Dear Co-workers in Christ,
Debbie, Jubab and I came to Cagayan De Oro City on Saturday after attending our NTM missionary conference in Malaybalay. We had a bunch of things on our agenda.
We wanted buy food to supply us for the next 2 months on the Saturday, then catch up with some friends in CDO on the Sunday and then on Monday (yesterday) our driver Wingwing was to go to Cauyunan and get all of the elders from our first work for them to have an elders meeting with me in CDO and Debbie while I met with the elders was to care for some patients who Wingwing was also bringing out of Lapoc due to them needing special medical care out here.
We ended up having an emergency ---- Rony who is my dear friend from Lapoc and one of our first converts came out with his wife as she had a mass in her abdomen that we wanted to have looked at. We ended up having to have immediate and urgent surgery and they removed a 6 inch length of her small intestine due to it being engulfed in a large mass/cyst/abscess???. Please pray for them. We first took them to the government hospital and there were patients literally littering the whole area and no room or ward vacant for them to be admitted into for surgery, so we took them to the next hospital and it was the same so in the end we admitted them into one of the best hospitals in town and had the surgery performed last night at about 8PM. Must be just what God had planned for them – He is so gooood!!!! Rony has been my right and left hand J ever since we arrived in Lapoc, we watched him experience the tragic death of his 14 year old son due to an asthma attack and he hurt and hurt and hurt but never even missed going to his outreaches where he has led many to the Lord. He has helped me with designing and heading up most of our construction as well and we work very closely together.
Please pray for Rony’s wife’s recovery – her name is Aling. I will be going to see them once I get this e-mail sent.
We will be caring for the other patients today now – to give you a bit of an idea of our days patients:
1. We have a little 11 year old girl that has an ulcerated eye. We have to have it removed.
2. We have an elderly lady from our new outreach of Lantod who we are having cataract surgery on.
3. We have a middle aged man who has a gigantic cyst on his back that we need to have operated on.
4. We have a lady who was shot up some years ago and pus is still coming out of her wounds. Her condition has just come to our attention. She will need LONG time care for which we have rented a room out here for her to stay in. We also employ another lady out here who assists us with these patients and others which are quite common when we cannot be here due to us being home translating.
5. A lady with a skin disease.
6. And a poor little boy who has a spinal fluid leak causing swelling between his eyebrows. Not sure what they will do with him yet.
So in addition to Aling there are all these patients that we would appreciate prayer for.
We are going to try and go home on Thursday and have “Naring” (our employee out here) finish off caring for these patients. We just need to get them all set up for all their surgeries and then she can handle the rest.
Meanwhile yesterday until about 4PM I was in our elders meeting. It was a good time and it is exciting for me to see the work going on in the area where we first worked for 12 years. There are 8 churches there now. Will write a few things down about some of the highlights. Please pray for these people as well as they serve and grow.
1. We are setting up a new mission station in Kalamalamaham – it was the very first village that I surveyed as a young missionary back in 1987 but they rejected us and would not allow us to live with them as they believed that we wanted to sacrifice their children to the evil spirits. Almost 25 years later they want to hear the Word of God so we are currently constructing 2 houses there and will soon send 2 missionary families to reach the area. The men are already there.
2. They had a baptism in Kapisahan which is a brand new outreach – there are 15 believers there now. What great joy!!!!
3. We have to rebuild the medical centre in Cauyunan as we constructed it from wood some 20 years ago and it has been eaten by termites. Hopefully this year.
4. A big youth conference is being planned.
5. Many of the kids of our initial believers in the Cauyunan area are being trained as Bible teachers and going out to other areas.
Lets pray that we can set the place on fire for the Lord through the power of the Glorious Holy Spirit.
