Kereoke beach revisited….
As we had promised, we went back to Kereoke beach, here in the Philippines, before leaving the northern part of the island. We knew we needed to be faithful to walk through the doors the Lord had opened for us to share the gospel with a few people we had met.
After squeezing into the three wheel motorcycle sidecar which was quite snug with Doreen and I, never mind the 3 others, we jumped on a jeepney (a small open backed bus with no windows that squeezes 10-15 people wherever they can fit) eager to test our knew language skills!! When you approach the place where you want to jump off, you just knock on the roof and yell “Para!” Upon arriving at Kereoke beach, we bailed out and stopped at the end of the palm tree lined driveway for prayer. We asked the Lord to bring to us, the two men that had begun to open up to us the day we arrived. As we walked in, we greeted the girls in the parking lot and the lady security guard that we had enjoyed visiting with during our stay there. Then immediately out of the office, came the owner. He seemed so moved that we had come back like we had promised! We picked up where we had left off several days before, about the need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and not going to God through Mary or the church. He graciously received our witness this time, quite different from our first encounter. Just then, our Jewish friend showed up right on time! It all could not have been timed any better!
After the owner gave us two free bottles of coke, our Jewish friend, Tom (we’ll call him) asked Doreen and I to join him by the waters edge as we sat down on two skinny board benches. The first day that we had met Tom, he shook my hand, looked me in the eye and said, “You are a missionary? I want to talk to you!” He opened up about some challenges in his life and we talked about Jesus, who He was, and what He came to do. Tom said, “This is great! As a Jewish boy, we did not get this at temple!” This was a beautiful time together. As we sat there and shared for quite some time about the Lord, it began to get dark. Then the full moon came rising up out of the ocean! It was amazing!! It was the most beautiful witnessing situation ever! The only thing that would have made it “perfect” was if Tom had given his life to Jesus! He didn’t, but we planted many seeds that I believe, by God’s grace, will grow. Doreen and I planted them with all the love and care Jesus could put into our hearts.
We caught a Jeepney back to Uwe’s, to what turned out to be the concert night. After a beautiful dinner that Uwe had made just for Doreen (a German spaghetti), they got her to do a mini concert and Uwe even video taped it, which Doreen took full advantage of by sharing her testimony and song, “Because I love you”, along with several others. We found out the next morning that Uwe and Tommy had sat up until almost 3:00 in the morning listening to Doreen and Dianne’s CD and the video taped testimony over and over again! See (www.hisongs.com)
We will never forget our friends in Liloan and Uwe’s hospitality and kindness!! We count him as our friend!!
Coke, crackers and Christ
The power of the Cross to impact peoples lives has always amazed me! You can’t encounter the Cross and it’s message of love and remain the same. I believe that the memory it etches in your mind, will remain with you for a life time. Today, we saw so many touched by the Cross. We saw children’s smiles as they got stickers, they got to touch the cross, follow the Cross and were excited to hear about the God that loves them. Also families that rejoiced because the Cross came to their house.
Today as we made our way to the crossroads in the center of the village, children were getting out of school and were everywhere! As soon as we started handing out stickers, children came running! Only few understood as I shared about God’s love but the smiles on their faces revealed the heart connection!
They followed us everywhere as we walked the streets of their village, up and down hills, along a dusty road to a big lighthouse on a hill, and back again. We all just smiled and laughed together as we tried to speak each others language. One time we stopped to talk and share with this huge family, only to find that more kids were following us afterward. It was a hoot! The father/grandfather of the family was so excited that the Cross had come by that he had all his children/grandchildren/nieces and nephews that lived there, come out to see the cross. We shared with them what we were doing and where the cross had been, which he interpreted and shared with his family. It was obvious that he had a great love for the Lord. After we had prayer with them, he said, “let’s make the picture” as he pointed to us and his family.
What a sweet time of fellowship. We then shouldered the cross and headed to the light house that was at the end of this long dirt road with our new found entourage of the Lord’s disciples! When we got to the lighthouse, we stood the Cross straight up and shot a picture of the children, the Cross and the lighthouse.
The next day, we decided to go the opposite way. We enjoyed stopping by each little market stand, mechanic shop and house, distributing the stickers and tracks that everyone so gratefully received. As we stopped in the shade of a banana tree, to get a break from the 100+/35+c degree heat, we noticed a family across the road waving us over. It was the start of a huge blessing! We carried the cross down their driveway to their little home. The man that greeted us introduced himself as Pastor Jesse and then introduced his wife and sister in law to us. Their smiles were so huge and infectious, you could just see Jesus all over them! As we sat there on a palm tree log, we shared coke, crackers and Christ!
The love and joy we shared in The Lord was so deep and real, this was one of those life meetings we will never forget! Their richness in Christ far overshadowed the poverty in which they lived as a struggling pastoral family in a very small village. Their church building was under a thatched roof behind their home, open air with no walls. I believe the Love is what held it up! Before we left, one of the most touching things that has “ever” happened to me was that this man of God, from his poverty, pushed into my hand a one thousand peso note (about $22,US) and said, “I want to sow into your ministry”! Well, the tears started to flow as Doreen and I struggled with receiving this generous gift from such a generous heart. It reminded us both of the widows mite. He would not take no for an answer as he assured us that the Lord would surely provide as they gave with faith from their poverty! No words can describe the love and faithfulness that we had witnessed in that moment! This passage immediately came to mind…(II Corin 8:2-4). “How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear witness, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves, begging us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.”
We are asking everyone who reads this to please pray for Pastor Jesse and his family and their health and work, in their little corner of God’s vineyard!
Kereoke beach and “Uwe”
The last several days have been amazing! I’m getting a cramp in my head trying to think of how to condense it so I’m going to give you the readers digest version.
We set out Sunday with our friends, Ronald and Charissa, to check out the north coast of Cebu island. LILO-an is a bit more rural than where we’ve been but we felt a spiritual darkness there immediately. The first hotel that we came to was on the beach but the rooms were very small and not very clean and we didn’t want to have Ronald and Charissa driving us around all day so we just decided to move there the next morning. I was proud of Doreen for even being open to it! The worst part about it was, it was Kereoke beach, with five machines all within 100 feet of each other, and much of the time it was dueling Kereoke!! The interesting thing was that on Sunday when we went to check it out, a Jewish man, when he heard we were missionaries, came right to me and said, “I want to talk with you!” Then the hotel owner came over and began asking us many questions about what we believed, so “I WAS EXCITED”, I knew the fish were biting!!
After our first night of “dueling Kereoke”, come 8:00 the next morning, the dueling grueling Kereoke began again! I told Doreen that I would not put her ears through that, so we decided to head out looking for another hotel that morning. Though even if we found a place, we knew that we would go back there to find the Jewish man and perhaps the owner, to walk through the doors God had clearly opened for us to share the gospel of Jesus with them.
After our, not so quiet time and coffee, we walked out the tree lined drive way and turned right. We walked maybe 100 yards up the road, when Doreen spotted some people sitting inside, what looked like a roadside bar/hut/cantina and said lets go ask them if they know of a place. The owners were suggesting all the resorts further north, when the one man sitting there at the bar, named Uwe (a German), said, “I know a place you can get a nice room, clean, air-con, wi-fi, and quiet for only 800 pesos. That was less than what we were paying for Kereoke beach. So, after we visited a bit, Uwe asked if we would like him to bring us there to see it. I said yes that would be fine, since I had a peace about it, so I tossed Doreen in the back of the little two seater truck and off we went zig zagging thru traffic and down some dusty potholed roads. I was relieved to see that she was still in one piece when we got there. What a trooper! She’s a real missionary!
Well, when we got there, turned out it was brand new and Uwe owned it. He was a carpenter so he decided to build a hotel there with a little store front and have his in-laws run it while he lives most of the year in Germany with his Filipino wife. It was still in construction stage though the rooms were finished and very nice. What an incredible blessing it had turned out to be! We knew God had led us right to where he wanted us!
So for the next several days, that became our base of operation. We were able to blitz this entire little village with the gospel tracks and stickers as we carried the cross! Some of the real special things turned out to be the way they fed and took care of us. Though he had no idea when he brought us there that we were missionaries and that I carried a 12 foot cross, Uwe just seemed to roll with it. One of the other special things was that when Uwe saw the guitar, I told him that Doreen was a gospel singer but she had also been a country singer for some years! When he heard, “country music” his eyes lit up, then I mentioned that she had opened for the Belamy brothers and he was even more excited because he had enjoyed them when they toured in Germany. After that, the die was cast, Doreen had to do a concert, he would not take no for an answer. So one night, Doreen literally sang for our supper! So much more could be said but it is already beyond the readers digest version! I’ll just say that we all had tears in our eyes when we left and our hearts were knit together! I believe it was the first time he had ever heard the clear gospel message. Doreen shared her testimony, as Uwe videoed it and she sang her song, “Because I Love You”.(Hisongs.com).
Many seeds were planted during our stay and we look forward to seeing each other again, here, there or in the air, as they say! Please keep Uwe in your prayers! Before we left, he gave us his number in Germany and invited us to come visit them.