Philippines Day 3

Today is Sunday....It is about 8:25pm.......It has been very hot today with a humidity of 150%...I think I have sweat more today than I have in the past year....but what a GOOD sweat it has been........

Let me begin by saying how much fun I am having with the Filipino people......During a 30 minute class on their culture, we learned that they love to be silly and have fun......What a more perfect place for me to be.........

Today our team had the chance to worship at Quest Community church here in Cebu. It is the church that God started though the lives of 2 faithful missionaries, Les and SaraLee Tilka.....Les is from North Carolina and his wife is originally from here in the Philippines........The worship was so amazing........It was so great to see these people freely worship the Lord without all of the restraints of time and tradition.......I mean if I hear one more person back home whine about church being longer than an hour I may scream.........These people worshipped through singing for at least 45 minutes and then the sermon....After church they did not even want to leave......They crave God's word and God's people.......American Christians, specifically those staunch Southern Baptist Conventionites would GREATLY benefit from a day or two here........

Being here has just opened my eyes all the more to how much we as Americans put God in a box and literally dare Him to move...These new excited Filipino Christians have no preconceived notions about Jesus and no traditions to put Him into and they freely receive all of who Jesus is.........He is so much more than a 5 minute worship set, a nice little sermon, and hour long service......O well enough of my soap box.....Most of you who read this agree with me anyway and are not the source of the problem..........


Speaking of people and their traditions......After church we were able to go to a Chinese Taoist temple.......While there, we were able to view the idols of this group and actually see people worship them....You could almost tangible feel the lostness in the place.....The people were actually bowing before statues and putting their lives into the hands of a man made statue......They would place fruit and beer and other objects around them as offerings and then burn incense........The most uncomfortable room for me was the one where their "father god" lived.....There were 2 statues beside him that watched over him......When in this room people could pray to him about specific things in their lives.....Then they would drop these large wooden beans on the floor.......The sign below the god read as this......"to communicate with god drop the beans in the floor and he will speak to you through them." If the beans landed a certain way that determined the answer god was giving you.......One man dropped the beans 4 times and each time the answer was maybe......I wanted to just run in there and tell him how much Jesus loves him.......He broke my heart.......


Before we went there, we went to a Catholic church where 1000's of people were in line to view this small statue of a toddler like Jesus......The people believed that Jesus spirit was in the doll...The doll was encased in glass, but the people would rub handkerchiefs on the glass in hopes that it would bring them the desires of their prayers........To be so close to the Savior and not know Him........

After our city tour, we went back to church for their Sunday night Youth Rally....It was great..I played SkipBo with a bunch of Filipino young people.....They beat me both rounds.....My friend Philip, one L instead of 2, is the youth minister and he spoke of the Father's unconditional love! He showed an amazing slide show of all the scriptures that show us what a father Jesus is to us......It was so overwhelming to me to be comforted by His very words to me about how He is my father!

Tomorrow we will visit the Leprosarium and a prison I think, to deliver boxes....Please pray, I am sure it will be an emotional day.......Email me if can.....I'd love to hear from you.....My address is mrdearybury@hotmail.com or dearybje@spart6.org

Check out Matt's Blog for some pics of yesterday's Operation Christmas Child distribution...I promise to have pics tomorrow, I forgot my cord up the 3 flights of stairs.....Its too hot and I am too tired to go get it tonight......:0)

Its funny to think that right now as I type most of you are just going to church......Except for the faithful AMRBC praise band, they have already been there for 2 and half hours.....I know Julie has been there cause I woke her up with a phone call this morning at 5:40 am ya'll's time.....O well gotta run...I look forward to hearing from all of you!