Mission Trip

I am excited to share with you an opportunity the Lord opened up just this past week. Since I have been in the Philippines, several people have told me about the island of Palawan. It is an area to the southwest of the island on which Manila is located, and is apparently mountainous and resembles Papua New Guinea in many ways. I am told there are number of tribes living there that have not yet been reached with the gospel.

I have a Filipino doctor friend (a pediatric cardiologist) who has been burdened with the needs of this area for some time. She is friends with a national family that have a solid church ministry on that island. Last week, we were talking with a member of this family, Jethro Malacao. He is leaving for the States at the end of August to work on his doctorate at BJU, but he invited my doctor friend and I to come to Palawan early in August to do a medical mission trip.

So our plan is to leave to fly there on Friday, August 12th, do medical ministry in 1-2 locations on Saturday, participate in the church mission conference on Sunday (including assisting as needed with the medical needs of the attendees), and return to Manila on Monday. There is also some talk of assisting some national nurses in the church with the training and guidelines needed to set up a regular clinic ministry.

I am thrilled to have the opportunity to be involved in medical ministry again and to see this area that I have heard so much about. One concern I had when I heard about the opportunity was where the money would come from to buy medicines (as most of my money has been going toward setting up housekeeping here). But the very night that I heard about the opportunity, I received my monthly GFA financial report and discovered that one of my supporting churches had given an additional large gift that will more than cover the cost of any medicines we will purchase. Praise the Lord for His provision!

Please pray for us now as we prepare, drawing up treatment protocols and procuring medicines. Also please pray for a number of pressing projects at New Song Ministries that I need to complete before leaving.