Praise God!
Halleluah!! Praise God!!!
These are the words that
were heard over and over as God provided today.
This morning some of our team had the opportunity to purchase and present
motor bikes to two different pastors here in the Philippines.
We drove along the beautiful
ocean coast a couple hours from Dumaguete to arrive at Pastor Rubio
Hermongenes’ house where we met his wife, Siaton, and his youngest child,
Geniza. In order to continue receiving
pastoral training and access to ICM programs, Pastor Rubio rides his bicycle
for 2 days to reach the ICM office. He
does this once every three weeks and often with his wife on the handle
bars. He currently runs a house church
with 60 members.
When our AIM contact saw the
need, she suggested we purchase a motor bike (known as motos here), and bless
them with easier transportation. They
were so thankful to have the bike and know that God was going to use it to
bring even more people to the church to hear about Christ.
(the bike they use to ride for two days – a motor bike hit it the other day and ruined the tire, but praise God, they were safe)
I was able to talk to their
daughter, Geniza, who is 19 years old and hear about her dreams and heart for
God. She has three older brothers who
don’t live there anymore, but are still protective of her all the time. She is one of the sweetest people I have
met. As I was talking to her, I heard
one of her dreams is to be a missionary in another country, if the Lord
wills. She always made sure to say,
“only if the Lord wills.” She was so
grateful for the moto too because the three of them, her mom, dad, and her,
often times ride on the regular bicycle to Bible studies many kilometers
away. She teaches the younger kids Bible
stories when they go and is able to minister to them each time.
They live right across the
street from the ocean and it is a paradise view with the tress and water!! Geniza was excited to take us too the ocean
beach with soft sand when we asked.
Living in a home with dirt floors and no doors, they don’t have much,
but the view that surrounds them is the view of richness. To me it almost seems ironic. Right before we left, I gave Geniza a hug and she asked, “you come back someday?” and it hit me that, though I had known her for only a couple of hours, I was going to miss her. I told her I would LOVE to come back and visit sometime. And when we left, I knew I had to come back someday…
The
other family we delivered a moto too was Pastor Ben Habegat (left) and his wife
Edith pastor two churches. One is a
house church and the other is an outreach church. He has a HUGE heart to bring church to the
people and not to make them come to the church.
He currently has 60 members plus 90 children attending. He was so incredibly grateful for the moto
and stopped to thank God right as soon as we told him. He had been praying for that but he said that
week he was just praying for a cord for his microphone to work at their
meetings, and then to his surprise and amazement, God provided a motor bike to
him! He kept saying, “praise God,
hallelujah, praise God” over and over.
He was so thankful.
Being able to bless this family in such a small way, was such a big thing
to them. It gave me joy and made me glad
that God was using us to be such a blessing in their lives! God is good and He does provide 🙂.
