The ministry contact is so great. His name is Papa Dan. He says, “Danielle, like in the Bible, but Papa is an endearing term, so you can call me Papa Dan.” But every time I say it in public, he smiles at me, and the others laugh. I don’t know if the jokes on me or not. His wife passed away last may. He tells the story…
“…she was sitting in a worship service, right here in the church. We were worshipping, and her blood pressure it got too high. She lost consciousness and we rushed her to the hospital. But she was gone. And I am sad.”
Papa Dan is such a soft, strong, proud, humble beautiful man. He is 62. And in love with Jesus. He was raised, and trained very Baptist. We had some wonderful discussions, and he said, “I don’t expect you to accept my understanding, but when we stand before the Almighty, we won’t stand as Denominations, we will stand as individuals. Choose life!” He talks often of his family who is spread out all over the world. The Filipino people joke that there number one export is their people. 10 million Filipinos live outside their home country. And Papa Dan talks of his family who are part of that 10 million. He dreams of seeing them, and holding his grandchildren. Some of which he’s never seen, but shows pictures proudly and talks of one day being able to hold them. This man has given his entire life to pastoring people. And when he teaches you see, his authority is obvious. He convicts me because when he talks of scripture he quotes from memory, I scramble for Google and realize there is no wifi. My degree is in Bible and yet I struggle to find scripture. He makes me want my Bible. He makes me think, wow my 1 year sacrifice is not as much as I thought it was. He spent his life.
A roach, all of 3 inches scrambles from under a box. A cat dashes out of its way. A shriek from the girls causes Papa Dan to pause his statement. He looks down and smiles, walks over and steps on the roach. It shakes it off and keeps going. He steps again. It stops moving. Papa Dan continues with a tone as though to say, “what I am saying is more important.” The roach gets massacred by ants coming out of the wall. It springs back to life to try and fight one more time. The ants prove to be too strong a foe. The roach concedes to death and the altercation is done.
Things in the Philippines are resilient. They push on. I hope to catch this. I hope to leave knowing in every situation what is most important.
