The Philippines.

Part of a Journal entry by one of our DTS outreach team members in the Philippines. WOW.

Nov.29th, 2008

"As I write this I'm sitting rooftop Manilla. Since arriving I have been overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of this 18 million + city. In less than 48 hours I've experienced more desperation and poverty than I've seen in a lifetime. Most of me wants to get on a plane and head back to Tauranga; where embracing "normality" and going about my daily life is both easy and delightful. But as I look over this city with a headful of images from yesterday, I know I can't turn away from the people in this nation. I can't pretend I didn't see the beggar sitting outside the metro line, eyes guaged out and hands extended pleading for help. I can't ignore the precious children without parents, beggin for money with beautiful smiles on their faces. What of the 2 young boys who let me take their pictures, grinning from ear to ear, only to be violently dragged off by policemen less than 1o minutes later. Where were they taken? Who is their defender? I can't wipe from memory the young mother sitting on dirty steps nursing a baby with open wounds covering the better portion of her legs. I can't possibly forget the look in her eyes as we laid hands on her and asked Jesus to heal and provide for her. I see children lying in the middle of the streets, crying with no one there to help them. I see a young child with an emaciated body and bulging eyes lying in her mother's arms as multitudes pass by without even a second glance. I see thousands lined up outside a massive church, waiting with the hope of being healed by the local "faith healer," a black magic practitioner. There are tables upon tables of ways to "purchase" salvation and wholeness. The endless icons, thick incense, and darkness in the eyes of the people selling these are overwhelming. All I can think of is Jesus and the time He overturned the tables in the temple; outraged that His people had turned His house into a marketplace. My heart wrenches inside of me when I see vials of solution that effectively destroy infants in the 1st and 2nd months of pregnancy. It's an abortion in a bottle. Even if I could smash every one I saw it wouldn't be enough. How can I ignore a nation that has been built upon the blocks of free-masonry; that millions are living underneath this kind of demonic bondage... everything I see makes me want to fall on my knees and groan in my prayers to Jesus. If my heart feels this way, how does He feel? I have no words that are adequate, and nothing to offer but myself and the true God who lives within me. I won't forget these. I won't choose the easy path. I'll pray and contend for the reality of LIVING HOPE, that will bring these precious ones into an inheritance that will never spoil or fade."