No Shoes? Service!!

Written on 8/22/08

This is the thing about the rural Philippines. You take your shoes off before entering anyone's house.
Including, and especially, the House of God.
So you can get a good idea of how many people you have in church that day by the number of shoes outside being walked over. Then divide by two.

I could not get far back enough to get all the the shoes in the picture, but we had about 40 or 50 people in church. The kids get up in front and sing. And I have asked Pastor Toto to please only give the Scripture references in English so that I can follow along. Otherwise, out of courtesy, he does the whole service twice...once in Tagalog and then repeated in English...and the time spent is doubled!! So he tried, and only gave the sermon conclusions in both languages. Which was perfect. It was a great lesson about being a follower of Jesus, and that it requires taking up our cross. I good sermon always make you think. I know I have a cross to carry--but I need Him to help me bear it. That makes my burden light. When it gets heavy, instead of putting it down and avoiding it, I am learning to turn to Him for assistance.

Pastor Toto is a good man. He does the Baptist service, and then goes up to the Mangyan village and does a service for them. He is committed, along with his wife Ninfa, to serving the poor here. He is walking the walk. He also serves on the elementary school board, and is trying to sponsor five Mangyan children to be in the mainstream classroom. Otherwise, they are segregated because they are too shy to participate. He says these five want to learn and then help their relatives. But school is expensive, and so he prays. And has his motorcycle for sale. Pastor Toto has walked before. And he and his family have lived in a tent along the Mangyan. For years.
He has taken up the Cross and is following Jesus. It shows.

In fact, this picture was on a day that he was too sick with the flu to go to the mountains. So these Mangyan boys went a smoked out a beehive and brought the raw honey to him still in the combs. For medicine. And then he took us to the house of one of our new mothers for a postpartum visit, in the rain, because he did not want us to get lost....it is a good thing the honey worked! He is much better this week.

He is back in service.