Yesterday we started at a new site—we do this almost every three days. We walked around the town with Pastor Cario doing house visitations. I have never seen as much sickness as I have witnessed in the Philippines. There are so many young kids with diseases. Families all around the town have at least one member with some ailment or another. It is heartbreaking, but also shows us the opportunities for God to work and show his power here. We have been doing a lot of house visits this month. I cannot even begin to count the number of families we have prayed over.
During our visitations, yesterday, we met a twelve-year-old girl, Rhea, with leukemia. Her family attends Cario’s church. She looked so pitiful sitting there on the couch. Seeing her made me think of my friend’s younger brother that died of leukemia. As sad as it was, when it was finally over, his family breathed a sort of sigh of relief. He had been battling it for so long, and now he was in a better place. At any rate, we prayed healing over her, and will continue to lift her up as she comes to mind.
Toward the end of our time with Cario, we went with him to the hospital to visit one of his church families. Their eight-year-old son, Marvin, was in with a severe U.T.I. It was a horrible feeling to see him lying there on the bed without anything tangible to do for him. Our team, some ICM staff, and Cario held our hands over Marvin and lifted him up to our Father in pray. As we walked out, past the billing counter, this thought came to mind—wouldn’t it be amazing to walk into that hospital and pay off all of the debt? Just walk right up to the billing counter and tell them that I will cover all of the bills currently open. I just wish there were more tangible things I could do for these people. If any of you are interested in donating financially directly to some of the families we have interacted with, please let me know. We are not budgeted to take from our team funds to give to the needy, but I can set aside ministry money from personal donations. *Treatment for Marvin will cost roughly $35*
