Philippines 2019_Day 2_Monday

Yang & Mei Ying

We awoke in our capsule hostel and squeezed into one of the slightly larger rooms for morning devotion and a precious time of prayer in preparation for the week ahead. This place which we are travelling to, had seen the deaf hear and the blind see. That place which we will be staying for the next week has had the dead raised and the good news spread all over the region. We are believing for a great purpose over our visit this year, and that through this trip many would be impacted by the grace of God.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4:18 – 19

After a simple breakfast of local white bread and cup noodles, we packed into the vans led by Ps. Fely and her team for the journey onwards. The journey from Talcoban to Dolores would challenge those with motion sickness and some of us decided to put our hands in Dr Edwina Goh’s medicines. I was one of them and I slept peacefully through the winding roads of the journey.

We arrived at the River of Life Mission’s Dolores church and orphanage slight after noon. Memories flooded in as I recall being here two years ago running medical and dental clinics for the same village. We have built quite a friendship with the people here. This is the village Ps Fely had planted one of her churches and orphanages to serve the marginalised and share the good news.

The medical and dental clinic kick-started under the leading of the medics and dentist. The venue was a two-storey building with the church hall below, and an upper floor with open areas and rooms where the church workers and children lives. Jessica and Ying Ying were the first to share in the church hall, which was also the waiting area for the villagers that had come to the clinics. One by one they were called to the triage station where the team members would register their details and interview their issues followed by measuring their blood pressure. The patient will then be directed to the doctor or the dentist according to their needs. Upon seeing the medics, they will then be directed to the pharmacy station where they are given medication sponsored by donors of the trip, according to the prescriptions from the doctors and the dentist. Upon receiving their medication, the people will then be directed to the last station which was the prayer station whereby dedicated team members would minister to the people’s needs, be it physical, emotional or spiritual.

I had run the same clinic with the same procedure two years ago at the exact venue. Despite so, the clinic felt different this year. Looking back, I believe it was an expectancy in the room for God to show Himself in this place. Some would have coined it as “faith”, which I would not disagree with.

As the clinic started running, the people that came started to fill the room. Patients were treated by doctors and those who had tooth ache were medicated by the dentistry team. It wasn’t long until the traffic started building up at the pharmacy and prayer station as the team started to engaged in conversations and prayer with the patients. Soon after, you could hear shouts of joy which sparked in different corners of the room. With close inspection, there were people that had pain in their body cheering in tears as those pains started to disappear after being prayed for. There were many that were recognisably in tears of comfort as well as the team continues to pray with the patients who visited that day.

There was a particular man in his late twenties that came to the prayer station telling the team that he had pain in his chest for a considerable amount of years. He had been given pain killers from the pharmacy. The prayer team then laid their hands on his chest and started praying. For some reason, worship started breaking out in the room as well as Clarie (the local worship leader) started singing in the clinics. The atmosphere in the room started to change as the prayer team continued to pray for this man.

After a few minutes, the man was asked to check if his chest pain was still there. Upon checking, the man was shocked to learn that there was no more pain on his chest. The people around whom saw what happened started to cheer and praise God as the men broke out in tears of unbelief. The team led him to pray to receive Jesus whom had just healed him of his pain in his chest that had been with him for years. As the worship got louder, it felt like we were in a worship service rather than a medical and dental clinic. But then again, what’s the difference? It was the body working together in unison – a true theme of the week.

David

Today, I was very excited as I finally got to work with doctors and dentists. Since young, it was my dream to become a doctor but due to financial issues, it was a dream that wasn't possible to fulfill. Dr. Edwina assigned us into 3 teams to learn about triage, pharmacy and dentistry. I was entrusted to the pharmacy team and was given a tutorial about the various medications which included: painkillers, antibiotics and multivitamins.

At 2pm sharp, the villagers began to arrive one by one. The smooth flow of the clinic reflects the experience of the doctors but also the presence of God. After Dr. Edwina and Dr. Joshua examined each patient, they would sometimes go for dentistry or come to the Pharmacy station where auntie Mei Ying and Hui Hui would help with providing the medication that the doctors had suggested.

Having had the tutorial about the various medications, we were better equipped to enquire more accurately about their ailments so we could better pray for them. Most of them will tell us the duration the pain that they had been suffering and they wanted a miracle too. And some of them didn’t know the Lord Jesus too. So we took the chance to tell them about who Jesus was and what Jesus had done for us and how can Jesus bring healing and wholeness to them.

There was this particular lady that I remembered. She came to see us due to longstanding respiratory problems. She was having difficulty breathing and as she breathed, she would suffer pain in her chest. She told us she had asthma since young and this pain followed her since young too and she is 30+ now. We only had flu medicine and some multivitamins for her and I knew that these medications were for temporary relief so we offered to pray for her. We laid hands and prayed in Jesus’ name, asking for God’s goodness to start flowing in her. Minutes later, we asked her to check and she told us that the pain that had been following her whenever she breathed was gone! Tears began to flow from her eyes and we knew the Lord had touched her and healed her. She was very thankful and saying out repeatedly that she believed the Lord had healed her.

There were also many other testimonies throughout the day, where people with long term pains of their knees, hands, shoulders and legs got healed after being prayed for. There was this man who couldn’t walk by himself who finally was able to freely walk after prayer. There was such rejoicing among his tearfilled eyes. It was truly a wonderful first day for the people and the team as we had seen the faithfulness and goodness of God in the midst of all of us.

Mei Ying

That evening we travelled by boat to San Isidro, to our refuge for the week - God’s Children Home. A peek into the orphanage, we saw the children sitting quietly in the dark, waiting to warmly welcome us. My heart instantly felt love & compassion for each of them. I knew that God was going to touch our hearts through them.