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Lion -Lamb?
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As you know , In the U.S. the weather has been
unbelievable. By now many are looking to March as being a Lamb (coming
in easy) and not a Lion as far as snow goes.
The old saying is that March comes in like a Lion,
(Snowing, blustery) but goes out like a Lamb, (sunshine and flowers
sprouting)
Here in Payatas we have no winter or summer or for that
matter, spring or fall. We have “Rainy days” and “Sunny days”. However,
many times it becomes reversed and rainy days can easily turn into a
typhoon.
In life, we have rainy and sunny days as well as snowy and springy days. (If that is even a word.)
This month has been a mixture but I must tell you this,
without the snowy and rainy you will not really appreciate springy and
sunny. Contrast is what keeps us appreciative. |
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The start of our contrast
Pastor Jun Mateo with River City Christian Ministries In
San Francisco, gave me a call and asked if we would like to have a
medical mission. He said he had about twelve doctors along with at least
as much nurses and support staff who would be touring the Philippines
and would like to help the people here in Payatas. They were offering,
testing, supplies, medicines and dental work and most importantly, small
scale surgery. We accepted of course.
That was our “Sunny Days”. We now had some preparing to do
and one of the first things to do was to secure the local covered
basketball court for the venue. That is done by letter to the Barangay
hall. We hand delivered the letter as we have done in the past and they
looked up the schedule and there was no confliction so they stamped a
copy of our letter and gave it back. In the past, this meant it was
confirmed. We had also asked for chairs and tables but they said it
would have to be a seperate request and so I wrote a second letter.
My representitive checked with the barangay for the
chairs/tables and they told us we had to check back. Then again they
told us to check back. It was now the day before the mission and they
are saying that no one is there at the Barangay to help us and we need
to…yes, that’s right, CHECK BACK in the morning.
This time I sent two of the ladies and when they took too long to return, I went there to see what was happening.
Here comes the “Rainy Days”
The woman there told me that we could not have the covered
court as the school was going to use it. Well, that blew my hat off so
to speak. These people have spent thousands of dollars to come help the
people and they were saying we can’t have the court? After much arguing
we were granted the court but they gave us no tables or chairs which we
had to immediately rent at great cost to our Church.
Here is the contrast:
All in all, we had a wonderful Medical Mission. We helped almost 800 people and all heard the Gospel message.
There are always more of the Sunny days than the rainy days it just seems sometimes to be the opposite.
Click here for the photos
By the way, this is not the first problem we have had with
the Barangay. It seems anytime we want to do something to help the
barangay people, they don’t like it nor do they provide anything that we
are entitled to use. Please pray as we have written to President Aquino
to he lp stop the corruption in this place.
Vacation Bible School
Another Lamb-Lion situation with victory in Jesus.
The Lamb:
Every year we have been blessed by Operation Blessing. Not
only have they provided free VBS materials but they also gave us free
training for our staff. The result has been some very successful V.B.S.’
The Lion: This year however, we were told that there would
be no training or materials for whatever reason and we would need to
seek elsewhere to provide for our needs. I had already checked and a VBS
kit would have cost over $300 and there was no budget for that. Besides
that we need to pay for crafts and food for the kids and staff all
week.
The Lamb:
We found a Christian organization that although it is not
free, the entire VBS kit and trianing will cost us about $50 U.S.
So you see, it might get tough but wait on the Lord and He will provide the Lamb.
Gen 22:7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said,
My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Gen 22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself
a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
God always provides.
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Pray for Camp 2011
Here comes the Lion again:
We were told that this year Word of Life Camp is not having an “Open Camp” week.
Open camp is all ages are permitted together.
Open camp suits the Christian model as in our Church the
older children watch out for the younger ones and the younger children
look to the older ones to guide them. Well, from what I was told, some
kids were unhappy (not from our Church) that there were little kids at
the camp so now there is no open camp.
We now do not have a camp to bring our children and so please pray for us as we seek an alternative to Word of life.
The camps solution to us would be to break down our kids into
two groups which would double the cost of transportation
and defeat our goal of keeping our kids together as a family. |
Additional Praises:
Fellowship:
The Men’s, women and kids fellowship and pot luck are continuing each month.
Door Knocking
We average over 50 persons each week at door knocking. We are praying for 100.
English class:
The English class is progressing nicely. The children like to
“brag” by trying their new found language skills out on me.
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BE A LAMB
This ministry looks to the generosity and benevolance to others to keep it going. God uses people. Will you be one of them?
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