now, for some of you reading this you will think “big deal, so what”…BUT remember where these people come from, how much they earn, how huge this step is for them. They believe God is sending them, they are going as Missionaries themselves, they are going to give, to serve, they are not going to receive, they are not being paid…their own “Faith” is making this possible, not their financial situation.
Sometimes we have all the money in the world and we still find it hard to do what Jesus wants us to do. The Lord God Almighty in His infinite wisdom, spoke to people who live in a third world slum and told them “to GO into all the world and preach the gospel”, and as amazing as it might seem, they are “going”, just because He said. How incredible is that, sounds so biblical, sounds so easy.
And another amazing thing is they actually believe that they have something to contibute, I am not sure how they saw themselves before, but now they see themselves as preachers, ministers, and missionaries. They see themselves as “able to have an impact”.
It might seem like a small thing, but it’s very exciting.
Can we learn any lesson from this simple display of FAITH…?
Bless you Mark
Mighty Miracle from a Loving God – GILBERT DELA CRUZ
Last december Gilbert Dela Cruz attended a series of healing crusade meetings that we held here in Baseco. The photos tell the storey – full of T.B, high blood pressure and something similar to a stroke, he was unable to walk and had to be carried to the meetings. He had been bed ridden for months, and even in church he had to sit in a slope backed chair, as he could not sit up straight. He was prayed for where he lay…nothing happened immediately…but now he is walking.
The first time I saw hiim waking in Baseco, both me and my wife had to look twice “That’s Gilbert”. Initially he was being aided by his wife, holding onto her as he walked. He had been walking everyday and said that after prayer he had felt strong. Each day he walked a little further and leaned less on his wife. His walking is still hard work and he is not running yet, but he can and does walk unaided daily.
He has no doubt that it is Jesus Christ who has both saved him and healed him. He was in church today to testify of the mighty miracle that the Lord has done in his body, he exhorted people to believe, told them not to doubt. He was very emotional as he shared, and it took him a few minutes to even begin as he was been overwhelmed by his emotions. His testimony was simple, but nearly everyone in our church knows Gilbert, they know what he could not do and they all know that this is the work of the Lord.
This testimony is 100% verified, God is great, He does miracles.
At the end of church he was praying for those who came to the front of the church for prayer – saved to be an agent of salvation, healed to be an agent of healing.
The POWER of Prayer
One of the constitutional enforcements of the Gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the Gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him. Praying men are essential to Almighty God in all His plans and purposes. God’s secrets, councils and cause have never been committed to prayerless men. As praying men are a help to God, so prayerless men are a hindrance to Him.
The work of Ministry and the work of Missions has so many varied methods that it employs to accomplish it’s work – how many of those methods are backed by really solid prayer..?
It often seems so easy to do so much, but often the “much” has very little if any eternal value.
WE MUST BE PEOPLE OF DEEP, EFFECTIVE PRAYER.
What can these children teach us…?
PRIORITIES…Prayer and Preaching of the Word…
If prayer is childish, then these kids are all on the right track. Could they teach us something…?
There is a great challenge in the book of Acts 6:1-7, as we would find with most of the bible, if our hearts are open.
There is incredible fruit and growth in the new church, it’s members are increasing greatly and for the first time, the churches widely recognised and commented of quality, UNITY, is shaken by DISPUTES. But it is the Apostles response to this issue, and also to their growing business is what should be a great challenge for us all…they went back to prayer.
They withdrew from certain activities, from perhaps seemingly important things, things that “must be done”, in favor of more time in prayer.
In a world, and a church, that is so business minded and time oriented, we often seem to run on an opposite agenda. How can we justify spending more time in prayer, when so much needs to be done…?
It seems as if the Apostles themselves did not consider that they were in anyway “independent from God”. Pray reveals dependance. Again, it would seem as if our many talents and abilities have led us to independence, therefore we don’t seem to need to pray all that much, but this was not the case for the Apostles – they re-adjusted their priorities and re-adjusted their time so that they could pray.
Of course this praying energized their preaching and gave them spiritual food for the hungry, so the Word of God spread and the number of disciples multiplied greatly.
DO LESS…PRAY MORE…ACCOMPLISH SO MUCH MORE…!
One of the challenges is “Learning to Pray”, and learning to “Pray Effectively”.
It seems much easier to plan and raise finances, than it is to Pray…is that perhaps one of the “deceitful sides of riches” – after all, doesn’t money “change everything”…
Changing Hearts…
“CHANGE” THE HEART OF A CHILD… (or of anyone…) & YOU CAN POTENTIALLY CHANGE THE WORLD…
There are all sorts of quotes on the net about changing children and changing worlds through them. I have no doubt that this is a truth, although it’s clearly a long term task.
The bible says that “as a man thinks, so he is”, the bible teaches that out of the heart of man spring forth all sorts of good and evil, what comes out of the mouth is the overflow of the heart. Our hearts and our minds are very closely related. I have no doubt that if you can honestly and genuinely change the heart of a child for the better, you can potentially change the future of nations. Everything that comes out of man, starts with a thought and then becomes an action.
Third world nations become third world nations through the same process. It is either poor and uneducated thought process’s and ideas, which once implemented bring poor results, or it’s lack of mental disciplines to see good ideas taken through to completion, or it’s a lack of good values and morals (most 3rd world nations are incredibly corrupt with massive abuses of power and resources by the rich), which comes from bad hearts, again, this is often due to wrong reasoning or wrong values. To change a nation you must change it’s heart values, to do this, you have to change people, and most importantly you have to change people who have the potential to go on and make changes. So we need to to teach people who are able to teach, and train those who are able to train.
Changing values can take a long time (unless God is involved and renews peoples minds by the Spirit, then it can happen overnight), so in order to change the future of a nation, you must start with, or at least focus upon, the children. So we either need to recognise and encourage gifted children, and/or we need to enable children to be gifted, give them the right input, expose them to the right things in order that they can develop into great people. Everything that you do with a child is so important, but for me the 3 most important things for me to focus upon are these -
- Totally UNCONDITIONAL LOVE – children (all people) must feel genuinely loved simply for who they are, not anything they do…
- My EXAMPLE – this has so much more effect than anything I teach or say…I must be what I teach and say…my example teaches much more than I realise…
- They must always be told…YOU CAN…especially focused upon…YOU CAN do anything God leads you to do…connect a child to the thought that there are no limits, no boundaries, that there is nothing that can’t be done and connect that child to God…
It all comes down to “CHANGE” – CHANGE the way a person views their situation and circumstances, CHANGE the way they view themselves and their impact upon their situation or circumstances – and then you have a person who can bring CHANGE to their situation and circumstances. Here are two children who could easily go on and “CHANGE” their worlds…
Look at Mayrelle Robedillo for an instance, she is 6, nearly 7. In her class at school, there are 70+ children. Mayrelle is at the top of the class. Her lowest grade for any subject has been 95%, she went for months with every test being 100%. With a class so huge and a teacher unable to cope, Mayrelle is often teaching one side of the class while the teacher works with the other half. She is now growing up in a “full on” Christian family, her mother is a pastor after being “born again” for just 3 years, her father is full time in ministry after 2 years. She is speaking English to us everyday, she is getting good values and ethics – she is always being told what she “Can Do”…imagine her when she is 21…WORLD CHANGER…
Roderick Mission, smart little boy, 11 years old. At 9, he was the man of his house. He was at school full time and then in the night, all night he was out in the markets working, as he was the sole provider for his household, mum and 3 sisters. Some nights he would earn 300p selling plastic bags to shoppers in the markets, that is more than many adult men earn daily at their jobs. And while he did this he kept his grades high, but would often fall asleep in school. So he has already a great work ethic, a sense of responsibility, great English skills…imagine him when he is 21…he says he is going to the President, we tell him “He Can”…WORLD CHANGER…
