a note to my gitna

Hey Mags,

I was thinking about you the other day, and could have used you to take some pictures of some great needs.... I was buying supplies at Tikling. I felt a tug on my shirt and heard a voice "P50 for rice". I turned around and a woman was looking up to me with a cup in her hand. Her baby girl was suspended by a sling hanging from her shoulder. I was moved by the reality of this womans situation.

Tikling corners and the vendors, people waiting for public in the shade of phone poles, fruit and veggies, pork and fish, chickens and flies. I couldnt get this picture out of my mind.... the physical need, and her reaching out for help.

I love you gitna, dad

PS..... I had heard about about this video, but had not seen it. This father is very resourceful, cares for the street kids. and provides for his family. With limited resources and options, he is doing the best he can. These are families we are wanting to reach.

How to use Sustainable Livelihood & Agriculture for God's glory

Dear friend,

Thanks for the chance to share what I am doing.

There are a lot of places that missionaries can go with sustainable livelihood and agriculture. Both of these places can do a lot of good things in the development arena. What I like about agriculture and sustainable livelihood is that we can help the pastor, church, and community address common goals and issues over a period of time.

I understand the challenges we face with sustainable livelihood and agriculture. But what I like about these models is they provide an opportunity to work side by side with the pastor, church, and community toward a common good. When that happens, relationship begins to happen and trust forms. If success happens, and I am fully committed to that, then that is a great thing. If it doesn't happen, we commiserate together, go back to the drawing board and try again. Fail and succeed together over time and a real relationship develops. In the course of that, we can share our faith, our pastors and church leaders can share their faith, and in God's timing these people will come to the Lord, And the people will learn how to put food in their stomach, and money in their pockets. This is not a quick fix, or get rich quick scheme. The nice thing about this is that it sets the stage for building relationship, pursuing a common goal, and time for the Holy Spirit to move in the community.

Take care and God bless,

Phil

How can we come alongside the Filipino pastors, churches and communities in light of their everyday realities?

Hey folks..... A couple of weeks ago I sent a communication to my leadership. I shared it with Julie yesterday and she said "this" is what you need to put in your blog! I said to her, "But I am not sharing a solution to the problems." And she responded, "Thats okay..... You are telling the people whats going on here in the Philippines, and the challenges we are facing." I read it again, and I turned to Julie and said, "You are right. The people need to hear this stuff too."

Below are some of the realities of our work, as I shared with my leadership. Please pray with us that we provide God honoring answers and solutions to the poor pastors, churches, and communities we serve..

"I think we are doing a good job of choosing topics if we take a hard look at the needs of the poor pastors, poor churches, and poor communities, in light of what causes the poverty conditions they live in.

For us in the Philippines, and we are not alone, we are working with people who have very little. And if a fire, typhoon, flood, mudslide, or demolition comes through, they have close to nothing. This describes some of the physical challenges. If you add the deprivation of education, medical, food, and earning potential caused by a variety of reasons, we as a mission need to be prepared to respond. And I believe, we as a mission, have done a good job in our response to all kinds of calamity and social injustice.

How can we come alongside the Filipino pastors, churches and communities and respond to their needs? I think it might have been Greenway or Grigg who said, and I am paraphrasing, "we have succeeded in providing bread to the poor, but the bread of life has been reserved for the middle and upper class."

What are we doing to create Kingdom movements in the slums, the squatter areas, amongst the poor?

Yes, we respond when calamities come through. But what are we doing to establish/plant churches on the floodways and under the bridges?

Do we know how to do that?

Do we know how to help our pastors in those situations?

How do we come alongside with physical solutions in one hand, and the bread of life in the other?

And how do we equip and mentor in those situations where the money is never going to be enough, the leadership is also struggling, and western missionaries won't go there?

And how do we describe that scenario to western pastors wanting to come over here with the intent to help develop these pastors?

How do we describe poor and poverty to the West?

It is hard enough to try to explain real poverty to people who have lived here for 10 years.

Brother, all of what I just shared is an indictment on me, because the Holy Spirit has convicted me. As I travel through squatter areas, and villages with dirt roads, I am convicted of my affluence, and I have no right to talk about my lack. I have no idea what these people deal with everyday. Intellectually, I can process it. But the brass-tack nuts and bolts of it all, I dont live the way they do, and suffer the realities of their daily existence, and their years of oppression, and injustices of life in Manila.

All of that to say, " How do we come along side and support our poor pastors and provide leadership development in light of their everyday realities?"

Pastor Rey Ingaran teaches FAITH Gardening to KIM Kids at Grow Ministry Center

I first met "Pastor Rey" Ingaran in 1998 when I went on a Basketball ministry trip to the Philippines. Our Short-term team from West Hills Community Church, headed up by Pastor Daren Beck prepared and then led a young group of guys... some younger than others. Dan Hunter, Greg Mayer, BJ Lopez, Pio Conde, Nathan Wells and myself, then two brothers from Santa Cruz Bible--Brian and Kevin. It was November, shortly before Thanksgiving, and we arrived in Manila. In addition to this group of basketball players, Jodie Beck, Andrea Lopez and Debbie Kenyon came to work in a Birthing Clinic down in Davao, Mindanao.

Our trip was life-changing for many of us, although it presented much physical challenges for others....injuries, motion sickness, dehydration, blisters, and reaction to new kinds of foods. But in the course of this ministry trip, we gained great exposure to ministry work in the Philippines. As well, we had a chance to work with some Philippine Nationals, Tom Randall and Paul Duncan. One of the PI Nationals was our Pastor who organized alot of the trip, and acted as an interpreter for the presentation of the Gospel and all of our testimonies to the half-time crowds. This was Pastor Rey Ingaran.


Last Monday night I was reunited with Pastor Rey. We have spent the last several days talking about his ministry in Northern Luzon, in Santa Maria, Isabela Province. And today I was able to offer up my Grow Ministry Training Center, so Pastor Rey could present some basic gardening techniques to the children of Kids International Ministries.


As Pastor Rey and I have talked this week, we have had the opportunity to make some preliminary plans to present Food Always In The Home and Natural Farming to four churches he is responsible for up in Northern Luzon. In addition to that we have discussed some of the development needs, as well as the christian witness needs (evangelism, discipleship, church growth and health, pastor leadership development). Pastor Rey will be going back to Isabela on Monday to discuss with his leadership how we can work together to strengthen the pastors, the churches, and the communities. We look forward to partnering in the training of his leadership on the development and christian witness fronts.


Please pray that the Lord will have his hand on this work. If you are interested in learning more about this ministry, please write grow.rizal@gmail.com


Take care and God bless, Phil