It's a God Story!
Last September we felt like God was compelling us to return to the Philippines for a visit to Bohol late in October. For weeks we tried to arrange funding for the project, but funding just wasn't working out. Two weeks before our target departure date something happened. As we drove to church Jeanette asked, "It's not working. Should we give up hope on going?"
Missionaries to the Philippines
"We wanted to leave on October twenty-fifth, so we can't give up hope until October twenty-sixth," Mike replied.
So we stopped and prayed, "Father God, we feel that You want us to go to the Philippines at the end of this month. We are willing to go, but we can't get the funds together no matter how hard we've tried. So, if You want us to go, You need to make the funding happen. We pray that if You do, You'll do it in such a way that we know it was You who did it. And if we aren't able to go, we can accept that, but we feel You are directing us, so we want to go." The prayer left us feeling better, but we still didn't know how God was going to work.
Before the service began a friend gave Jeanette a card. "Open it later," she said to Jeanette. We did. Inside was the verse, "He who spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" and a check large enough to cover the cost of the trip. This time God was waiting for us to confess that we can't do it without Him. We'd prayed about the trip many times already, but this time He confirmed His involvement and definititely honored our request to know that He was the one providing for us to go.
And go we did! We spent exactly one-month there. We saw many things happen to convince us that we need to move back to the Philippines. From the way God provided exactly what we needed exactly when we needed it to the changes in church-attitude we encountered in the Philippines to way the training we've been receiving at the Londen Institute exactly match the needs of the Church in Bohol, we've seen how God has orchestrated our lives for this time in Bohol. Serving Him there will be an amazing time, indeed!