Table Of Contents:
- My first missions trip
- How God called me to serve in missions
- Start of my first missions trip to Northern Thailand
- Lessons learnt on my first missions trip
- After my first missions trip…
- Getting to know the Filipinos
- My second missions trip
- The turning point
- A strange request; a special gift
- Writing for God’s glory
- Planning my first trip to the Philippines
- Hindrances removed
- First time in Manila
- First time in the Philippines
a wet rainy day in the Philippines
An uneventful three-hour plus flight in the air ended in a very eventful time in Manila – it was raining heavily, and many parts of the city were flooded!
The airport was highly confusing (till that time I thought the Indonesian airports took the ‘most chaotic’ first prize). I couldn’t find the people supposed to meet me. Well, once again, God took care of everything that I had no control over; the person found me!
Finally we were in a van going to the church in Quezon City. I always describe my very first time in Manila in this way – the flight from Singapore to Manila took 3 hours plus. The van ride from Manila airport to Quezon City (in the drizzle and the floods) took more than 3 hours plus!
ACKK, everything I had imagined and feared in my nightmares about the Philippines were coming true – the rains, the flood, the dis-organization, the extraordinary traffic… could I even survive one day here?? Oops, I had committed to 3 weeks.
With the benefit of hindsight, and now looking back at my first few trips to the Philippines (between that first one in 1999 and 2001), I realised a common thread. I’ve had seemingly impossible hindrances to overcome before each trip. Sometimes even after getting to the Philippines, peculiar things happened. I was a newbie; and was discouraged, disturbed, and confused many a time.
Yet, whenever and wherever I took even a very hesitant, shaky step of faith forward, God opened the way. It was as if He was always standing, waiting patiently behind the door, ready to open it the moment I made the slightest move! If the devil was determined to discourage me, the Lord encouraged and made His presence felt, through His Word, and through the people He put in my life, one step at a time.
It was natural to get distracted (and worried!) by the negative goings-on i.e. what we see around us, but God says, …look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen… – 2 Cor 4:18
The shock of everything is now starting to sink in and the dust is starting to settle some.
The ultrasound specialist, after much trying, was finally able to see some of our unborn baby’s face and mouth and confirmed the cleft lip which is on the right side. She also said that she saw a gap in the hard palate which is the front of the mouth. It is… Read More....
There was the old grandma who was being cared for by her daughter and son. One day as I was reading my Bible, the daughter asked me about it and I told her what I was reading. She was excited and told me that she had one too and was a part of God’s family. I knew there was something different about her. She took such gentle care of her… Read More....
A few months ago I was thinking to myself, “I don’t have any real China stories.” A ‘China’ story is the kind that can only happen to you in China (of course) but really sets your time here apart from anything else you’ve experienced in your life; it’s something that you think, “I’ve never experienced anything like this!” and somehow it changes you. Well, it finally happened. After two years… Read More....
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