Getting to know the Filipinos

So what good was I in the Filipino outreach ministry??

From that perspective, I guess the answer would be, not much. It was laughable. I dunno how to open my mouth to talk. Dunno how to hand out tracts!

I didn’t serve regularly in that ministry either… only whenever the bolder friend invited me along, to the shopping mall, or to the green space above the train station where many Filipinas had their picnics, or even to the Botanics.

Just be my partner lah, she said persuasively, and so I was, off and on, for about four or five years.

What good did the Filipino outreach ministry do to me?

From that perspective… a lot. I was put in close touch with Filipinos for the first time in my whole life.

Prior to my salvation, Filipinas were another alien species, the domestic helpers I had seen out marketing, walking the dog or looking after the children of their employers, whom I had absolutely no reason to interact with or talk to. However, within the church family and in the Filipino outreach, there were lots of Filipinas.

At first, I could hardly understand their accent, the way they pronounced words, or some of the unique Taglish expressions (i.e. Tagalog-influenced English) they used. It took me years to get used to it.

They were extremely expressive, passionate, friendly, touchy-feely (i.e. hug all the time) sorts. Whoaaaaa, it took me years to get used to THAT!!

They were enthusiastic in reaching out to their own countrymen… I watched them. I went to the afternoon service at the house several times, and interacted with even more Filipinas, saved and unsaved.

There was even a church camp in 1997 where I shared a room with a Filipina. It was quite funny… I was so quiet that I didn’t say much to her for the first three days of the camp. On the fourth day, she resolved to get this silent room mate of hers to open the mouth (She shared this with me many years later).

She is one of our most fervent, faithful, big-hearted missionaries today, sharing the Good News with literally thousands of souls in the campuses since 1999.

Why did I remain in the Filipino outreach in the early 1990s? Did the Lord lead me there (instead of Sunday School or some other ministry), and let me stay there for so many years, ineffective though I was? Did He know that, 10 years later, as missions coordinator and deeply involved in our vast Philippines work, it would be so essential for me to be able to understand, communicate and connect with these unique, expressive, extremely friendly folk, because I now needed to work so closely with them?

There are many Singaporeans in our church today who never interacted and never felt comfortable with the other nationalities – the Filipino congregation, the Indonesian, the Chinese etc. God didn’t lead them there. But if He had somehow gotten you to serve in some ethnic congregation which perhaps you now feel a little out of place in, hang in there. Who knows what plans He has in store for you in your future!