fruit.
month partnering in ministry with the Long family and Kids International
Ministries. Like us, one of these teams spent
the month playing basketball and ministering to the prisoners of the Antipolo
City Jail. At the end of their month, as
they prepared to leave, they asked if any of the prisoners would like to be
baptized. One 21 year old young man,
Joel, was baptized. A seed was
planted.
The first couple of months of this year were a struggle. I wanted to see results. New Zealand and Australia were both months of
tremendous personal growth for me, but we did not see a lot of progress in our
ministries. We were “planting seeds”,
which to me, was just a euphemism for failing.
We were helping people in the best way we could. That usually meant showing them God’s love
through service and living in community and friendship with them. We also did our best to tell whoever was
willing to listen (which was usually 2 or 3 people and a handful of dogs) the
ways he has worked in our lives and how he can work in theirs. In general, people were glad to have us
around, and showed an interest in us personally, but didn’t really show a lot
of enthusiasm for hearing about God. Mostly
we were being charitable.
In these first few months I grew out of a lot, grew up in a lot of ways, and
grew into a deeper understanding of what it means to have a real, personal,
interactive relationship with God. I
began to experience how much more there is than just knowing about him, or trying
to do good things. I was excited about
the new things God was doing in my life, but frustrated that I didn’t see the
fruit of this personal growth in those we were there to serve and minister
to. But the Philippines would be
different…right?
I came out of Australia and into the Philippines feeling
excited, empowered, and optimistic about not only the changes that had been
happening in my life, but the ways God wanted to use me to change the lives of those
around me. This optimism lasted about a
week. Then I came face to face with the
frustration, helplessness, and uselessness of overwhelmingly prevalent
poverty. I felt like all the things I had
been feeling were pointless. I felt like
I should be doing so much more, but the harder I tried the more useless I felt. God used that to teach me about
obedience. He taught me the importance
of service – to him and to people. He
taught me to let him be enough. He
taught me to get over my selfish need for results. He taught me to obey.
Then God showed me fruit.
On Saturday, March 20,
our team went to prison for a normal day of ministry. Mike and I played basketball, hung out with
the prisoners, and had a bible study. We
had chosen to tell the story of the prodigal son. The story Jesus told as recorded in Luke 15,
about a boy who takes his inheritance, runs off to the big city, blows all his
money on “the good life”, and finds himself alone, poor, and miserable. While working on a pig farm, realizing the
pigs have a better life than he does, the son decides he would rather be a
servant at his dad’s house than be on his own.
So he goes home. And what does
his dad do? He doesn’t tell him how
stupid he is for blowing all that money.
He doesn’t punish him or make him work.
He doesn’t take him back on certain conditions. The old man drops everything and runs to the
end of the driveway to greet his son, hugs him, tells him how much he loves him,
and throws him a huge party.
We are that son. We will all realize
that eventually. The question is, when?
On that day in prison, over 40 men came tothat realization. They realized that
they had tried it on their own, and found themselves sad, alone, and
broken. They realized they wanted to go
home. On Thursday, March 25, Mike and I had
the honor and privilege of baptizing 44 men inside the walls of the Antipolo
City Jail. The most amazing part is that 14 of those men are a part of
a regular Bible study held weekly in the prison by Joel, the now 23 year old man
who had been baptized just a year and a half before. What may have seemed like a small seed in 2007 had grown and spread into something that has now branched into the lives of countless people.
fruit.
God has used this experience to not only show his faithfulness, love, and sovereignty,
but to perfectly illustrate the importance of planting seeds. Maybe two years from now I will get an email
from someone on the World Race in Australia thanking me for planting seeds in
Wujal Wujal, Australia, or Tauranga, New Zealand. Maybe I never will. Either way, I don’t know how God is using our
obedience – but he is. So I’ll keep
being obedient, whether that means planting seeds or seeing fruit.
On a side note, on our last day in prison, we were able to take various
supplies to many of the prisoners.
Unlike the prisons in the U.S., the prisons provide very little for the
prisoners, if anything at all – not even a uniform. Because of the overcrowding and lack of
funding in the prison system, inmates are primarily reliant on their families
to bring them various essentials.
Unfortunately, many of them have little or no family. Others have families that are unable to visit
or provide for them. Mike and I wanted
to give to our brothers in prison by providing things like clothing, bed sheets,
shoes, food, and bibles. The Bibles will
allow the men to learn, grow, and study long after we’re gone. The clothing will give the men not only a
clean shirt to help prevent various skin diseases, but also give them something
presentable to wear to their hearings.
While these small tokens are much cheaper to purchase in the Philippines
than in the U.S., the cost does add up.
If you would like to help pay for some of these gifts, or contribute to gifts
given to future ministries, please send me an email and I can give you more
details. I would love to tell you more
about where your individual gifts can be used, and the stories behind some of
them. My email can be found on the “Contact
Me” link on the left of this website. Thank
you so much for all of your help, love, and obedience.
God bless.
