Smokey Mountain…
Hi there to all.
The other day I got to take 3 visitors from Australia to the “New Smokey Mountain” site. Smokey mountain was the name given to a huge rubbish dump here in Manila many years ago now. The dump got the worlds attention after a 60 minutes show revealed the poverty and degradation of the thousands of people who lived there, making their living from the rubbish. The Philipines Govt’ has since closed the original site down…but now there are literally dozens of new sites, alot smaller than the original, but just as back. It is a very difficult problem to fix, close one dump, others will have to open up…what else do you do with the mountains of rubbish…?
Anyway, here are a few fresh photos from the “New Smokey Mountain”…crazy place to live.
There is no need to mention how these people might spend Christmas – two thirds of the world live like this…
The Mission to Mindanao…SERIOUS CHALLENGE…
Hi there to all
I have just returned rom a visit to Mindanao, which began in a small coastal place called Kari Hatag. Tropical paradise, no roads, you have to get there by a small local style boat, stunning little place. I was there to check on a small sponsorship program that we have going there for 16 students. Our two local pastors, Pastor Rolly and Sharon have done a great job at running the program, reporting on all of the finances and using it as a means to evangelise and encourage the families in their faith. They have done a great job.
We then went down to Kabacan (half way bewteen Davao and Cotabato City, to finalise the planning of three Evangelistic Healing Meetings. Again we have been blessed with a great pastor down there, Pastor Dela Cruz. A man with a good heart. I liked him the first time I met him, which was maybe 6months ago, some people just stand out of the pack. So we began planning to have some meetings with an International Evangelist, Australian, Eddie Coe.
The meetings will take place early in december. In a 80% pure Muslim community. We are not sure if any Muslims will attend the meetings, but we are praying for that. But just being in an area dominated by the Islamic faith makes everything differant. The whole feel of the place is just differant, heavy and a bit uncomfortable (hard to explain). Once you start talking about reaching the Muslims you begin to hear all of the horror stories of beheadings and beatings. Numerous stories revolve around Muslim people who became christians, but did so in secret, but if they were found out, they were beheaded by their own community – no matter who they were. Stories about all of the white missionaries, who in an effort to reach the Muslim would come and give things (example computers to schools, sponsorship, medicines) in an effort to breach the gap and reach out to the Muslim communities. But they are only welcomed into those communities when they “give” and when they “don’t” ever mention Jesus Christ or christianity. If they don’t “give”, they won’t even get into the community, and even if they do “give”, but then go on to share Jesus, they are finished in that community, one srtike and you are out. The odd white guy who was by himself, who may of recieved a serious beating or even been beheaded himself. So the Muslims have really set up fear based methods of protecting their own.
I suppose we in the west have never had a reason to fear Muslims as we have never really had extremists living in our countries, but for the local Pastors and christians in Mindanao they have lived with this style of relegion for many, many years. Their view on reaching the Muslims, is very simple – YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE TO GIVE, once you are dead, you are dead, you can’t reach anyone for Christ.
We say fear is a spirit and can be broken and overcome through prayer and faith – which is true, but breaking fear still would not keep you alive, it would give you the boldness to enter into to a situation that you would never of gone into, which might perhaps put you into a situation where you need something miraculous to happen.
I suppose the basic summary for reaching the Muslims is – “do what the Lord tells you to do” (a good standard for every area of our lives). If we go in with good intentions and false bravado, we ill probably fail. But if the Lord sends us with His Word and His Power, then that’s a differant story. One of the greatest challenges for modern christianity is “Nothing Jesus Christ did failed, He never attempted anything, He came up with no good ideas – He did what He saw His Father do, He operated completely in the power of the Holy Spirit, He was always successful”…we seem to come up with all these good ideas, raise funds for this and that, use medicines when He used Miracles…but we don’t have anywhere near the success that He had and still has today. We all need to be challenged to get back to prayer and then simply hear and obey. Is reaching the Muslims ith the message of Jesus a good idea…yes, but it needs to be much more than that if it is going to be successful.
But none the less we are looking forward to some great meetings and expecting God to do some great things amongst the locals. Please pray for the success of these meetings.
T.B, the poor peoples diesease…
Childhood Tuberculosis – Taking on a Giant…
We have mentioned before how .B is an epedemic here in th Phillipines (most of Asia actually), and Baseco is no differant. T.B kills people slowly and painfully, and due to the nature and time involved in the medical cure, the poor person can rarely afford the medicines needed for treatment, and so this truelly is a “poor person disease.”
T.B has killed more people than any other disease in the history of the world (HIV will soon pass it), one infected person will infect an average of 15 others before they die. Statistics say that the infection rate could be as high as one new case per second (obvioulsy in certain environments only). Most of us immediately think that that is impssible, but that is simply because we do not realise the size of the global prolem or the nature of the disease. More than 1/3 of the worlds population currently has active T.B, but because most of those people live in densely packed slums and depressed areas (places we never go), we never see it. Can you imagine and “airborne disease” (carried in the moisture drops that an infected person coughes out), that works best on compromised immune systems (malnourished children and adults), in a place where medicines are not affordable and where there is an average of 8,000 people per square kilometer (slum stats are much denser than this)…how many people could potentially be affected by such a disease…? BECAUSE THAT IS THE REALITY OF T.B IN THE WORLD TODAY…
Ever since the fall of man, there have been various evil spirits who have plagued mankind, remembering that 1/3 of the angels fell and those spirits have been in operation on the earth ever since. When you see/hear the symptons of a disease you are reading the profile of some form of evil spirit – somethings that is here to steal, kill and destroy. Have you ever wondered what a demon looked like…well, for us, it looks like T.B. It causes children incredible pain, displaces their heart and fills their lungs with fluid making it hard to breath, it distorts chests and hunches backs over – it causes suffering. Medically speaking T.B might actually be unstoppable. There have been few, if any changes in the medicines in over 100 years, but due to incorrect usage of the medicines (if at all), the disease has changed so many times, making many adults DRS (Drug Resistance Strains)…but if we see it as a spirit, then we can beat it, it can be stopped – JESUS CAN SET PEOPLE FREE FROM IT’S GRIP.
In the past we have avoided this issue, just because of the sheer size of it, but now we are “taking on the giant” in the name of Jesus. Starting with 25 children we are going to learn how to get the miracle or how to treat the disease with medicine, “either or”, but none of these 25 children will die from this demon. Medicines cost money, but money often runs out, miracles are a resource without limit, they never run out and they always work.
Please pray for an incredible move of God, we must, we will beat this demon, what it does to children is horrible and should not be allowed to happen.
On this blog there are some pictures of kidsand adults with T.B, some of them look clearly sick, ome are in the early stages and so they look ok. Please pray for miracles, healings and salvation.
