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// UNDONE \\
I am truly undone and fully in awe of all the Lord has done here in the Philippines! It has been extraordinary to partner with what Holy Spirit is doing everyday here! It has been wildly busy but has we have hit a little over the half way point of outreach, I wanted to share a few testimonies!
More than any testimony that I want to share, I want to testify God's faithfulness and love first! The beautiful thing about the Philippines is that most all of them know who God is since it is a catholic nation. The unfortunate part is that for most people we met, they did not fully know that you could have an active relationship with the Father that wasn't bound by religion but was full of freedom and communication!! It was such an incredible oppurtunity to go into a country and share with people that God was desperate for a relationship with them and that the Holy Spirit was always speaking and moving in their daily lives! One of my favorite moments in conversations with the locals were when their eyes lit up and you could see that they really understood the revelation of how much Jesus loves and cares about them! Wow my heart was so full the entire 2 1/2 months! We saw wild miracles and healings but truly it is the love of Jesus that people are desperate to encounter! It was a wonderful to realize that no matter who we would talk to, they would always admit that in some aspect in their life, big or small, something was missing and nothing could fill it. What a privilege to be able to say back to them that the thing you've been searching, the hope you need, the love you're craving for the past days, months, or years, I have it and it's Jesus! The hope you need is found in Jesus! The love that you need is Jesus! The freedom you are desperate for is all found in His heart!
So, if you can't tell already, I absolutely LOVED every single moment of my time in the Philippines. I co-lead with one of my best friends, Elijah, and we had a team of 7 glory students - Anna Grace, Christian, Benaja, Moriah, Hannah, Donald, and Yana. I saw SO much transformation in ALL my students. There is no chance you could ever leave God's presence without your heart being transformed and your mind renewed. To see the hunger and thirst our little family of 9 had was unbelievable!!!
I could talk for hours about how stellar each and everyone of team are but for now, I would love to share some of the highlights of wild testimonies of God's love and power in all three locations we went to in the Philippines!
Below: Four of our students getting baptized at
the watering hole in a tribal village outside the city.
// OLONGAPO \\
We LOVE YWAM Olongapo and every single minsitry that we got to be apart of at the base! The main focus on the base is to help rescue women from prostitution, whether they're there by choice or sex trafficked, and bring the women into a discipleship program where they brought into freedom through Jesus Christ as well as given practical tools and job training to earn money for their famlies! We were able to do loads of teaching, street evangelism, prison ministry, and discipleship. One of our favorite ministries was bar ministry where would go bar to bar and fellowhship with the prostitutes, ladyboys, and street kids. The prostitutes openness to the gospel was unreal and it was so beautiful to see salvations, healings, and true heart change! We knew from day one of outreach that Jesus was going to move wildly because we did our first day of bar ministry was on the very first monday after we arrived in the Philippines. That night, two of our students Benaja and Anna Grace, met 4 girls at a bar who got encountered by the love of Jesus and were extremely interested to learn more. The next day, day TWO of outreach, the 4 bargirls came to the YWAM base to do a bible study and all heard the simple gospel and accepted Jesus into their hearts immediately!! It was such a powerful example of how the standard of expectancy we were for the rest of bar ministry and outreach!!! Jesus taught our whole team of what whole-hearted christianity looks like, its not just inviting people to church or bible studies. It's looking at the life of Jesus as a perfect example and seeing that, since he went out and hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors, that there is no reason to be afraid to do the same. Living a life like Jesus did is the most exhilarating oppurtunities you'll ever get!
Above: Walking to tribal ministry just outside the city.
Below: View from YWAM Olongapo.
// BANAUE \\
Before the school even started back in September, Elijah and I were praying for all the locations and felt a lot of heat about Banaue. We felt it was going to be a two weeks packed full of GLORY and miracles and all that…and that is exactly what happened! First off, Banaue is different than the rest of the Philppines because it is more spiritually aware and in tune with that compared to how the rest of the Philippines is catholic. A lot of the villages are pagan or spiritist. Everyday, we would trek into these villages and do house visits and one-on-one evangelism. We really wanted to stop for the one and invest in personal relationships. That was most of our ministry and it was really amazing!
One of our favorite parts was that we poured into a few specific villages and got the opportunity to revisit them on the second week to check up on them. It was amazing to see the transformation between each visits. A specific testimony from re-visitations to the villages was Pedro. The first time we met him, we simply prayed for him over the lasting symptoms from his stroke. He didn’t always have feeling in his legs. We just blessed him and that was it but as we left, he mentioned to our translator that he felt he encountered Jesus. After our first visit with Pedro, we found out that he was actually the head pagan priest of the village. So on our second visit we came back and as we entered the house he was already so full of joy! We started talking and sharing about the true meaning of worship and how the Holy Spirit is the only true spirit. As we talked with him more he decided to rededicate his life to Jesus and repent of all the witchcraft he was involved in! We then worshiped in his little house for another half hour and all of us were filled with so much joy! He also said he was motivated to read the Bible more and wanted to learn. It was incredible to partner with what God is doing and see a lost son come back to the Father!
Elijah and I also had the privilege to walk alongside the students for most the people that we had prayed for. We had never prayed for a blind, deaf, paralyzed, or demonically possessed men before this outreach so it was amazing to do that and see all them brought into freedom! Our friend Albert was one of these examples. We were just on our way back from trekking into a village and on our way back, we quickly made a decision to stop for our contacts uncle. We didn’t know at the time but he had been paralyzed from the waist down due to a stroke for the past year. We all gathered around him to simply pray out for healing and strength. As we were praying, I was reminded of a vision the Lord gave me back in October where I saw Benaja and Anna Grace helping a paralyzed man out of a plastic chair. I realized this was the moment that we had been searching for! So I asked Benaja and Anna Grace to pray specifically and help him out of the chair. Albert then began to stand up and WALK for the first time in a year! At first, Benaja and Anna Grace helped him to walk but he quickly requested them to let him go and he began to walk all by himself! He was so full of faith that he began to walk towards the stairs to challenge himself! He just kept testing out his legs and stretching them out. We then had a Holy Ghost dance party in celebration and he told us that he was going to throw away his canes in faith that he had been fully healed! It was absolutely incredible. Praise the Lord!
Carry the Love at one of the 8th wonders of the world!!!
Above: ALBERT!!! This once paralyzed man holds
his canes in the victory of Jesus Christ!
Below: Our view from our room!
// CAGAYAN DE ORO \\
My oh my, our hearts just continued to burn for the Philippines as we moved to our last location of the outreach. We had the oppurtunity to be under the great leadership of YWAM CDO base whose intentions were to involve us in an assortment of all different types of ministry! So we did anything and everything! We went to villages that were right outside our front door and went door to door spreading the love of Jesus and teaching. We did street kid ministry to all the homeless living in the center of town as well as visiting boy prisons which most of whom have come from being a street kid. We were really involved with teaching classroom to classroom at several high schools all around Cagayan and also lead many bible studies on the YWAM base for mothers, children, and the youth of the city.
One of my personal favorite testimonies from CDO was a time we went to a high school at a kind of far away town.We really enjoyed this ministry, but it was also a bit challenging at times. It was a joy to go class to class and share testimonies and the word of God! But because we would go to high schools (ages 12-17) that were in villages a bit far away from the main city, they don’t see many visitors much and absolutely went wild when we entered into the schools. Calming down the frenzy and having them realize that we weren’t any kind of celebrities was but wanted to be friends was probably the hardest challenge in these ministries. Once the excitement of our visiting died down, it really was amazing to be able to speak life into them and watch them break into tears as Holy Spirit was encountering them. One class was so focused in and as Donald, Elijah, and I shared the word of God. They were just fully engaged and I could tell all of them were totally understanding everything! I then picked up my guitar after Donald preached and sang the song "Holy Spirit" by Bethel. The whole class joined in and we worshipped wildly for a while and then Elijah gave an alter call to anyone who wanted to give their lives fully to the Lord. The entire class stood up and raised their hands and even when I made sure they knew it was serious and nothing got lost in translation, no hand went down and the entire classroom of about 30-40 students gave their lives or rededicated their lives to Jesus and encountered the Holy Spirit!!! It was absolutly amazing!! My heart was so moved seeing this generation rising up to live in their true identity in Jesus Christ!
Walking to ministry everyday.
High schoolers are SO hungry for truth and identity!
Our daily transportation