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An International Missionary Outreach Dedicated to Evangelizing the Lost By Sharing The Gospel According to the Scriptures
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Reports for Roger's trip in January and February 2012 |
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February 13, 2012 Our time in Yangon has gone by very quickly. Each day Tom and I have spoken morning and early afternoon at the “Making Disciples Conference.” The conference was attended by all of our Bryce Lodge leaders, the Discipleship School of Ministry students and a number of men who came to Yangon to the conference from distant areas. We have visited all of the Bryce Lodges here in Yangon and spent time with Andrew, leader of Bryce Lodge Four who is located in a remote area of Myanmar. As this is the 7th year that Understand The Times has been involved in ministry in the country of Myanmar, we have seen many changes and abundant fruit. To see the children growing up into young adults has been a blessing. They will soon be ready to take the next step to go beyond grade eleven and make choices with regards to what they will do the rest of their lives. This March five students in Bryce Lodges One to Three will write their final high school exams. This will determine the next phase of their lives. We are presently praying about what our responsibility will be from this point on. Some would like to go to Bible School and become pastors and missionaries. One would like to go to medical school and become a medical doctor. When I return from Myanmar we will post updated photos of all the children individually on our web site under Missions Myanmar. We made all of the children aware that God has given them the care they have received because of the love and generosity of their sponsors that come from all over the world. Understand The Times is only the channel through which God is working to enable the Bryce Lodge Program. The School of Discipleship is approaching the end of its first year. Seven men have been taught and encouraged to reach out to the surrounding area to share the gospel message. Two of them plan to immediately serve the Lord by planting a church. We are also considering supporting 8 new missionaries from various parts of Myanmar who attended the conference. The challenge ahead for us in Myanmar is very great. It appears there is strong possibility that inflation will change the way we can do ministry here. We are grateful to those who have caught our vision and we will continue to do all we can do and be good stewards of the resources that have been put in our hands. I thank God for Tom Worthington who has been a great encouragement to me in coming along side to help with administrative skills and his help giving spiritual guidance. Please keep Mission Myanmar in your prayers. When I return I will try to put together some video presentations that will show you what God is doing here in this very dark country.
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February 9, 2010 Yesterday was our first full day in Yangon. A full schedule was arranged and Tom and I were busy from early morning to evening. Our “Making Disciples Conference” was held in a facility not far from where Bryce Lodge Three is located. There were about forty people in attendance, one of them a man who had been a Buddhist monk for about 20 years who is now a convert to Christianity. Tom and I each spoke for two hours separated by a lunch break. The conference will continue today. A number of participants traveled to Yangon, requiring a journey of three days by bus
Following our time at the conference we were able to visit the home of Habakkuk and see his family and ten children that he is looking after who are either homeless or have lost a parent. Habakkuk introduced each child to us explaining the circumstances and what had happened to their parents or grandparents. Habakkuk and his wife have one child of their own. They have committed themselves to foster these ten children to provide food, clothing and education for them. We have known Habakkuk for several years and found him to be an honest trustworthy brother who is an excellent Bible teacher and loves to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We listened to the children sing songs and recite many Bible verses. The children range in age from 4 to 13. Tom and I were very impressed to see how well disciplined the children were and how much they loved their caregivers. Besides Habakkuk and his wife Biak, they have one helper Esther. Esther is Biak’s sister. In the near future we are considering adding Habakkuk’s home to our Bryce Lodge Program in Myanmar.
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February 7-8,2012 The past two days were required to travel from Manila to Yangon via Bangkok. I met Tom Worthington in the airport in Bangkok and we flew to Yangon together. Due to heavy smoke on the ground our plane was not able to land. We circled for about 30 minutes until the conditions changed and it was safe to touch down. We were met at the Airport by Mang, Elisha and Habakkuk, our contacts here in Yangon. Although Tom was dead tired from his long trip from Chicago we spent most of the day in meetings discussing the next several days and reviewing our Bryce Lodge Program. We will start a conference today called “Making Disciples in the Midst of Last Days Apostasy” organized by Elisha and Habbakuk. Things are changing here in Myanmar. It is becoming increasingly more obvious that the cost of living is on the increase. I will be reporting each day with regard to our meetings and our visits to the various Bryce Lodges that we have here in Yangon.
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February 3-5, 2012, Manila Since my last report I have been stricken with the return of a severe chest cold, the one I have had ever since I was in New York City before Christmas. Friday was a day off from ministry so I took the opportunity to rest with the goal of recovering. I am writing this on Monday morning, the 6th of February. While I am writing this report, the Super Bowl is being played in the USA. With no channel here to watch the game, I thought I would take this time to write an update covering the last three days of our visit to Manila. Saturday was a busy day. Mike and I spoke at a day conference at Harvest Christian Fellowship attended by about 150. Last year I met Pastor Juni at a conference here in Manila and he invited me to speak at a conference at his church on my next trip to Manila.
The conference was attended by other Calvary Chapel pastors and church-workers from the Manila area. While our topic was “The Gospel” we also dealt with current problems that hinder the gospel of Jesus Christ – the false gospels, including ecumenism which is rampant throughout the Calvary Chapel movement. The acceptance given to us by the Harvest Christian Fellowship group was overwhelming. True Christians in the Philippines cannot comprehend the apostasy that is happening in America and why very little is being done about it. They are faced with the fallacies of Roman Catholicism on a daily basis and are constantly being ridiculed for standing up for biblical truth. It was a blessing to be able to encourage these brothers and sisters who are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Understand The Times was able to provide every participant with a meal at the noon break.
Sunday was a full day of ministry as we went to Pastor Richard’s church in the Malanday area. One of our projects here in Manila has been to help Pastor’s Richard’s church establish a feeding program for children from the Malanday region, one of the poorest regions in the Manila area. We arrived early so that I could visit a couple of shanti homes and meet parents who cannot afford to send their children to school because they are too poor. It is our goal to work with several families that go to Richard’s church to help them by providing financial assistance so at least one child can attend school. This would be in keeping with our Bryce Home vision in other parts of the world.
Richard’s church has been built, by Jesus Christ, on the feeding program by reaching out to poor children. The children come to Sunday school for the first service in the morning and then are fed. The children also receive food one additional day during the week.
Pastor Richard had me speak to the children about creation and evolution. While the group was very young they seemed to grasp what I was talking about. They also memorized a verse about creation from the book of Genesis. Many of the children have shared the gospel to their parents and they now attend the church and have become believers in Jesus Christ. It is these parents, many who are single mothers, we want to help. We will begin with five separate families, helping one child in each family to go to school until mort support becomes available. Along with Bryce Home One managed by Mike Miller’s brother-in-law Ray, UTT will have six Bryce Homes in the Manila area. Each day it becomes more apparent God is moving us away from the church headed down the road to apostasy and big business in North America to the church that He is raising up worldwide that is hungry for the gospel.
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February 2, 2012 One of the reasons for me coming to the Philippines, this time, was to investigate the possibility of expanding our ministry here by starting a Bryce Home program similar to the program we are establishing in Kenya and South Africa. The ministry of Understand The Times has been involved in the Philippines for the past four years, coming along side pastors and church workers who are involved in prison ministry and programs to feed hungry children. While we have contacts here in the Philippines, Mike and Becky Miller from Issaquah, Washington have been the ones who have taken leadership in distributing and accounting for the funds that Understand The Times sends. Becky also assists us in some of the bookkeeping responsibilities required to operate Understand The Times. This is my fourth trip to Manila. It is through Mike and Becky’s contacts here that we have been able to find reliable and trustworthy people to work with and make sure that donated resources are being well spent. Yesterday we paid a visit to the home of Becky’s brother Ray to talk with his family about the possibility of establishing a Bryce Home in the city of Pasig. Ray and his wife have been praying about doing something like this for several years. While they live in a very small and humble place and already have four of their own children, Ray and his wife are willing to add a small room onto their home that would accommodate two or three children they would look after.
Ray’s vision is to look after two or three children he had previously met from an indigenous group in the Philippines known as the Ita. These children would be cared for, given an education at a High School nearby where Ray lives, and prepared to return to their village and their own people in the future to share the gospel. Ray’s vision is the vision that God has given me. Rather than rent and operate facilities, as we do in Myanmar, our vision is to come along side Christian parents or grandparents who will use their own homes. As in the case with Ray and his family, life is very difficult because of their financial and economic situation. Ray’s family lives from month to month on the limited income he can provide by fixing electrical appliances. He is a humble, diligent Christian man who wants to serve the Lord. He is one of the most faithful dedicated believers that I have ever met. If he is willing to take in children into his home and bring them up to love the Lord, I want to be able to come alongside and help him. Our goal is to start small, here in the Philippines, with two or three Bryce Homes. We have the people here we know we can trust to be good stewards. All they need is a small amount of monthly support to be the hand of Jesus Christ extended. We know a number of Christians in North America who migrated from the Philippines who are very supportive of our mission. We believe that God will speak to people to provide support so that these Bryce Home projects will be successful.
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February 1, 2012 Our day spent at the New Bilibid Prison, maximum security compound located in Muntinlupo City was an experience of a lifetime. We arrived at 9 am and took over an hour to go through registration, identification and screening. As this was my third time at this prison I was somewhat familiar with what to expect. However, it was obvious that since our last visit security had been upgraded.
Pastor Richard brought several friends who were involved with him in prison ministry. One of the brothers was an ex-convict himself who had been released December of 2010. We went immediately to the Calvary Chapel facility where we were to speak but discovered there had been a miscommunication regarding the time we were to begin. Instead of 10 am it was 1 pm. We had about three hours in the prison before our seminar. The brother who was the ex-convict (Jo Jo by name) disappeared for a moment and came back saying he had contacted a warden that he knew and that we had been invited to speak within a cell block to prisoners who never attended church services and had little knowledge of the gospel. It was obvious by this time that this meeting had to be God ordained. Our group headed to the cell block, chairs were set up for about 30 prisoners and a podium was placed directly in front of them. I have spoken in many places under many circumstances around the world but this situation was unique. Heavy clad steel doors that were unlocked during the day, lined both walls. Once we had started, prisoners popped out of the cells to see what was going on and joined the group. As we had come to the prison prepared to speak to the group at Calvary Chapel on the topic of the gospel, it seemed the same topic would be appropriate to this group of unbelievers. I spoke for the first 45 minutes, gave a brief testimony and then laid out the message of the gospel in detail from the scriptures. Mike Miller followed with a short message that was to the point and very powerful. The prisoners were amazed to see a man handicapped with cerebral palsy deliver such a challenging message. He told them they needed to repent and receive Christ as Lord and Savior in order to get to heaven or they would stay on the wide pathway and continue on to hell. He pointed to the group of inmates outside the door at the entrance of the cell block gambling and cursing. While he did not condemn them he said Jesus had died for all sinners. I don’t believe that I have ever seen or heard the gospel presented as effectively as Mike did in front of these prisoners. At the end of his message when Mike asked how many would repent and choose to go to heaven, nearly the entire group responded accept for the group gambling behind us who seemed oblivious to what was going on. Our meeting in the cell block was a divine appointment. We had been brought there by God. Our meetings started at Calvary Chapel within the prison about 1pm. It was well attended by pastors and Bible teachers who are prisoners sentenced to various crimes including murder. Many of them are spending life terms and have come to Christ in the prison. Again Mike and I both shared, this time in three sessions. We defined the gospel and explained how the gospel message is under incredible pressure in these last days through the advancement of apostasy. Many of the prisoners told me how timely the message was as the pressure within the prison is to become ecumenical and join with the Roman Catholic Church and other religions for the cause of peace. They had never heard what the scriptures had to say about the Last Days apostasy. We left the prison about 4 pm and fought the rush hour traffic for a couple of hours back to our hotel. Both Mike and I were exhausted but also delighted with the day that the Lord had arranged for us as his ambassadors in Manila.
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January 31, 2012 - Manila I arrived in
Manila via Hong Kong from San Francisco and Orange County
spending 23 hours either in an airplane or an airport. Mike
Miller and his brother-in-law Ray picked me up at the Manila
Airport. Two hours later we arrived at our hotel. I was very
grateful when my head hit the pillow. While
travelling I had plenty of time to make notes for a two part
conference that Mike and I will be speaking at located within
the walls of Manila’s Men’s High Security prison. The topic is
“The Gospel.” Last year when we were speaking at this same
prison we were able to take in a computer and a projector and
use Power Point presentations. As the result of new restrictions
we are not able to have any electronic equipment with us this
year, nor cameras. The place where we will be speaking will
actually be the Calvary Chapel facility located within the
prison founded by Olga Robertson, a Calvary Chapel missionary
whose ministry has had a major impact at the Manila Men’s High
Security Prison. Here in the
Philippines, Roman Catholicism rules. These pastors have to deal
with the Roman Catholic Church and its many unbiblical practices
every day. They see that the Church is being led down the
pathway to Rome and cannot understand why the church in North
America has been so blinded. Tomorrow, I
will be writing about the results of our meeting at the prison.
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Understand The Times is an independent non-profit organization in
Canada and the United States.
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