Quieter Week

The last week has been a little less busy than the preceding ones -- nice for a change. I've been catching up on various projects and responsibilities that were neglected in the push to get the music completed for the concert.

I was finally able to go through the pictures from the Palawan trip and put together a short video report. I'm attaching it to this blog post. If you are unable to view it for some reason, you can also visit the following weblink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lcsf4QeJhw

Busy Week

After my return from the wonderful trip to Palawan, I had a lot of work to do to get ready for the concert on Friday night. By God's grace alone, all 14 compositions were completed and edited in time for me to input them into the computer. The last pieces went to the printer on Thursday morning and were ready for sale after the concert on Friday evening. Praise the Lord for a great concert! There were around 400 people in attendance, and all the participants did a great job. Although I could not understand all the words of the songs (since they were in Tagalog and Cebuano), those who do speak those languages said that the message was clearly communicated and was a great blessing. Many folks purchased music so the impact of those compositions will continue to spread.

Since that event is over, it's time to get refocused on other projects that have been pushed aside for a time. My church is planning an interchurch singles fellowship next month, so there is much preparation to do for that. I am also working on finalizing the layout of the first book of the violin curriculum. In addition, the main secretary of BJMBC is out on maternity leave, so I have increased responsibilities there as well. Praise the Lord for the strength He has given in the busy days recently and continue to pray for wisdom in the days ahead.

Medical Mission

Praise the Lord for a safe and profitable trip! I just returned from the medical mission trip to the Philippine island of Palawan, and it was an incredibly enjoyable and exciting experience. I will try to give you at least a brief survey.

We (Dr. Ina Bunyi and I) left Manila early on Friday morning. We landed in Puerta Princessa, the capital of Palawan, had lunch, then rode about 4 hours to the town of Brooke's Point. A former classmate of Dr. Ina's has a clinic so she had a cardiac patient that she wanted Dr. Ina to see (since she is a pediatric cardiologist). That entailed a trip to the provincial hospital where Dr. Ina did an echocardiogram using the ultrasound machine usually used for assessing abdomens and pregnant women.

The next morning we were up quite early and set off about 6:30 for our trip up the mountain. The church in Brooke's Point has a number of outreaches/church plants, one of which is in Tatandayan. It was about a two hour hike up to this village. Once there we had a church service and then had a medical clinic with the help of some of the believers from the church in Brooke's Point. We saw about 39 patients. After enjoying food with the believers there (including fresh coconut milk), we headed back down to the mountain. When we reached the van, we loaded up and headed to the site of another outreach. There we saw 65 patients while the gospel was preached to those assembled. After that it was time to head to the church for choir practice for Sunday. We were able to hep out both by singing in the choir and accompanying on the piano.

Sunday was the start of a week long missions conference at the church. In Sunday school, one of the men in the church gave a presentation about the unreached tribes in Palawan with many sobering statistics. I was surprised to discover how "primitive" many of these villages still are. Then the Sunday school kids came in dressed in the attire of the tribes -- quite a special sight.
Dr. Ina and I were able to share our testimonies as well. We continued to minister through music in the morning service.

The afternoon service was at 2:30pm and included the ordination of the church leaders at Tatandayan, the village we had visited the day before. It was a real blessing to see these mountain people take the first step toward having an indigenous church. After the service we saw about 50 more patients from the various outreaches that had attended the service.

Today we went to the market in Brooke's Point, then boarded the van for the trip back to Puerto Princesa. It was an incredibly fast and packed trip, but the Lord blessed with much strength and wisdom.

Now that I'm back in Manila (feeling as though I was visiting a completely different country), I will be busy this week in preparing the music for the sacred concert this Friday. Please pray that the Lord will bring all the details together to make this concert a blessing to those who attend, and that the music will be able to be used in churches throughout the Philippines.

Preparations

It seems as though most of the week was spent in making preparations for one event or another. I think I have shared about the upcoming concert on August 19, which will be of all newly written and arranged music in the languages of the Philippines. Since we want the music to be a help to church throughout the Philippines, it needs to be published and available at the concert. So I have been and will be busy laying out the music in the computer and making the changes as each piece goes through the editing process.

At odd moments, my doctor friend and I have been meeting to make plans for our medical mission trip. We have made a list of medicines to purchase, found out what is available on the island where we are headed, and made plans to go out and purchase the remainder this week.

Then, at my church this weekend, I was involved in the planning meeting for an inter-church singles fellowship scheduled for early September. (I am in charge of registration for that event.)

In between, all the preparations was midterm exams for the BJMBC students. Despite a day of cancelled classes because of rain and flooding (our 5th major storm in a month when normal is usually 2), all the exams were finally administered. Now I have a huge pile of grading to do, as I help several of the teachers with their grading.

Please continue to pray for the medical mission trip to Palawan. We leave Friday morning (Thursday night in the States) and will return Monday night. Pray for safety, for wisdom in treating patients, and most of all for us to be a blessing to the church there and a tool for evangelism in their outreaches.

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.

Church

This week I just wanted to praise the Lord for the church He has led me to attend. (The picture is me with some of my church mates.) I really enjoy the people there and feel like they have welcomed me as part of the group, despite my different appearance and the language barriers.

I continue to assist in the music ministry, accompanying the congregational singing on either flute or piano, accompanying for choir and special music, and playing offertories. I also have enjoyed attending the ladies Bible study each Sunday afternoon and getting to know the ladies and their needs better.

I will be leading the Bible study next Sunday afternoon, so I would appreciate your prayers for that. Also please pray that the Lord will give direction as to other ministries in which He would have me be involved.

Since it takes about two hours to commute to this church, I do not go there on Wednesday nights. However, the Lord has given me the opportunity to work with the children in the church close to where I live. Please do pray for these children as well. Although most, if not all, of them are from Christian homes and/or attend Christian school, the majority are either unsure of their salvation or have never even made a profession. They know the truth, but have not applied it personally. Please pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as we lead the program and that the Holy Spirit will be at work to illumine their minds to the truth of the gospel.

Speaking and Music

The Lord continues to open doors for ministry, often unexpected ones. On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak to about 25 BJMBC female students in Ladies Forum. They had submitted a list of topics that they wanted to cover during the year and a frequent request concerned knowing the will of God -- how do I know if God is calling me into ministry, how do I know if I'm called to be a pastor's wife, etc. I was asked to address this topic with them. I enjoyed giving them biblical principles to guide their decision making and several requested me to email them my speaking notes.

Then on Saturday, the church I attended when I was here previously hosted a ladies meeting with a health focus. They had a number of speakers on different aspects of health but asked me to give the devotional (because of my nursing background). I enjoyed sharing about "The Disease of the Soul," and pray that the Lord will continue to use the truth of His Word in the hearts of those who heard.

Today (Sunday) gave opportunities for musical ministry at church as I played my flute for congregational singing, accompanied the church choir in the morning service, and sang in a trio for the evening service.

Next week, we are looking forward to having two young ladies from the U.S. visiting with us. They are here to work with National Hoops (a basketball tournament outreach for young people), but came early to get a chance to see ministry in the Philippines. One of them will be staying in my apartment, so I have been busily trying to finish getting it furnished. I finally have a table and chairs, and got a bed for the second bedroom and hung the curtains.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for the ministry here. May God be glorified in everything we do -- from the public ministries to the private ones.