The Land of Birthdays

The Philippines is the land of birthdays. This country loves celebrating! And everyone's birthday, every year, is a special day. In some other Asian countries, birthdays are not even noticed (to the extent that some of our students can't remember their own birth date without looking it up). But in the Philippines, you can be assured of lots of warm greetings, surprises, and special celebrations. Our other Asian students are quick to pick up this Filipino tradition, and celebrate with their whole hearts. With 200 students in our school, and about 50 faculty and staff, you can imagine that we party a lot.

In spite of the fact that I have been sick, I have already had two parties and I'm told there is another one coming. These photos are from my discipleship group celebration last Monday. Yesterday, the day of my birthday, one of our students personally cooked and served lunch for everyone in my office, just to make me feel special. I felt very special!

Doctors, Nurses, X-Rays, Pills

The last two weeks have been very MEDICAL for us. I, who rarely get sick, but spend half my life taking other people to the doctor. And James, who always eats right and exercises and never gets sick. I started first with a throat infection a few weeks ago, which never really went away and eventually settled in my lower respiratory tract. James started later with several days of unexplained fever. He ended up on Monday morning in the emergency room with severe pain from a urinary tract infection.

We have both gone through lots of tests and lots of medication, and there was a while there where our doctor feared that James had leptospirosis (a flood-related disease) and I had TB (which is very common in the Philippines). James was admitted to the hospital, and while he was a patient upstairs I had to keep running off for my own tests downstairs as an outpatient. In the end, we both had manageable infections and not the exotic diseases our doctor feared.

I am thanking God for our dear colleagues and dear students who helped us through all of this. We were the ones who were helpless and weak, and it was comforting to see that we had so many people to turn to. "Community" is a big thing at IGSL, and I am so glad for that!

This morning, we are at home, worn out and tired, but recuperating and hopeful. God is gracious.

Overwhelmed

This is not a very clear photo, but it's a significant one. This is a "screen capture" of a program that we have from Power to Change/Campus Crusade for Christ to monitor our support. It's a picture of a miracle, actually.

This particular window shows a family who supports us for $25 per month. As you can see from the graph, their giving is very steady. They work hard to earn it. They live in a simple house in an older part of town. And they send us $25 every month, without fail. They've been doing it for many years. Why is this a picture of a miracle?

When I thought of joining Campus Crusade for Christ, back in 1978, I was excited about every part of that adventure EXCEPT RAISING SUPPORT. It nearly made me turn away in despair, because it seemed impossible. My family was not happy about the idea, and called it begging. I still remember sitting down and making a list of every person I knew who might consider supporting my ministry. It was a very short list.

I still can't believe that 22-year-old girl (that's me) had enough guts or faith, or both, to start making phone calls and talking to people about my dreams. I was very shy back then! But most of the people on my list said yes, and gave me the names of some of their friends, and the next thing I knew I was on my way to California for the first part of my training.

In those days we did not have computer programs to monitor our support, we just used index cards . . . and prayed a lot that the people would not forget us. And so, the years went by, we got married, had kids, made disciples, raised those kids, made more disciples, trained leaders . . . Many of those same friends from the index cards are still with us today on the high-tech computer program. James calls them our hundred-fold-family (from Mark 11:29,30).

I am blown away by how God has raised our support through all these years. Every individual or family has had adventures of their own. They have prayed earnestly for us. Some increased their support. Others have given the same amount for 30 years. Interestingly, several times people have stopped for a year or two, or ten, and then joined us again. Some of their children have now grown up and started supporting us. Every name on the computer program represents hard-working people who pray for us and willingly set aside part of their earnings to make it possible for us to do what we do. I am overwhelmed by the faithfulness, year after year after year.

In the past few days, I have been overwhelmed (again) at how privileged we are to work with the students we have at IGSL. Some of them are returning to situations of intense discouragement and persecution. I cried yesterday with a student whose parents called him and said, "Unless you forget about Jesus, you are no longer our son!" A few hours later I chatted with an alumni couple who have seen an unprecedented response to the Gospel in North India. I am amazed at their determination and creativity. We have conversations like this every day! Who are we that we have the honor of knowing these people, training them, praying with them, and encouraging them? James calls them our hundred-fold family too.

So here I sit, overwhelmed by miracles on all sides. The miracle of how God took a short list of unlikely supporters and turned it into 30 years of faithful giving. The miracle of how God has taken hundreds of unlikely students from all over Asia and enabled them to make disciples in some of the most strategic ministry sites in the world. And the miracle of how God took a very unlikely 22-year-old girl, and gave her a front-row-seat for the whole adventure.