Students speak... Andrew 'Scooby' John...

Cemetery Church, Lorega 

Going there was definitely satisfying for me, since I was there just a year before and had also made a video about it. Remarkably, the pastor as well as the congregation remembered me. It was just rewarding to be back at the place that really lit a fire in me for the Phillipines. This is a place where most folks would never step foot, even if they had the chance to. Pastors are picking up their cross and going to where no one goes, amongst the broken, dirty, filthy and homeless. That's real ministry!

Home for Prostitutes

Honestly, this to be the most touching moment for me on this trip. Just sitting there, listen to their testimonies, stories, and what it is exactly that they do for the prostitutes. Two things though, hit me like a uppercut to the face. One was what was said by a lady named Rhonda, a missionary from Canada who lives in the Phillipines. The comment she made went SOMETHING like this:

          "This is so touching for me, and at the same time changlening. I was raised in a christianity where the main aim was the seek out truth...nothing but truth so you can make sure that your on the right track and not like those 'other people.' But here, you just love them. You don't shove anything down their throat, your just hear for them. That's different for me. Tt breaks me, but yet uplifts me, and I'm so grateful for the ministry you have towards the prostitutes."

That hit home for me, because in today's age, the quest is to make sure you have the right doctrine and all your points together so you won't be like "those guys." That was the way I was...and to be honest, there is still a little bit of that in me. It's amazing...who just LOVES anymore? I know people that instead of just being there for the prostitutes and showing love and compassion, would've probably set up shop and preached from morning till night everyday...made sure they got all their doctrine in...five points, etc, instead of just sitting down to talk to them and hear their story. Instead of being Christ, they, I probably would've done what we thought was the proper method...without doing it Christ's way.

At the end of our time their, everyone got up and fellowshipped. I just sat down and cried. tears just began to flow from my eyes. It amazed me that i was crying, but more importantly, why i was crying was what stuck out to me. Yes, I was crying for the prostitutes...but my tear weren't mainly for them. They were for us! They were tears of repentance for my society, my culture, the western church as a whole. We sit down and argue, split churches, manipulate and pervert scripture, make doctrines, agrue furiously over the word, build our own little kingdoms and think that we're doing "God's will" when people like this don't even cross our minds. We are so concerned with which pastor's doing what, calvinism vs armianism, whose denomination does what, which church is more anointed than the other...the list goes on and those whom God's heart breaks for never get mentioned...let alone sought out. It brought me back to the main thing, winning souls, going after those who are on God's heart. the oppressed, the downtrodden, the broken, those with no voice. That was my experience, and I pray that we as the body of Christ would get our heads out of the mud and throw them against the chest of our father to hear what his heart is saying...