What a great week teaching D.Min. students at IGSL. We wrestled with theological method and controversial topics such as sign gifts, dealing with demonic, justice and political involvement (following the Philippine elections and all the controversy there), forgiveness/shame, and LGBT issues. The discussions were often animated and always real to ministry life.

Being here meant seeing some long time friends like Helen Ramos and Steve Hobson as well as meet new friends. Mike and Eva Fast are doing teaching and church planting. Eva was a nurse who discovered the need for mid-wives in their poorer area of Quezon City. So she began helping. Now she has attended over 600 births and trained local mid wives. They are building a facility, the first anywhere in the area, using local workers so they will have a stake in the place as well as participate in Bible study as they work. It was stunning to see the quality of work they are doing in limited facilities.

Saturday was my office day in my room at IGSL working on the large pile of Western Seminary stuff. It ended meeting Zoilo Anat who is head of all the AWANA groups in the Philippines and the missionary team. Victor and Janine (pictured) are business people who volunteer, Victor as board member and Janine as designer and project manager for their new facility. They were part of a group that discussed ministry and work topics around a scrumptious meal of Filipino food. I don’t think I will ever get enough!

My time at IGSL ends with worship at Union Church Manila. I didn’t tell Pastor Steve Ruetschle I was coming so I got to see the happy surprise when he saw me. I will preach there next week after my week in Cebu. My taxi leaves about midnight to catch my 4 am flight with teaching beginning after lunch. So fun!

I will miss this peaceful exciting place!

I continue to meet amazing people here as I teach pastors. But two in particular stand out to me.

The first, Pastor Larry, grew up and now ministers in Tondo, the super slum of Manila. He was the son of a violent drunken jeepney driver who beat his family severely. At five years of age, Larry ran away, vowing to kill his father. Homeless street life was far better than home. As he got older he began to drink and do drugs himself, filled with hatred and hopelessness, living in extreme poverty.

A kind school teacher introduced him to Jesus. But other than going to church events to get some companionship and food, there was little change in his life.

They produced a play based on the Good Samaritan with Larry, a young teenager, playing the villain who beat up the man on the road. There was a prize which the others promised he would get it because of his poverty. He was very eager to win. In his drug heightened zeal to be the best he pulled out his switch blade to attack. The others were barely able to stop him and he landed in jail.

There he met a godly chaplain who ministered to the depths of his heart. As the Spirit took hold, the chaplain told him he must forgive his father. How would it be possible? He went to his home, walked up to his evil father. The heart words “I forgive you” came as he hugged his father. To his amazement, tears began to flow from his father’s eyes and the hug was returned. Sobs and confession followed and the transformation and reconciliation began. A couple of years later Larry baptized his father and others in the family.

Now Larry is a pastor on the streets, distributing breakfast to 500 street children twice a week. There is no support but somehow they find some money for the the powdered milk and bread. He oversees four other pastors who work with him in their little church and the ministry.

My heart filled with praise and wonder as I prayed with and for these amazing young men.

The second is Pastor Joy, one of the pastors at The Word for Everyone Movement, the host church for our time in General Santos City. I was at the venue early for the last day of class, well before the rest of the 86 pastors arrived.

I greeted him and asked him how he was doing. He responded, “I am quite tired.” “How is that?” I asked. “My only son died a week ago and I have been up almost all night preparing for his funeral this afternoon.”

I was stunned.

“Your son died?” “Yes. He was my only son. He died of cancer.” As we talked it turned out that he was so eager for the chance to learn about interpreting and preaching 1 Peter that he wanted to get every possible minute of the class. I asked if I could pray for him and begged God’s mercy on him and his wife, hope in the terrible loss, and powerful presence of the God who knows how it is to go through the death of a Son.

Then I taught very humbly and inadequately on the theme of suffering in 1 Peter. Who is adequate for these things?

When Sherry and I first came to the Philippines in 1969 it was definitely a “third world” country. How do I know? There were no MacDonald’s here   In fact there were no hamburgers or french fries nor were there many high rise buildings. The economy was mostly agricultural. The president would soon establish his dictatorship through declaring martial law and then being overthrown in the People Power Revolution, the Yellow Revolution, precipitated by the assassination of by Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, Jr. who was returning to the country. Since then the Philippines has become an international hub of commerce and the explosion of evangelical belief came at the same time. The economic divide continues with very low class workers sweeping leaves from the lawns of richer folk but at least he has a job and can help his family.

The cows grazing under the huge power line is one picture of the new overtaking the old. GN Power, the company Dan Chalmers began, built a huge power plant near Mariveles, where the Bataan death march began. Because GNP refused to work with the existing electric group and sold power at a lower and fairer price, electric prices in the whole country are more just. Because he bypassed the limitations which kept limited and therefore controlled electric, GNP has allowed greater expansion of production capacity. GNP pours a lot of money back into the local communities. The multi-purpose building where I preached today was erected for the use of a small community.

GNP power plants are amazingly clean emitting virtually no nitrous oxide or other stack gasses. The particulates are scrubbed from the smoke and sold to a cement company to make highest quality concrete in both high rise buildings and donated for community schools. If you look closely at this picture you’ll see that construction techniques still utilize inexpensive labor which gives good jobs to squatters who otherwise would have no income other than selling individual cigarettes on street corners. It’s impossible to track the impact that GNP’s integrity and quality has, but one measure is that the mayor of the province is running unopposed. He is getting lots of credit for improving the community because he works with GNP.

Work on the new power plant has begun. Earth movers will reshape the contours of whole areas of land to lower the ground level by perhaps 100 feet to prepare the pad for the new 700 megawatt plants. I am astounded to hear the stories of the extreme care GNP is investing to be sure it all is done at highest quality.

Even more fun is that their new project is a small plant powered by bio mass. This half mega watt is a proto type of plants that will transform small isolated communities which have never had reliable electric power. It is all eco friendly and completely sustainable.

I will quickly admit that flying business class on 13 hour international flights is more than nice! Breakfast, my second meal began with fresh coffee, with real cups, silver, glass glasses, a big slice of banana bread, and a yummy fruit plate followed by a super adobo breakfast with more of that wonderful coffee. I did wonder what they were having back in economy where I have always flown until Dan so generously upgraded my life so I can arrive in the Philippines ready to do a three full days of teaching beginning the next day.

There were many other things that made me wonder. I understand why Muslim folk need to know the direction to Mecca. But don’t Baptists need to know the direction to Louisville or Nashville? My seat mate was a CEO of calling centers with major operations in the Philippines where he lives full time. Turns out he was a Jesus follower and went to churches I work with so we had lots to talk about until I laid my chair back to full recline and slept solidly for 6 hours (yes, pure luxury!) until I pulled my PC out and worked on paper grading, an unfinished task that would occupy every free moment for the next three days.

After my 5:30 am arrival (and being first to passport control and my bag was first to appear on the carousel – yes miracles do happen!) Bishop Cesar Punzalan, Nonon, picked me up, took me to Starbucks where he got some breakfast and we got some coffee before we went to meet Dan Chalmers at the headquarters of the power plant company he started. More that in a later post.

After a quick tour we were off to Mariveles, where the Bataan death march began. We arrived at Brother’s Keeper Inn and I was shown to my room. As soon as I saw the view from the window of my second floor room, I knew this was going to be a marvelous trip! I enjoyed Tiffany and Jasmine adopted children of one of the guests. The setting is simply marvelous.

My room is second floor left side. Meals are in the sala between the two sides of the building. The Mariveles power plant is in the background. The food is outstanding, the company engaging and the service unbelievable as Tiffany and Jazzy’s looks show.

Pastor Nonon began the class with songs and some details and off we went for 3 1/2 days of wrestling with all sorts of things from 1 Peter. With a projector to get Bible in front of them and some of my famous (infamous?) ambiguous questions, we were off. It took them most of a day to get warmed up to my style and then they really got into it with extremely personal things and lots of wrestling the hard pastoral issues.

There is the inevitable class picture after class on Friday the next to the last day of the class. Several had to leave for a long journey to their churches.

The class ended with me praying for them and then them praying for me. There were lots of pictures, hugs, laughter, and blessings.