Saturday, July 19
We checked out of our hotel and met at TLCC so we could leave at 8 AM for Glory Reborn. We met Hillary, a young woman in her very early thirties who started this ministry eleven years ago after coming to Cebu earlier on a short term mission with training as a midwife. In these short years, after delivering a baby in their (her husband and her) bedroom from a pregnant woman she had just met, God has expanded her ministry so they were able to rent several adjacent apartments so that now, they have a full pregnancy clinic with ultrasound to birthing to post part in care, all for free to whoever needs it; slave trade pregnancies (working with IJM), squatter mothers, and even some middle class mothers who do not appreciate the public hospitals. Their staff includes several midwives and volunteer doctors and they can do everything except C-sections. They live by faith and God has chosen to grow their work so they will be moving from these rentals to their own facility in 2016. They have delivered over 3000 babies in these years, all by word of mouth. Hillary's dream is for Glory Reborn to become a full hospital able to do C-section surgeries and handle HIV pregnancies in the future. Today, they were celebrating their eleventh anniversary as well as those who gave birth to babies in the last month. Three woman shared their testimonies and thanks, we sang for about a half hour with Katie sharing her testimony and Ray challenged the audience of about fifty to commit themselves to Jesus. About five or so accepted this gift of life, praise God. We then drove to Barili, but stopped at Talisay for lunch, enjoying the Talisay lechon, supposedly unique in the Philippines. It was quite good, not as salty as the lechon we had last Sunday, and continued to Barili.
Barili is only fifty some kilometers from Cebu but it took us close to two hours even on Saturday to drive this short distance due to traffic. Barili is higher up in the mountains, a beautiful location, lush and green. It was raining heavily when we arrived, so we could not do any ministry. We are escorted by brother Carlos, a Deacon from TLCC, and his wife, whose business is food catering and the one providing all our meals in Cebu. We checked in to the Shamrock, a simple hotel that made Golden Peak look luxurious in comparison. All seven guys are in one large room, and the eleven girls in four rooms with Marshall in his own room. We thank God that everyone has recovered enough to travel and we did not need to leave anyone behind in Cebu. It was raining very hard so we could do any planned ministry, so after resting, we met at 4 PM to about 6 to catch up on our group devotions and debrief the last few days of ministry. We ate our box lunches for dinner and our kids a good bonding time together.
Sunday, July 20
We ate breakfast at the Shamrock, which is an open pay as you choose buffet where lots of tour buses stop for bathroom breaks and to buy snacks and left at 8:15 to go to the Barili Christian Fellowship, a mountain church. We left Andrew at the hotel since he was not feeling to well. Only one family was there for the morning Bible study, which Pastor Dan, the local leader led using Eph. 6:5-8. We then prayed for this family; the lady had four children and her husband is a fisherman so he was absent. Her brother is a motorcycle driver, that is, he gives passengers rides on his motorcycle to earn a living. At least half the group paid for a ride and got to see more of the hillside. They all came back excited about the thrill of riding as passengers on a motorbike. We then did our morning devotion at the church since no one else was there. We went to lunch and returned before 1:30 for the regular church service which starts at 2 PM. Pastor Dan met with the children from 1:30 to 2 and service started about 2:15, with about 20 adults and maybe 15 youths. Josh led worship, followed by Pastor Dan's sermon taken from Rom. 1:1-6. After the 40 minute sermon, Vision sang and shared for 30 minutes, and as we sang, more children came in so there were maybe 50-60 people there. Eugene and Allison shared their testimonies about being immersed in God's love and how accepting Christ changed her life; we did the Heart Skit with Eugene substituting for Andrew. We then closed with Yes, Lord, Yes and Marshall gave an invitation. Praise God, about 5 (all older youth and adults)indicated their desire to accept Christ for the first time. Pastor Dan later confirmed that they had been coming to his Bible study but had not yet become believers until today. We returned to the Shamrock about 5 and then it started to rain heavily again. We left for pizza at 7, got back around 8:30 and prepared for bed.
Monday, July 21
We were supposed to go to a public school near the church, but Pastor Dan had apparently not been able to schedule us. At 8:30, he walked up to the school to contact the principal, but the principal was not there, so we returned to the hotel. We used the time to do more listening prayer and then did our daily devotion. We are waiting for one more van to come here from Cebu so we can load our luggage in this third van. Even though it seemed like a wasted day, we are learning that in God's economy, nothing is wasted.
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