Kids Crusades…Sarah Harrison
JOHN 14:12 Kids – Crusades over the Holidays…lot’s of FUN…
Since we follow the American system of schooling, it’s holiday time over here, so all the kids are home with nothing to do. This week we did four seperate kids crusades in different locations and then had a final combined kids crusade to bring all the groups together. It is always hard to estimate numbers (and it is something we rarely do at all, as numbers mean very little…), but we definitely had more than 100 kids at each small crusade, and perhaps 400-500 at the last combined one. Great event, great way to share Jesus and sow seeds of faith into little hearts.
We had plenty of action for them all – balloons, face painting, small beach balls flying around, bubbles being blown, loud music, great kids action songs, dramas about Jesus, small prizes – as you can imagine it was a bit crazy at times, but great fun. Sarah put it all together with the youth and other church workers, they did such a great job, everyone worked long and hard on the day and with all the preperation.
The junior youth all worked, help to teach dances – everyone was involved.
Reaching Mindanao – Faith or Fear
Reaching Mindanao – Ministry Amongst the Muslims
Faith or Fear – what leads us…?
We have been conducting seminars in Northern Mindanao for the past 3 years, but have just recently began to move South. For anyone who knows Mindanao, it is predominately southern Mindanao that is dominated by various Muslim and militant groups, all active, most anti-government. It is a feared area, even by some locals. Indiscriminate bombings and shootings, aimed at basically anyone who does not belong to that particular group are regular and widespread, and has bred a culture of fear and caution. Driving into the Southern region for the first time is a little bit daunting, the further you go, the more army checkpoints and road blocks you pass through, from time to time you be subjected to full body searches as various check points search for people and vehicles carrying weapons or bombs. Many of the local are not involved in the conflict, but are all effected in one way or another.
One of the effects in the south is that many white missionaries are afraid to go there, or the locals are afraid to host white missionaries for fear of attracting the wrong type of attention. This leaves that local christians (of whom there are many) without much needed encouragement, training and resources to develop the work of the Lord in their region. It can “cut them off” in practical terms from parts of the body, it can rob them of life giving connections. I hear of events that are cancelled by white missionaries due to outbreaks of violence, wisdom based in fear seems to often cancel out faith. I also hear of the “safe places” that seem to get all of the attention when it comes to seminars and training, safe is an evidance of the “weakness” of faith, then there are those who won’t go, or won’t travel with armed escorts, a faith based in a worldly form of protection, where did the great, almighty, never failing, miracle working God go. The challenge is this – THE WHOLE WORLD NEEDS JESUS. The great commision in no way indicates caution or care, it never excludes any area, region or people group for any reason at all – ALL EXCUSES ARE IRRELEVANT…we are to go into ALL the WORLD and preach the good news.
The original vision that the Lord gave me, was to conduct seminars in the North aimed at pastors. He showed me that by the end of one year (seminars every two months) the pastors who would work with us in the future would be revealed by their faithfulness over that year. It might sound like a slow team building plan, but none the less it was clearly from the Lord. There were other details connected with what the Lord showed me and they have all worked out. We now are connected to Pastor Rolly and Sharon Madrigal in the north, Pastor Dela Cruz in the south and through these two men of God we have access anywhere in this region.
This is now the year for church planting in this region…but not just churches in the “safe areas”, churches in the “unsafe areas”. All the advice givers will say “but brother you have to be careful, you have to be wise, God does not call you to be reckless, you can’t preach when your dead”, and while all of those statements are right in themselves, they are also oh so wrong when they begin to limit the call of God, sowing doubt where faith should be. An man of God whom I respect greatly once told me in the early days of my christianity, that if you don’t take risks you will always fail. Faith in it’s very nature is always a risk, because you are believing in the unseen, the intangible.
The next few blogs will focus on Mindanao. Pray for us as we begin to lay hold of this region for Christ. There are many missionaries who are here doing great works for God, and in Jesus name we will make our small mark for the Lord as He leads, guides and directs us. Please pray for us as the Lord may lead.
“Many hands make light work – carry your share of the evangelistic load”
Children of Baseco…
Here are a few of our “Extra Special” little friends. We are not supposed to have favorites, but we all do. All over the world woman and children bear the largest part of the burden for being poor. Children are so cute, so innocent and also so unable to change their own circumstances…check out some of these little faces…super cute…
- Photo – My absolute favorite is a little girl named Daniela. She was not even born when we began working in Baseco. She was the first girl in a family of 3 boys. She sees me and that’s it, she toddles up, climbs up and she has me. I gave her the nickname “Girlfriend”, if I call out to her using her nickname, she responds. She is super cute and she is mine. We will send her to school and change her life, how could you not…look at her.
- Bogoy, real name Lewis. Such a quite natured little boy, only one older sister. His mum works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. His father rides one of our Pedi Cabs. Just a beuatiful little man, loves Chris.
- Marlin Ortega. He broke the top bone in his left leg…ouch. He will spend a few months in plaster, unable to move. But at least his mum can carry him around using the piece of wood between the two casts, and I am not joking at all.
- These are two of Girlfriends brothers, Jimboy and Barnie. Barnie would be one of my favorite little boys and a great mate.
- A plate of rice, nourishing…not! But for some this is often all they eat.
- Might not be the latest posteurpedic mattress in a quite air conditioned room full of toys and teddies, but it seems to be working for this guy as he sleeps in the middle of a busy market area.
- If you want to enter the Kingdom of heaven you must become like a little child…amen.
- Work…un-earthing metals or hard plastics in a fresh truck load of land fill.
- The last photos is just a sad photo. Small, malnourished child, sitting alone in a slum home…no one caring, no one feeding, no one helping…until we come along.
The conditions that children live in around the world is often hard to comphrehend, perhaps impossible, until you see it yourself. Every photo that gets posted on this blog, I took myself. We didn’t search for them on the net and post them for an emotional response, or in an effort to raise finaces…we post them so that people “KNOW”, and hopefully in the knowing there might rise up a few individuals who will get a burden for the poor and who then begin to make a differance in the life of some one other than themselves.
Bless you – Mark
The need for Spirituality…
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The need to be Spiritual…
The most basic, if not the most needed aspect of a Christians life, is that person being spiritual. Salvation is spiritual, everything about God is spiritual, everything about His Word is spiritual, worship, prayer, hearing His voice is spiritual, being led by the Spirit is spiritual. The whole concept of Christianity is centered around a new birth, a birthing of and by a new Spirit inside the heart of man. This new Spirit produces newness of life, that has the potential to change every single aspect of that persons life. Change and transformation on the inside that effects everything on the outside as well.
If we look at the most basic of Christian disciplines, reading the bible, it quickly becomes very obvious, that we need to be spiritual…
In John 6:63 we read “The Words that I speak to you are Spirit”…not just ink and paper, but they are spirit. John 4:24 tells us that “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit”. 1 Cor’ 2 gives us the whole picture – there is no other way to know or come into contact with a God who is spirit, unless we do so by that same Spirit. So in order to read, know and understand spiritual words we must be people of the Spirit. The very nature of the bible is spirit, so my approach to reading it must be via the Spirit. The Spirit I am referring to is the Spirit present in every believer at the time of regeneration (Rom 8:9).
The Spirit of God is available to everyone, but not every one has the Spirit.
We can read the bible without Gods Spirit (many people do), but it will become a book of facts and history, and the person who reads God Word in this manner will never really understand the message of the bible. But once he receives the Spirit of God, once he is regenerated, the bible becomes alive to him. This is a great first step in understanding the bible, but he will not understand everything he reads, there will still be mysteries for him, but there should now be a desire to read, a hunger to learn, a thirst that helps him to pick up the bible daily. There should come an understanding of the importance of the bible, even if there is still mystery in it’s content. John 3:6 “That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”, 1 Cor 2:10 “The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God”, verse 12 “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know…”. The regenerated man is the only type of man who can understand the bible, the Spirit of God gives him this ability, because God desires that men “know”.
John 6:63 shows us 2 realms of man, the spirit and the natural (fleshly) man. One is helpful in reading and understanding the bible and the things of God, one is of no use at. Job 11:7 asks a question of man “Can you search out the deep things of God”…the obvious answer is no, not without the Spirit of God, “The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God”.
Anything that is done outside of the Holy Spirit cannot touch anything relating to God.
Now there is a further challenge to being spiritual, (1 Cor 3:1-2) and that is to “GROW UP”. Once we are regenerated, we have received the Spirit and we will begin to understand Gods Word, but we begin with the most basic revelations, not the deep things of the Spirit…we begin with milk, not solid food.
Milk, in it’s natural form, is a pre-digested food for babies. The mother eats, what she eats produces and becomes milk for her child, who then drinks, grows and develops. In this early stage of Spiritual birth, man receives revelation and instruction from other men of God, he struggles to receive it directly from God Himself, he does not understand God, he does not know how to study and read the Word, he does not know how to pray, he must “GROW UP” for these things to happen, he must learn and develop in the things of the Spirit and of God. Even as he “GROWS UP”, he will still benefit from the revelations of others, but they will not be his primary source of revelation. Growing up does not seem to happen naturally in the realm of the Spirit (although it should and definitely can), Paul himself says in verse 2 “I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able”. Pauls comment shows us that he expected these particular people to be much more advanced in their spiritual walk than they were (an interesting study, is to look at how long these people might have been Christians, it’s a relatively short time…but Paul expected much more growth than he was seeing…).
Perhaps one of the things lacking here, is the Lordship of the Spirit. A man may receive the Spirit of God, be Born Again, but for varying reasons he does not allow the Spirit to control his life, he does not learn to submit to the Spirit or to walk after the Spirit. He still walks after his own flesh – and what does the flesh profit – NOTHING (Gal’ 5:16-25). So a person might remain a spiritual baby long after he could of GROWN UP. In the realm of God, nothing needs to take a long time, God can do things very quickly if we will let Him, if we will get hungry, thirsty, if we will seek Him, desire after Him – we can all be different people, mature in Christ, different in a weeks time to what I am today.
In any given group of Christians there is enough Spiritual potential to alter the course of the world…because the Kingdom is within us all…GROW UP and let it out.
So the point is this, we must not simply receive the Spirit, we must learn to be truly Spiritual. Develop your spiritual life, read and study the things of the Spirit, apply them to your life and bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.
A flawed Spirituality will lead to a flawed Christianity.
Bless you – Mark
Medical Mission – Temporary Relief for the Poor…
We just had a Medical Mission in our church in Baseco. We had 2 doctors and 1 dentist who worked really hard for most of the day. The doctors saw 330 patients and the dentist pulled out more than 100 teeth from 45 patients…they worked hard, volunteering their time to help the poor. Every patient got medicines and vitamins for their various ailments.
We had a team of our leaders praying for people and sharing Jesus with everyone. It was a big day for all involved. The guy who provided the clinic is a German Missionary named John. He had a team of 14 workers doing various things all day. Here are a few pics…
Medical Missions are a catch 22 situation…you medicate people who will need medicating again. Many of the people who attended the medical mission have minor sickness’s that are not life threatening…but it does allow us another level of connection into the community, allowing us to find some of the more serious disease issues, as well as opening up more opportunities for prayer and potential miracles.
We found another baby who will need a hairlip operation and our second rare case of Kwashior Kor Malnourishment. A very deadly form of malnourishment, where the child looks fat, but is severley malnourished. The fat look is due to the childs internal fluid leaching into the skin due to the child’s internal organs de-hydrating. Predominantly caused by a massive vitamin A deficiency, along with basic lack of food and vitamins.
Missionaries Wanted…must be qualified…aren’t we all…?
Here are some shots of Don Bosco, Temporary Housing – horrible place that is in need of Churches and Church Planters…check out the photo’s…what could you and Jesus do here.
You must be qualified to work in places like this, even though Jesus said “Go into all the world and make Disciples”, many don’t seem to think that this applies to them, it’s only applicable to those around them…
Some qualifications you will need to work in this place…
- An all consuming passion for Jesus and equal passion for people…
- You must not love your life, you must love the lives of others more than your own…
- You must be prepared to loose your life…maybe literally…
- You must not want earthly security, possesions and wealth…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even if someone won’t recognise you or “SEND” you…Jesus has recognised you and He has sent you already…
- You must be prepared to “GO” even without all of the resources and money in the bank…
- You must be prepared to really live by faith – not by your paycheck or offerings…you can learn this on the job, more than likely this will be the best way you can learn this lesson…
- Jesus must be your source for all things…
- You must listen to God first, well before man…(man does not like this, many people think that they are the voice of God for you)…
- You must run everything man tells you to either do or not do, by Jesus first, not the other way around…this might mean you often “dis-obey” man – so you might be seen as rebellious and un-submissive…
- You must either know how to pray, or be prepared to learn on the job…(on the job, is one of the best ways to learn)…
- You will need to fast, even when you don’t feel like it…
- You will need to understand that money is not the solution for everything, and that your level of faith or success is not always measured by your income…
Many of these qualifications don’t fit well with some of the theologies if “wisdaom” and “prosperity”…but they do fit well with the basic teachings of the gospel and with Jesus last words “TO GO”…
If you look at all of these qualifications and think I can’t do all of those things, don’t worry, because in reality there are no qualifications except to “BE BORN AGAIN”. If you are born again, you will follow Jesus and He will lead you to the lost.
Go back over the pictures, look at them, see the people (not the place) and ask yourself how can me and Jesus help that person…and then come and “DO IT”…
Bless you – Mark
Poverty, the Worlds Challenge…
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN – OLD AND NEW…
We took a couple of Aussies, Michael and Matthew into both the “new and the old” Smokey Mountain. The “old” is more or less closed down. A literal mountain of rubbish, that now has grass growing on it and is surrounded by 4 and 5 storey buildings, which house the residents that came off of the “old” Smokey Mountain. But as you walk through there you see that really all that has been done is the re-shaping of a slum. Before they lived and worked on the dumpsite, but the high rises are cesspits of activity. Some have power and water, some don’t, so they are simply high rise slums, cramming a lot of people into relatively small areas with not alot of natural ventilation (perfect breeding ground for T.B, scabbies and a whole range of contagious diseases), plus of course all of the increased possibilities for a variety of crime to grow, spread and become organised. There are of course positives about the buildings, they are structurally sound and won’t fall over in a typhoon, they shouldn’t leak a lot, so they do provide improved shelter…pro’s and con’s…
But unless you change the economics of people, relocating them can often make very little difference to their general living. Plus relocation does not address any areas of people hearts. Hearts hold values and beliefs, people do what they do, because they believe it to be right, or perhaps because they think that it is the only option that they have, so unless the heart of man is reached, touched and changed – he will be more or less the same, no matter where he is location wise. We are the sum of what we believe, christian or not.
Then we went for a walk through the “new” Smokey…bit of a head spin for westerners. People living in and on a really feral rubbish dump. Kids walking through it all with no clothes, no shoes, playing in it, toileting in it, bathing there, people washing clothes, cooking food, mothers birthing children in the trash that they call home, people living every aspect of life in conditions that we would find hard to imagine. Children who have lived their whole lives there, where this is their concept of normality…and it will be for their children as well.
Conditions such as this should never be allowed to become anyones “normality”, it can never be justified, should never be allowed. There are more places here in Manila that are like this, many more places in the world that are the same or worse. Countries hide them from the tourists, hide them from the officials that visit, but I want the world to see them, I want as many people as possible to come and see them, walk through them, smell them, get involved, get dirty…these places exist because we either do not know they are here, or we choose to ignore them once we do know they are there. Don’t ignore them, don’t think the issues and problems of places are too huge to fix, nothing is impossible for God, and you don’t need to be the solution for everyone in a place like this, but you can be the solution for ONE FAMILY or ONE CHILD, and you should be the solution for whatever you can manage. Jesus said “the poor you have with you always and whenever you want to you can help them…”, Mark 14:7, notice He said “whenever you want too…”, it might not even require that you pray about it (although I would never say NOT TO PRAY, as man always ought to pray), but just obey Jesus and do it whenever you want to.
The world needs to rise to the challenge of World Poverty, each person needs to do something, the world is made up of individuals, you are one of those individuals, we can fix this together, there is enough of everything for everyone. There are plenty of people who are doing stuff to help others, but there needs to be more, come on, let’s rise to the challenge to change our world.
As you look at some of these photo’s, you will naturally look at the horror of them, but look at the people and don’t ask yourself how can I change this picture, but how can I help that one person…you can help someone, you are able, you just need to be willing.
Bless you – Mark
Picture of Marissa’s Burn…
Hi there to all, a few weeks ago I mentioned a little girl who had burn horribly burned and was in need of a miracle. Before I could not put any photos on the site as the area she was not the sort of pictures that need to be displayed, but we now have a photo that can be shown. She is doing very well, but still needs prayer. In the picture the burn wound is bleeding, but that is because one of her siblings has literally just fallen on it, so it is not as bad as it looks.
Thanks goes out to those that have prayed and that are praying…please continue to do so. The picture is Marissa’s upper left thigh area. Even though the picture looks bad, she is actually doing ok. You can see new skin. The wound is a bit of a concern – no infections in Jesus Name. Amen
