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Believers Struggle in the Philippines Let us not love in words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” I John 3:18 Immediate Needs
Our dear sister Emma, who lives in the Philippines, is the wife of In Jesus’ Name Ministries’ director Pastor A. for the Philippines. Emma was diagnosed with Diabetes a couple years back, and high blood pressure. A wonderful Christian had been helping her with money for medication, treatment, testing, and proper Diabetic food for almost 2 years. Because there are no longer funds available for these needs, Emma is experiencing weakness making it very difficult to care for her family or do her daily chores. Also, her eyes are painful due to lack of medication. If you can help our sister with any amount for the cost of her monthly expenses of $300, it would be greatly appreciated.
“Presently, we have a rice shortage crisis. Rice right now we are praying for the means to help them feed their families. We are so despondent at times as to how to help the poor, but we keep trusting God.”
Nearly every day we receive emails like those above, from Pastor A. (name protected because he works near muslim Al-Qaeda), expressing the great needs of the believers in the Philippines. So many Christian families are living in substandard conditions without running water, electricity, proper shelter, food, or medicine. Pastor A. does what he can to help the people around him, but the needs are so great that he desperately needs our help. With his own wife now needing medical help, there is not much he can do without our help. He goes into tribal areas to share the love of Jesus and gives whatever is made available to him. Below are some needs Pastor A has placed before us:
“...In addition to pig raising, we have started helping two families raise goats in their backyard. One such man we are helping is Fermias. He is very poor and in need of financial assistance. Fermias is a bike taxi driver and earns about a dollar a day. Please pray for him and his family because they desperately need help with their shanty (home) which has almost fallen down. He has many children to support. He is faithful in serving the Lord and regularly attends our weekly prayer and fasting Sunday services.
There are also some brethren here who are in need of shelter. They do not have a home, but sleep in their bike taxi at night. They are without any blankets or mattresses, and suffer from mosquito bites and the coldness of the night. They park their bike taxi on the sidewalk and eat in some small poor eatery. That is how they live. They have fled from troubled remote mountainous villages to try and make a living here in the city by driving a bike taxi. We have offered them a free lunch so that they can have enough endurance for the hard physical labor of pedaling a bike taxi, and we are praying for a simple home for them where they can be warm, safe and out of the weather. Please pray for them, our brethren, that we can continue to help them with a free lunch, and get them a small home built”.
“One of the burdens that the Lord has laid on our hearts is to minister to the widows and orphans at ______ Church (protected) at the garbage dump. One such widow is Macaria who was beautifully saved through the ministry of Pastor D and Pastor C. She is active in the church and faithfully attends the fellowship services even though her house is quite a distance away on the hillside of the church. In spite of her physical handicap, she is serving the Lord and encouraging others to serve Him as well. She has small children to support from the income she receives from scavenging junk materials from the dump and selling some small goodies and candies from her small shanty. She has no money for medications and food. Recently, the owner of the land where her shanty is built, notified her to vacate her home. Please pray for her to have a small piece of land where she can rebuild her shanty. Her children also need support so they can go to school when it opens in June. Her only hope is our prayers and love.” Macaria desperately needs our help!
“I had been visiting the poor widows in the slums where we walked over the planks of salvaged sticks and wood on a stilt foot bridge in a swampy area. This is the place where the poorest of the poor live. One day we found Dolores, a widowed sister with paralyzed hands struggling to wash her children's clothes. Since she can't afford to have water installation in her own shanty, she is buying water from her neighbors. Dolores has four children to care for and has been unable find a job due to her physical disability. We have been helping her five year old son Joshua, with his schooling.
When we check in on her living conditions, I feel so much pity for her. The 10 by 10 feet shanty that she lives in has no partitions, no tables, no chairs, and no electricity. In the center of the house, there is a medicine bottle hanging with homemade kerosene in it which serves to light the whole house during the night. They sleep on the bare floor with no mattress or carpet. The toilet wall is only covered with old clothes and no fancy water closet bowls.
She is in need of food and "a decent home," but above all else, she needs our Christian love and true compassion. So, in response to her needs, we have helped her with some food assistance. Due to her new found faith in the Lord, some of her relatives that used to help her, have rejected and abandoned her and her children. We hope you will pray and help us to do more for her situation. We know that it is only by His grace and favor that we can do more to help our poor struggling persecuted brethren.” Dolores and her children need our help!
“Malnourishment is a silent killer and the cause of death for many children in the Philippines. Most parents are unable to feed their children a balanced diet, and so they feed them only rice to keep them from going hungry. But even though the child’s stomach may be full of rice, the child is malnourished because of lack of vitamins and minerals. Health experts call this the ‘hidden hunger.’ To combat the malnourishment of infants and children, we have been providing infants formulas for the little ones in our church, but often run out of supplies. We would appreciate your prayers that God will provide for this need.” Natural Hazards that plague this country are: typhoons, cyclones, landslides, active volcanoes, destructive earthquakes, and tsunamis. If you can, please consider helping Pastor A. meet the urgent needs in his area. Every little bit combined does so much good for our family in Jesus Christ. They desperately need our help. Pastor A. provided a Prayer List of items below that could help the people in the Philippines start their own businesses. Please pray about supplying this worthy ministry with any of the following items to help them start a business for themselves to help with meeting the vast needs in this area. Thank you for whatever you can do. Extra money for the constant uprising cost of rice Heavy duty welding machine Sewing machines and items for beginning this business Embroidery machines Drilling machine Paint compressor machine Compressor machine for a car wash Concrete block molding machine Blue torch for handicrafts Sanding machine for woodcrafts Laminating machine Carpentry tools Small generator Grinder Auto mechanic’s tools
If your heart has been burdened for the needs in the Body of Christ in the Philippines, please contact us and do what you can to help. |
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the Philippines |
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Population est. 91,077,287 (2007) |
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Lila was badly burned as a child when a mosquito net caught on fire and dropped on her face. She needs our help for the surgery that will give her self respect without people starring at her. Please help this precious sister. |
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Pastor A. ministers to the tribal children where no one else will go and tells them about Jesus. He needs our help to feed and clothe these children. |
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Chona, who has TB and other health problems, scavenges through the garbage dump earning a half dollar a day to feed her 6 children. Her husband can’t find work. They live in a filthy, crowded poor area called “dung village” which is exactly what it is. They have no running water or electricity, and their dilapidated house has nothing inside of it. Chona is very ill but they have no money for Chona to go to a hospital. |