Journey to Cebu-Part 3
We are sorry it has taken so long to send our third and final part of our visit to Cebu where Darryl spoke at the Central Philippine Bible College Founders Day. Carol and I are co-founders of this Bible College that is designed to train preachers to reach some of the large cities and towns with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our computer provider along with all the other paraphernalia associated with computer and internet access faced some real problems in the beginning of the year and this presented problems for us as well. We could receive email but not send and if we tried it disappeared off the face of the internet. We now have the problems solved thanks to some of our friends here in the Philippines as well as the internet provider so here is hoping for better access this 2015.
Our visit to the Bible College also included visits to some of the churches in the City of Cebu. Most of our missions have concentrated on the south of the island of Cebu which is a very long and narrow island and missed the growing north owing to that ancient comity agreement signed by most missions of all groups in the 1950’s and before. They agreed to only go to some areas and stay out of other areas. This was a worldwide agreement in missions so extremely far reaching. Now the task is to reach not only the city of Cebu but north of it and on into the islands surrounding it that were closed to us for so many years. Sadly we learned that four or five more of our long-term missionaries serving the Philippines during the last several decades have left the Philippines for good. Some retired but others have relocated to other avenues of service for Jesus. This means missionary leadership is at an all-time low and is getting worse as these missionaries and foreign missionaries in general are now in very short supply. It also affects other groups outside our own churches. This increases the need to train young men for evangelism and this is something that we pray for regularly and hope you will pray with us as well for more preachers as well as full-time missionaries to the Philippines.
Darryl was asked to preach at the City Church of Christ which was started at the same time as CPBC. It has moved a couple of times and now is at the top of a four story office building in the center of the city. It is a four story walk to the top of the building via steep stairs but people did not seem to mind. Often a large office building has a top floor that is covered but still has open walls. It is cooler and a good site for a church.
The service was a real blessing with good singing and joyous fellowship. They had a meal afterwards since they have to meet from 5 to 8 p.m. as this is the time they have rented. Public buildings like this one rent such space to churches or groups by the hour.
Prior to the service beginning we were happy to spend some time fellowshipping with a lot of old friends and also some new Christians. Following Darryl’s message there was a sense of joy and enthusiasm and the folk were very encouraged by his remarks. We were glad to see some of the young students from CPBC Bible College like Anthony (the young man who memorized 300 scripture verses) taking part in the service. Junior our student from Kalibo was also helping with the service. The students used a great deal of English since so many people coming are from business and professional backgrounds and also since there are so many dialects spoken in the area. It was great to experience such dedication and zeal.
We had not been back to Cebu for around 12 years and so we were astounded with the growth being experienced in the City. The city is built on the side of a razor sharp mountain range that goes through the middle of the island from South to North. It is now the site of 40 stories and upwards buildings, hotels, and offices; since Cebu is the second largest city in the Philippines. The buildings we looked at from the roof site of the church looked even taller as they were built up on the mountainside like in Hong Kong. We could see why these millions of people need the Gospel of Jesus Christ for there is a lot of ancient ritualism, animism and dark practices with witches living in many of the towns north and south of the city.
Our time came to a close and we then flew back to Iloilo which takes about 25 minutes if the plane is on time. We thank God how He blessed our missionary journey and how he is opening more fields that are “ripe unto harvest but the laborers are few” and fewer!
Please pray for the Central Philippine Bible College so that it may fulfill its goals to send preachers and evangelists too many unreached areas of the region.
Please pray for the Philippines and its need for full-time missionaries to reach the growing number of unreached souls for Jesus. We missionaries are training nationals to carry on the work but there is still so much to do.
Please pray that churches in the U.S. and elsewhere will continue to have a passion to reach souls for Jesus both at home and worldwide. Some seem to waver in their zeal and passion over the years and we pray that God will bring about a worldwide revival in interest and support for missions among our churches.
Thank God with us for a safe trip and many wonderful blessings of fellowship, teaching, preaching and sharing the love of Jesus and message of hope.
Serving the Lord with Love for the Lost,
Darryl & Carol Krause
Pacific Rim Ministries
