Wow. I have so many stories to tell, and yet I feel like I haven’t had the time to tell them… Today I want to share the story of one of the pastors that I met in the Philippines. In total, I’ve made three trips to the Philippines now and spent a total of 3.5 weeks there. It is an amazing place, and the Lord is doing some awesome things there!!
For two weeks, I travelled through three cities and spent time visiting with Filipino pastors that are a part of the International Care Ministries network. As I visited each pastor, I talked with them and asked them two main questions:
1. What are your needs that no one is meeting right now?
2. What are your prayer requests?
In answer to the first question, pastors stayed pretty quiet. They’re rather humble men, and they don’t like to ask for much. They just trust the Lord to provide.
However, in response to the second question, pastors’ hearts tended to flow freely, sometimes with tears. As I listened to them, I learned of the desires of their hearts and the things that they daily cry out to the Lord for. More than anything else, I learned that they love the people in their communities, and they want to see them reached for Jesus. In fact, most of these pastors have surrendered all that they have to make sure that the Gospel goes forth. They have surrendered things you and I never dream of surrendering…
For example, consider Pastor Fedil:
He and his wife and their two kids used to live close to a city, and he made a living by making signs for businesses. In this way, he supported his family and was able to work as a pastor. His ministry focused on children, the disabled and those in prison. He has a huge heart for each of these groups!
A couple of years ago, God called him to move to a new place and plant a church in a mountainous region. He obeyed. As a result, he now lives too far away from a city to make a living by selling signs and the village he’s in has no other work to offer. He and his family have to trust the Lord for their every need. For several months, they have been eating unripened bananas at every meal because they cannot afford to buy food and the bananas grow near their home. To you and me, this might seem like a terrible situation. When I tell you that Pastor Fedil prays with tears to the Lord every day, you might assume that he is petitioning the Lord for food or money.
He’s not. Do you know what he cries out for? He wants to see the people in his new community come to Jesus. Nothing else matters to him. He is willing to sacrifice anything to make sure that the Gospel goes out. What about you? What do you give up to make sure the Gospel goes out? Would you go so far as giving up the ability to guarantee that you could feed your children each day? Do you trust the Lord enough to believe that where He calls, He will provide?
I, for one, can testify that my faith was truly challenged by Pastor Fedil and others like him. Over and over again I met pastors who have laid their lives on the line and are deeply depending on the Lord in ways that go beyond what I can imagine.
Please pray for these pastors. Right now, there are three teams from AIM working with them for one month. I know God is going to move in awesome ways this month, and I cannot wait to hear the stories. Please join me in holding these teams up in prayer this month, and I’ll let you know how everything goes. God bless you, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
