Helping the Hurting, Reaching the Lost
Last week despite the travel warnings, we drove four hours to Polomolok, South Cotabato to be part of a United Prayer Rising Event. About a thousand people (mostly youth) attended and prayed fervently for their nation. This was a preliminary event for the much bigger national prayer gathering in September. I am so amazed at this prayer movement and excited about what it will do for the Philippines. I am so excited to be a part of this move of God.
Worship at the Refuge during the United Prayer Gathering.
The Refuge is becoming a ministry hub. We have recently opened the doors on Thursdays and Fridays to a youth group needing a temporary home. This means that we now have three churches using the Refuge besides the monthly Youth United Prayer Gathering.
That means four ministries are now using the Refuge for services. The United Prayer Gathering is an awesome prayer movement to unite the pastors and church leaders of various denominations to pray for Davao City. They also recently invited me to serve on their leadership council. We are so thankful to have the Refuge Youth Center to facilitate the move of God here in Davao City.
Youth from different churches uniting to pray for their nation.
The flames can been seen rising above our townhouse building.
Just two days after helping the victims of the Isla Verde fire, we almost became fire victims ourselves. We were suddenly disturbed to hear our neighbors pounding on our door. There was a big fire raging just ten feet behind our house! The fire had completed consumed the two houses behind us and was quickly approaching our rented townhouse. I stayed behind to rescue some electronics, and see if we could do anything to stop the fire. I rebuked the fire and prayed, “Fire, you cannot touch our house in the Name of JESUS.” Our unsaved neighbor later told me the fire was raging right for our townhouse and the wind suddenly changed.
This was the view from our back window after the Fire Department finally got the fire under control.
The fire was so close that Elijah’s bedroom windows and my office windows were too hot to touch. During the commotion, one of our brilliant friends broke the main water pipe behind our house and sprayed it towards the fire which held it at bay until eleven fire trucks responded and put out the fire. It was an absolute miracle our house didn’t catch on fire!
Elijah was so excited to see eleven fire trucks respond to the fire. I was excited too!
When Elijah finally came back, he was so excited that the fire trucks came to visit our house. He exclaimed, “Fire Truck, Daddy, Fire Truck!” I suppose I was excited to see the fire trucks too, but in a different way. Thank God for his protection, miracles, friends, and fire trucks!
A fireman extinguishing the fire on top of our neighbor’s house that was sadly gutted by the fire. The tall roof in the background is our townhouse building.
About one week ago, we hosted our first 24 hour praise and worship marathon at the Refuge. We had about sixty on-fire youth passionately worshipping God the whole time. It ran continuously for 24 hours from Friday until Saturday night. It was amazing to see the hunger, fire, and passion the youth displayed the whole time. The atmosphere for worship and soaking in God’s presence was just wonderful.
Sheena who attended announced that her friend Khael was healed at the event, “He testified how his sore throat was instantly healed when he joined the 24 hour non-stop worship.”
Another attendee told me she clearly heard answers from God about things she had been praying for months about. She also told me she enjoyed God’s presence so much that it was hard for her to leave.
This event was such a wonderful success. We can’t wait to have the next one.
