Well, I usually don’t post more than once a week so this must be a real treat right?  LOL!  Every once in a while something different grabs my interest and it sounds like fun, sort of like those occasional twenty question about yourself things.  I don’t do them all the time but every once in a while it’s fun.  I’m going to show you where all the magic happens..my true Live Space you might say.  I try to keep my desk organized though admittedly I’ve got a toddler and she adds to the occasional chaos on my desk.  Truthfully everyone seems to like to leave miscellaneous items there for future reference for some reason but it’s looking pretty good today .  I like to have a big glass of ice water all day long no matter what…notice the big spider in glass on the right?  I featured that little gem in one of my blogs a while back for kicks.  I also have a webcam it’s true but it mostly gathers dust, it seemed like a good idea at the time but now it’s a better paper weight than camera.  Yes, that’s “Twilight” sitting there and yes, I’m reading it.  My wife begged me to read it and even bought the bluRay of it and made me watch it.  I figure I’m about the only guy in the universe reading such a thing but guess what?  I’ve got a guilty confession:  I like it a lot!  Who would have guessed?

Next we have my well worn keyboard and on the left my pride and joy:  my eighty-gig i-Pod .  It’s got well over seven thousand songs at this point and most of it really rocks hard though there is some mellower stuff that comes up.  I have it set on random usually so I can sometimes be jarred from something sweet and mellow like Enya and go to something from Slipknot LOL!  That’s my chaos and I love it! 

My screen right now is filled with Ilumina which is a bible program that I really like and read daily, I have another one that’s not as fancy but I like it just the same.  Here’s my screen in all it’s glory .  I like to use Webshots to change my wallpaper every fifteen minutes or so.  I have my own pictures thrown into the mix and some others that I’ve found from a website on-line that I like.  Usually it’s shots of nature or some cities around the world to keep me ever thinking about that which I am anyway.  My other pictures come from the Department of Defense Website so I can be ever reminded of the soldiers abroad.  I know several and never forget them but still the pictures are a vivid reminder that I appreciate.

Next we have my reading that I’m into.  It seems that I always have more than one book I’m looking into so here’s what I’ve got .  I already mentioned “Twilight” and then there’s a book on Amsterdam for our trip that we’re planning come late summer and next is a book on PTSD that a soldier friend gave to me.  These have all been really great for their own reasons.

Last we have a couple of framed pictures.  One is happy the other melancholy .  I always like seeing a picture of Lovely in her wedding dress and remember that day so clearly.  It never ceases to bless me.  The other one is two pets that are no longer with us.  Luke is the name of the dog..he was a cocker spaniel that we loved dearly and then there’s Figaro the cat.  We have never owned a better cat in all the world.  Lovely still cries when she thinks about him.  This is the bitter sweet of owning a pet.  I think little hurts like losing a pet except losing a human member of your family.  I still want a picture of our two Dachshunds..I keep nagging Lovely but she’s not put a good one up for me yet. 

This is my little world, I hope you enjoyed it.

Recently Lovely and I were able to get out and walk together with our cameras in hand.  The weather has been nice enough that an evening walk was actually pleasant.  The birds have been singing happily and I love to see them when they’re singing their hearts out.  The robins in particular have been making their presence known.  I actually captured this one singing away but somehow I managed to delete the video…next time perhaps.  The sunsets have been looking more and more like spring/summer as well.  I think that one of our favorite places to walk is up a hill into the sunset where we are able to take silhouette pictures.  I never get tired of the way this looks in the magical light of a mild spring evening.  It is so peaceful and we thoroughly enjoy being together and clicking away.  This majestic tree strikes me very much as something that should be standing right here in Montana looking just like this!  The problem is that the weather can go from that to what it is right now…no this isn’t one of my earlier pictures…this is the most recent…a record breaking 3.5 inches last night…argh!

The exciting news I have right now actually is somewhat related to the above pictures…minus the robins and the snow covered table and chairs.  Lovely had actually taken some pictures of the silhouetted trees before and said that she thought it looked like she would imagine something in Africa would look. We’ve held the dream that someday we would be able to visit together the places that I’ve been in the past before I met her.  The exciting news is that we are formulating a plan to do one such trip right now.  This trip is in the planning stages but I’m thrilled to talk about it here.  We have had good communication and friendship with a young man and his wife in Holland.  Back in the day when I had traveled to Africa before I would stop in Amsterdam on the way to Africa.  We’ve wanted to visit our friend there for a long time now and have talked to him on the phone several times about it.  He has also wanted to visit us however his wife is from Indonesian and she’s not yet finished achieving her Dutch citizenship so we’ve been waiting on that.  Recently we began to think about visiting The Netherlands to see him and then perhaps go to Ghana, West Africa once again.  This trip is still very much in the planning stages but I have real faith as far as it’s concerned.  The thought of visiting The Netherlands and seeing our friends and then going to Africa would be the fulfillment of dream we’ve had now for many years…I believe God is moving!

I promised to talk about how I met Lovely more and I intend to do just that before I finish this post.  The time that I met her was a difficult time for me.  My relationship with my then girlfriend was beginning to fall apart…it was rather painful on more than one level.  I really had felt that I’d made my heart known to God that I didn’t want to be alone and had entered my relationship with the girl I was with believing God that it was the right thing to do.  Things don’t always work the way we think best and it had fallen apart….mostly because I was more serious about the relationship than she was…I’ve never been into having the person you have told you have real feelings about endlessly date other guys…sorry, not my thing and never will be.  I had come to the place where I told God that if I was to remain forever single fine but I wouldn’t approach someone else unless I really knew they were the one for me.

It was in the middle of this decision that I found myself on a trip to the Philippines and I began to have the strongest feelings I’d ever had in my life for Lovely.  This wasn’t a rebound…quite the opposite…not only had I just been burned but the last thing I wanted at this point was to enter a complicated relationship with a foreigner.  I felt that I was in a desert emotionally and exhausted spiritually.  It’s like that alone in the crowd thing.  I know that you may find it hard to believe but with all the wonderful things I’d seen God do I still felt incomplete and unhappy because my heart’s desire was to find someone I could share all of it with…someone I could love and have love in return.

I brought my feelings before God and prayed and though I didn’t really expect Him to answer me He did.  He clearly told me to follow my heart for He was in this.  I told Andy my intentions…strangely he wasn’t nearly so enthusiastic when it wasn’t a game to embarrass me by introducing me to one girl after the next.  He knew I was serious...and I knew I was serious.  Lovely has struck me completely blind in love…do I believe in love at first sight?  Why yes, yes I do and sometimes there’s that perfect timing where it’s not infatuation it’s the real deal and not only that…it’s mutual…though Lovely was very, very conservative and didn’t show it at first.

I began by writing her…she promptly did her very best to discourage me and insult me…the problem was I was not like many of the Filipinos that would be discouraged…fact was I thought it was amusing.  I have all our letters to this day that we exchanged and it still makes me smile.  She tried to tell me that I needed to just take a nice cold shower and relax basically but I would not relent…I just kept writing her.  I also took time to speak to her mother when I could…I would not relent. 

Lovely was working on going to Japan to stay with her mom who lived in Japan though she visited the Philippines often.  She had paperwork to complete while she was in Manila.  I was coming to the end of a tough trip…the first one in which I actually led a team in both Thailand and the Philippines.  I determined to take a little extra time in Manila to talk to Lovely.  I didn’t have an understanding yet of how things worked in the Philippines….Andy was no longer helpful at all and so I approached clumsily.  I didn’t have any clue how to enter into a serious relationship there so you can imagine my shock when on the one day I could finally visit Lovely we had a chaperone or two and met in a very public place!

I talked to her as our chaperone looked bored and disinterested…we were at a table near a bowling alley of all places.  I tried to express to Lovely that I was serious about my feelings for her and wanted to come back to the Philippines after this trip and continue to see her.  I was totally unprepared for her reaction…she started to cry!  I thought that I had offended her or said something wrong…I was so stunned that I didn’t even offer her a Kleenex…this remains a joke between us to this day.  I knew our time was running out and we both had to go so I offered her the necklace I was wearing as a pledge that I would return and not forget her…silly I know but it’s all I knew to do.  I would continue writing her both her and when she finally made it to Japan and would talk on the phone when I could.  All my life had felt dry and barren before I met her and now that I had found her I would not let her go.

It’s been a terrible battle with the flu having it’s way with our family.  Gabby was about as sick as I’ve ever seen her.  We finally brought her to the doctor and got some antibiotics which I can’t say did a whole lot.  It’s always hard to see those you love dearly suffer.  The bright side of this all is the first official day of spring is tomorrow!  It’s like the dawning of a new day.  The temperatures have made it to the sixties for many days in a row now which is awesome.  Our skies have been a stunning sapphire blue that I’ve seldom ever witnessed elsewhere.  I never grow tired of the patterns of the clouds…even the high wispy ones that were there today back dropped by that fantastic blue.  I was wondering if any bud would be brave and show itself and sure enough even our cautious trees are starting to show some signs of life.  These buds are carefully showing themselves at last and I’m overjoyed.  I don’t have any beautiful flowers to show anyone yet but look forward to their arrival.  The birds sound so thrilled these days.  It’s hard to believe that we were below zero not all that long ago with few birds to be heard.

I can’t stress enough the similarity of the core struggles we face in our daily lives with all that I struggled with on the mission field.  The big physical challenges sometimes dwarf the real battle over our faith.  The relentless onslaught of winter itself can bring us down…we don’t much feel like praising God for that after awhile.  This core struggle is something that follows us no matter where we go…whether that be the deepest darkest jungle or not even leaving our house.

My mind begins to take me back to a time in the Philippines where winter wasn’t at all the problem.  Cold weather doldrums weren’t the issue but faith certainly was.  Culture shock had a way of being more trying when I was already struggling.  The Filipinos had one defense for difficulty it seemed:  laugh…and usually I was the target.  We had finished up some meetings and as usual a surprised extra meeting was on the agenda for the day.  These meetings were never close by and took time to get to.  I was feeling extremely sick and had some terrible stomach problems.  I could barely keep anything down and felt faint and dehydrated. 

If you are the preacher people look up to you…you have to do what you have to do.  If you are a missionary it seems that suffering is a part of the job and you are expected to endure as a good soldier.  We had to travel many miles down a terrible road by jeepney.  I don’t know how I kept from losing everything I had in my stomach either by vomiting or diarrhea…Andy of course teased me relentlessly.  We arrived at our stop to find that we could find no other transportation so we took the most ancient means of travel:  walking.  The heat of the day beat down on us as we lost yet more precious fluid through sweat that never seemed to stop or cool us at all.

We arrived to a little village where I found out there would be a baptism which I would officiate.  Keep in mind that the local population for the most part did not support the activities of born again Christians because they were mostly Catholic and labeled us “Burn Again Christians”.  I was so faint that I had to lay down and found a small bench to lay down on while I waited for the meeting.

Andy approached me and finally I told him I could not do this service….I truly though I’d faint in the middle of it.  Andy’s humor was quickly gone.  He told me that these were new believers and this was very important to them.  If I were to back down it would damage their faith greatly. 

I got up and began to approach the place where the ceremony would take place and noticed several governmental signs posted by the water warning everyone to stay away from the water because of a parasite that was infecting people.  This pleasant disease I had studied in biology it’s called schistosomiasis.

This disease is the second most serious parasitic infection behind malaria.  If you enter the water that’s infected you are likely to have a parasite bore through your skin and gain entrance to your body…this then leads to many other serious problems as the worms migrate to your liver and eat you from the inside.

I know I’m a man of faith and power and all that but let me tell you this didn’t feel like faith…it felt like a slow and painful suicide!  The horrors of what not only I but the people I was baptizing put me in a very real dilemma…should I show short term faith and incur long term suffering.  This is where the rubber meets the road…where you have to act and deal with the consequences.  Faith, foolishness and presumption isn’t just a book title…in reality it’s much like a soldier leading his troops into combat…people can die because of your decisions.

I took the step of faith and like the priests of old I entered the pond…I told Andy that he would take the risk with me since he so proudly pushed us to do this.  Naturally we entered the part of the water that was slow moving thereby allowing the parasites easy access to our skin that might have been hampered should we have been in more rapidly moving water…I could only pray and believe that the water would “divide” for me and that God would keep us all safe.

I said a few words to the candidates for this little adventure and put us all in the hands of God.  This is not something I would do every time nor is it something that I suggest was wise…it’s what I felt I should do at the time…faith, foolishness or presumption…well, the results thankfully showed that God watches over fools like me.

Neither I nor any of those who entered the water with me developed the dread disease…those people went on about their lives and the gratefulness within me to this day to God for His incredible mercy.  This test of my faith…whether by God’s design or my own served me well in the future events.

My girlfriend of the time left me…I couldn’t bear her behavior anymore.  Towards the end of our trip I gave Lovely a ridiculous picture of myself on a camel from the zoo in Thailand because it was all I had.  I was suffering from severe sun burn at the time…I developed massive blisters in fact and could hardly move.  Somehow I knew Lovely was the one for me I told her I wanted to know her better….little did I imagine she would be my wife…dumb picture or not…it was step of faith once again that opened me up to possible heart break…I think you may guess what the next entry will be about .  Great victories come from great battles. 

I guess if that title doesn’t grab you what will right?  I know that for past entries I’ve always had pictures but truth be told I don’t have any for this one but I hope this will not diminish your willingness to read on. 

I am a Montanan.  I’ve seen my share of bugs, snakes and spiders and such.  We’re not squeamish out here for the most part.  We’re a down to earth lot and I like that about Montanans.  My perspective grew by leaps and bounds when I left not only my state but my country to enter a part of the world where there’s far more people and far different customs than what I’m used to.  I began to wonder what down to earth really meant.

We are pretty much trained to get over the Boogey Man as we grow up and the old wives tales don’t have quite the horror they once did.  I have seen lots of spiders…even black widows here in my state but I can’t say I had an unusual fear…just a healthy respect.  I never dreamed that they could get the size of my hand and be able to move at a pace that is quite unnaturally fast.  Witches to me were things of fairy tales for the most part…you know…the green skin, pointy hat…stirring a evil looking potion with a broomstick kind of thing.  Centipedes…heck, for us those are nothing but cousins to earwigs that you find in corn right?  Rats?  C’mon rats don’t really get that big right?  We mostly have mice and the most dangerous thing about them is the hantavirus.

My ideas were quickly challenged when I went to Africa and then onto Asia.  Witches and witch doctors became things not out of a fairytale but a nightmare.  Spider were big and didn’t appreciate my personal space, centipedes were quite large and dangerous with a terrible sting and rats the size of jackrabbits wasn’t just possible but probably to not only see but have to live with.  These stories are of my encounters with these things.

Superstitions are rife in many parts of the world but I am what I’d call a very strong skeptic of all of these things.  I’ve experienced miracles that could only be God and seen behavior from people that I could only define as demonic yet my skepticism still remained high.  I had heard many stories of pagan rituals both in Africa and India that would make your hair stand up but mostly these things though I had often witnessed them didn’t get right in my face.  Visiting many tiny villages in the Philippines brought me often right up to things I couldn’t deny yet couldn’t explain.  It was in a one tiny little town…more a village really called Wines (pronounced:  Win-Ness) that I had my first and hopefully last encounter with something the locals call an "Aswang".  I didn’t know the details of this creature but had heard many say that they felt sure such a thing was tormenting this town.

We had held some meetings here where so many had backslidden and now were drunkards…joking they say that the town name should be pronounced in a way that sounded like the alcoholic beverage whine.  We worked with pastor Andayans young people in a tiny church there.  People flocked in to see what we were doing and it did gain no small amount of attention.  We stayed in a rather large house of one of pastor’s relatives.  There was a room closed off where a young man lay dying slowly of AIDS and TB.  He choked himself to sleep every night…his dying wheeze was terrible to hear…he had little interest in us though we did pray for him.  It was on a dark night after the meetings here that my encounter happened.

These places are so dark at night that it’s really unnerving.  The small meeting place was the only source of light.  At this time the young lady who was leading the work was now aware that I was interested in Lovely and was not at all happy about this development nor where her brothers and at first I attributed what happened to them being some prank to get me back for not paying romantic attention to their sister…you can decide for yourself.

The meeting was still going when I decided to go back to the house to use the bathroom…that’s a horror story in itself.  I used the light from the meeting room as long as I could to make my way through the jungle to the house.  It was very dark by the time I got to the house.  A large tree next to the house looked like something out of “The Wizard of Oz”.  I’m a skeptic remember so I didn’t think much about it.  Here there are seldom screens on the windows…only a series of slats that are opened and closed like large blinds.  I used the bathroom and went upstairs to get something when I heard a scraping sound on the closed slats upstairs.  My first thought was that this must surely be the tree moving in a breeze but there was no wind blowing…only the eerie scratching sound that my mind kept telling me must be tree branches.  Following the scratching sounds came a croaking voice that said something in a language I couldn’t understand..I knew/know some of the local dialect and didn’t recognize this.  My thoughts now went to Andy…quite the trickster you remember and who also loved to scare everyone.  I thought the joke would be on him as I sneaked quietly over to lever to open the slats with my flashlight ready.  I slammed the lever down and suddenly the huge tree next to the house shook like a hurricane force wind had blown through it…nothing else moved branches shook, leaves fell and all was quiet….no one was there….

Now this tree was filled with large spiders and webs first of all and had no low branches with which a person could climb first of all…secondly there was no sound of someone jumping to the ground…still my mind couldn’t accept this could be something supernatural.  I didn’t not feel fear still rather I was mad…this must have been Andy or one of the brothers that had it out for me.  I immediately went down below and started my walk through the forest to the meeting place.  The first thing I heard was Andy interpreting and on entering the small hut I saw all of the brothers in the meeting place…not breathing hard nor seeming anything but absorbed in the meeting…whatever happened had nothing to do with them…what was it that just happened?

Speaking of ghosts…well, I say ghost…not really knowing how you would want to describe this next event.  We had been delayed on our return to Manila because I had chicken pox…trust me when I say you don’t want this when you’re in your twenties nor do you want it in the tropics.  The beliefs of the locals were equally unhelpful…things like not bathing for fear of a relapse…thankfully I ignored this and bathed…I couldn’t take it and the itch drove me nearly insane.  Finally I was well enough to travel and we stayed at Lovely’s uncle’s house who was a Colonel in the Philippine Army.  He had said that he’d been having some sort of supernatural events in his house…I didn’t know or care about this until it started to affect me.

We had arrived late and I was tired.  I put our luggage upstairs and decided to lay down for a second and just breath easy.  I had not had my eyes close for more than a few seconds when I heard a voice speak my name…it sounded just like Lovely and I could even feel the breath on my face but when I opened my eyes nobody was there.  I was immediately angry and yelled “knock it off”!  I got up and looked behind the bed thinking Lovely was surely there…nobody.  I went out of the room and noticed down the long flight of stairs nobody was there either…I heard voices from the kitchen far below and went to find Lovely and everyone else there…nobody was breathing hard…and nobody had been up to the room except me…what the heck just happened?

Now my spider story…remember the little town where the strange event happened?  Well, one day we were outside and I was sitting under that tree.  I was talking to Andy and enjoying the tropical sun when  I felt something land on my back…I assumed it was a large leaf from the huge tree.  Andy’s eyes got very big and he just stuttered….”Dong…..uh,…da…da…dong…there’s a….a very big spider on you!”  I told him to quit because he knows I hate being teased like that…I looked down in disgust and notices a huge spider on my lap…near the opening of my shorts pant leg.  It had fallen from the tree onto my back and crawled with their unbelievable speed to my lap.  The spider soon discovered I could move with unnatural speed too when called upon!  I gave it a backhanded slap that slammed it into the wall.  Andy said that I was lucky…that species was poisonous enough to make a person very sick for days…I learned a valuable lesson:  Filipinos might have a tremendous sense of humor but they aren’t always kidding!

Centipedes…ah yes, these creatures in the Philippines are quite large and always find a way to get just where you’d not want them to be….you learn to check shirts before putting them on to avoid not being just stung once but several times as it makes it’s way out of your clothing…very painful and can be dangerous if you’re allergic.  These creatures have found their way into shoes, shirts and even our baggage…they fortunately have never made it back to America alive but yes, they are quite innovative and able to get where you don’t want them…these are the kinds that can get over six inches long and have long nasty pinchers on their rear end…my advice:  beware!

Okay, the last big story of the day:  rats.  Remember in my story about the refugee camp in Thailand how our team leader told us they had been plagued by rats?  It never happened to us there but did happen later in the Philippines.  If you don’t know it let me tell you rats are smart and vindictive…believe it!  Most places I’ve been abroad have two seasons:  hot and dray, hot and wet.  If you arrive in the wet season you can expect that the rains will come…they can be very heavy and bring excessive flooding…when the floods come….things are driven from their holes to whatever house is above the waters…sadly I’ve been in just such a house with pastor Andayan and his family.

How can I ever forget the first time I heard the pitter patter of little feet on the corrugated sheet metal roof?  No, it wasn’t adorable Filipino children I’m referring to.  There would be a loud “clunk” as the rats dropped from the palm trees to the roof and made their way into the house.  The little ones came, the medium sized ones came….the big ones came.  Filipinos told me that you should not attack one of these or they would take revenge…I thought this unlikely but I remembered it later and I’m glad that I did.  Usually the rats would enter when we were all tired and settling in for the night.  My bed was off of the floor…hard as a rock but off of the floor so I felt safe…fool that I was.  I put my hard pillow that was filled with something like barley under my head and tried to ignore the sound of the rats entrance. 

I awoke the next morning with a large hole in my pillow…the seeds taken out and eaten purposefully near my head…a rat had been right next to me…eating out the contents of my pillow!  I moved my bed several times but each time I’d awaken to a hole in my new pillow…closer and closer to my ear.  Finally I told Love to stay with me (this was before we were married) and we’d wait to see what was going on with a flashlight at the ready.  Night fell…the rats entered and nothing happened for some time…then late in the night a stirring happened in the upper corner of my room…one of the biggest rats I’d ever seen entered through a hole in the roof…we shined our flashlight beam on it and instead of running away…it squealed with a baleful glint in it’s little eyes…this thing had chosen me out and I knew it was only a matter of time before it took my ear off when I slept.

The Filipinos…including Andy of course were enjoying this whole thing but they knew I was in actual physical danger so we decided to fix the issue with some rat poison in a large bowl with a bunch of rice.  The only way we’d be safe from retaliation from the rats we figured was to kill the whole lot of them.  We are fortunate that they fell for it or I’d be minus an ear. 

The next day Andy excitedly woke me and said:  Dong, Dong, look at the rats, they’re drunk!”  Sure enough the rats were collapsing right and left.  One by one they were succumbing to the poison.  The monster that was after me…I hate to admit this but I took personal satisfaction in watching him die. 

Living like this is a whole other world my friends.  You struggle to survive.  I’ve been without food and watched my wife and children begin to starve, I’ve dealt with terrorists, spiders centipedes, what I really believe was legitimate supernatural phenomenon and when you’re in that situation life gets very simple…it’s a very primitive mode where it’s all about surviving…laughing to keep your sanity…relying on faith when nothing makes sense.  Grasping to hold the hem of Christ’s robe because if you let go you could lose your sanity, your family…even your life or the life of someone you love.  Make no mistake that the adversary we face is no different than the one I’ve face abroad.  There’s a war against the love of life.  My mom has always been so strong in this…she’s always fought to keep that love regardless of circumstance.  It’s been harder for me I admit but I’m really holding fast to God that I may be an example in this as my mom has been.  Circumstance may speak against our very reason to live another day.  Things can try to make us bitter or unhappy but we must not succumb.  John 10: 10 says it best:     The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.  This is what Christ desires for us and this I will seek every day of my life.

The weather here is still trying to decide if it’s still winter or finally going to let a little spring in here and there.  Some of the clouds look like they almost want to be thunderstorms but not a peep of thunder yet this year…only some cold rain.  This is the hardest time of year for me because I’m so ready for it to at least be above freezing for the high of the day.  Sometimes it can all feel like a bad dream

I’ve taken kind of a different approach this time than with previous entries.  I want to start this story off with something that happened in the Philippines and from there go to something that happened in the US because they support each other.  Ministry opportunities in the Philippines were varied in their scope.  We could do anything from a meeting in a town or village square…which was usually a basketball court or a small hut where people waited for a jeepney to take them to another place.  Other times we would be in homes or even in a plantation of some sort.  One of my fondest memories was a meeting we had near the time of the mango harvest.  We had an open air meeting near a mango tree that was so laden with fruit that it had actually split in half.  The people gave us a big box of mango for their offering.  That was the best offering I have ever eaten!  We had a young man there with us at the time who has since served two tours in Iraq and is now no longer active duty.  This was his first trip abroad.  I had left something in the Jeep so I was going to go back and get it.  Our friend offered to go and get it for me.  He came back some time later and was white as a ghost.  We asked what was wrong and he related a story about a very large snake that upon seeing him turned so quickly it almost looked like a wheel as it curved away and slithered off in the grass.  One of the Filipinos there heard us talk about it and said it was a “banocan”.  We didn’t think much of it until they said several people had been bitten by this snake and it was “very bad”.  Later on surfing the Internet while we were e-mailing home at the Internet cafe we found out that was the local term for a king cobra!  Our friend never offered to get anything left in our vehicle again…he was fortunate to be alive.

All this to lead up to this.  Pastor Andayan actively involved his young people in various community activities and ministries.  One particular activity was prison bible study.  I’d not done this before so thought I’d take the opportunity.  I had no idea how prisons would be in the Philippine nor did I have any particular expectation.  We arrived in the heat of the day…actually it seems like all the time is the heat of the day in the Philippines.  We all received stamps on our hand that we needed to get back out.  Now this concerned me some…perhaps unreasonably since I was white and obviously not a…guest of this facility but still I looked at the sweat on my arms and hands and worried that it would erase my stamp.  Prison here was more like a big open courtyard where the prisoners wandered about freely…this I didn’t expect.  It began to make sense to me how some other missionaries had been attacked in other prisons…the females raped and held captive while the prisoners made demands.  It was front page news…again I tried not to think about it.  We met and had an uneventful bible study…I was never more happy to have it be “uneventful”!  This whole thing drew my memories to a more eventful visit to prison here in America and that’s what I would like to relate.

We lived for some time in Boise and as some of you may know we have a music and ministry group that travels all over singing songs at various functions and even at the mall.  Often people would hear of us and request that we speak or play music.  One time someone from the maximum security prison heard of us and wanted us to visit the prison because it was nearing Christmas time.  Me being a man of faith and power I did what any believer would do:  said ain’t no way I’m going to go…LOL…just kidding!  Seriously I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it gave me a sick feeling…sort of like having a Halls cough drop and a cold glass of water…you know what I’m talking about?  It didn’t help that I knew I’d be one of the speakers in one section of the prison.  The days passed and finally we started our drive out to the prison which is out in the middle of nowhere.  I hate how it feels out there…anger, hopelessness….death.  We had to go through tons of security just to get passed the waiting room.  The metal detector would even go off on shoe tacks…very sensitive.  Lovely was not a citizen at the time so she was not there.  One thing that was noticeable right off the bat was the heat…ironically much like the Philippines.  All of this was for a reason.  The heat kept lethargy high so the prisoners don’t think so much about misbehaving.  The floors were made of very slick concrete so nobody could move fast without slipping…prisoners didn’t have shoes that would give them much purchase on the floor…again to prevent organizing.  All chairs were bench-like and welded to the round tables which in turn were cemented or bolted with heavy bolts to the floor.  Just reading the signs on the wall was so intimidating.  There were some reminding guards to check shavers after the prisoners had used them because someone had taken the razor out and replaced it with some tin foil so he could use the razor as a weapon later.  The halls seemed to be all alike and in the end it felt like being blindfolded and spun around.

There are times when being the second one to speak isn’t a good thing.  The first stop was an area where the prisoners were not allowed outside their cells.  I remember the green steel doors and the small hatches on each door where food was passed to the prisoner.  Our first speaker got a much less than warm reception.  The prisoners started shouting and pounding on the prison doors.  Many screamed terrible profanity…I despised the shaking in my knees.  Next up was death row and it was my turn to share something with these prisoners.  I frantically wracked my brain for something to say that wouldn’t sound weak, condescending or stupid.  There’s a song by Carman called “Witch’s Invitation” like this.  It talks about a minister being confronted in a most sinister way by a witch.  He felt that stunned moment where his faith was being violated.  This is what it must have felt like to Moses who after throwing his staff to the ground and seeing it become a snake the Egyptian magicians did the same thing. 

It was here when God began to speak to me.  I began to see that these men were here not because of their crimes against God but rather they were here for their crimes against the state.  Before God they were forgiven just as much as I and so they were free in spite of the walls of that prison.  The revelation of that so struck me that the spark of faith became a flame.  Some of the prisoners were at the tables while others watched from near their cells…it was a two tiered area.  I told them that we were all brothers before God and all equally forgiven and though they were held here by the state God loved them and as far as He was concerned there were no four walls that could take away there freedom for eternity.  I shared some of my testimony and then stepped back where the others in our group was.  To my utter shock those men stood and began to clap…I have never in my life felt that I was flying higher.  No four walls could keep us bound…neither us nor the prisoners at that facility were bound in God’s eyes.  Christ paid for each and every one of us.  This is the scripture that came to me later out of Romans chapter 10 verses 9-15:  

9.  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10.  For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11.  For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
12.  For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
13.  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
14.  How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
15.  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

It matters not how we play a roll in this wonderful witness to the Lord.  Sometimes it’s an act of kindness.  Sometimes it’s to a member of our family.  Sometimes it’s just listening to someone that needs a ear and not some big piece of advice.  However we are a witness to the goodness of God it plays a part in His big plan.

I can not stress enough how simple I am as a person.  I come from a small community, I have no big education nor is there royal blood somewhere in my family.  I stand in complete awe of the opportunities I have been given by God…I don’t understand why He has done this for me.  I know this is more words than pictures this time but bear with me my friends.  Wherever you are you’re a light shinning in a dark place whether you realize it or not.  You are loved of God and though circumstance may deny it you have an inheritance given by God…you are not a mistake nor are you without hope or God in this world.  Let me testify that there’s none that I know as friends here that haven’t displayed the kindness of God to me and for that I will ever be eternally grateful.