During Easter Daniel and I co-led a team of 11 youth and leaders to the city of Bacolod, Negros Island in the beautiful Philippines. The trip was intended to be an opportunity for some of our Hong Kong youth to see how life in much of the world is lived, a complete contrast to life in Hong Kong. We teamed up with Care Ministries International, a small christian organisation which does amazing work in the slums of Negros. The ministry was started by a single woman just over 10 years ago who saw the desperate need and had the vision to make a difference. Care Ministries works alongside the local churches to provide food and medical care as well as the gospel to the thousands of Filopinos living in poverty. Over the last few years the Ministry has recognised the need to not only supply peoples immediete needs but also to help them provide for their future. They have a variety of projects all aimed at providing longterm income for families rather than just the next meal. These include pig farming, rice and agricultural projects, fish farming and tricycle renting. Care Ministries has strong links with our church in Hong Kong and so for Daniel and I this was our 3rd visit to Negros.
The trip was a week long of intense work, and i mean intense! Most mornings started around 6am and we would be out all day often not returning til 10 or 11 at night. The mornings and afternoons were spent visiting the various works that Care Ministries is involved in. This included visiting slums and the families that Care Ministries has chosen for special help. These are families who are involved in the local churches and who are in particular need of help. Often one of the family members was sick (in most cases with Tuberculosis) or disabled or unable to work. We also helped with the feeding ministries, measuring out 4 kilos of rice for each family. At the medical ministries we were able to pray and talk with people as well as make friends with the many children who were there. We visited the TB rehab clinic that Care runs. We spent two days up in the mountains helping to build a concrete brick wall which will become part of the new fish pond Care Ministries is building. We also had a chance to visit 3 of the local churches on Sunday morning and to pray with them and encourage them.
Our evenings were taken up by evangelistic crusades, each one in a different part of Negros. This meant for a lot of traveling, we would often spend 4 or 5 hours driving each day. At each crusade our HK team would provide worship music, a drama, testimonies and preaching as well as just being there to talk and pray with between 100-300 people. It was awesome how each night we would arrive at the crusade completly tired and worn out from the day and still see how God could use each of us in different ways. Each night we would have at least 50-100 people coming forward to be prayed for, many to become christians or to renew their commitment. Each of these had their names taken down to be followed up by the local churches. What was also great was to see our HK youth (especially the two 13 year olds!) standing up and giving testimonies in front of big crowds and going out and praying with people.
The trip came to an end incredibly quickly. It was a week of hard work, of seeing things you never expected or wanted to see, of wrecked emotions at coming to terms with how some people have to live and yet an increased awe of God for who He is, the things He does and the love He has for us. Our team all came back with their world view turned around and shaken up. I don't believe you can spend time getting to know the people in places like the slums we visited and come back without being changed. For Daniel and I the last month of being back in HK has been a month of both questioning how long we'll be in HK and if we could even survive living and working in a slum in the Philippines. But for now and at least for the next year here we are in wealth-stricken Hong Kong although a small part in both of us is crying for the poverty-stricken Philippines. Who knows what God has in store for us...
