One of the greatest blessings for a missionary is seeing the fruit of your time overseas. You travel halfway across the world, endure jet lag, and spend a limited number of days in a foreign culture, learning a new language, eating unfamiliar food, using outdoor showers and toilets, and being stretched out of your comfort zone. You hear stories that break your heart, meet people trapped in the despair, wrap your arms around little children, and feel completely unworthy and limited in your ability to match the compassion you feel with actual action and communication. Sometimes you leave wondering if you made an impact at all. Other times you might have a story about a heartbroken widow who smiled for the first time or the teen who gave his life to Christ, but you don’t know what happened to them after you left. Sometimes you visibly see a harvest. And even less often, after the trip you hear about what happened to those people you came to love. That is a rare, priceless gift.
In 2008, the Ambassador program sent a team of 5 to the Philippines for 22 days. They were three high school students and two leaders, excited about what God had in store and willing to follow His leading no matter what. The team returned praising God. Over twenty young people came to Christ as a direct result of their ministry.
One of the most important things to AIM is relational ministry, modeled after the method Jesus used while He walked on this earth: discipleship. We don’t send teams to countries to work in a vacuum. Instead, they partner with host pastors and missionaries to help continue the ministry already established. So in 2008, when the team of 5 left, the missionaries were able to keep discipling 10 of those young people. In the spring of 2010, those same young people served as volunteer teachers and assistant teachers at their DVBS, where they ministered to 200 children in Basak Mandaue City (the place our first AMB team went) and to 100 children in Consolacion (where our 2008 team went). Ministry in Consolacion continues to grow as well, especially children’s ministry. 50-80 children (and many mothers) are taught and loved on every week.
As missionaries, we can only do so much. On a short term trip, our impact can feel so small. But the power of God has no limitations, just like His grace and His love. Ministry in the Philippines is alive-vibrant-and people are coming to know the love of Christ in a life changing, heart-altering way.
As Ambassador staff, reports like this make us fall to our knees. We’re not in it for the numbers, but we like to hear them because it encourages-and humbles-us. It is our hope, prayer, and goal that our teams share Christ with everyone possible and produce real–and lasting-fruit. Being able to see it means everything. It reminds us that once again what we do goes beyond ourselves and even AIM. And that God has some crazy awesome multiplication skills. In 2008, He took 3 teens and 2 leaders who were sold out to Him, touched the lives of 20+ young people during the course of a 22 day trip, and their fruit is still alive, thriving, and increasing in size two years later.
That beats any equation solved with human skills, hands down.
Praise Him for all He has done! We are so excited about what He continues to do in the Philippines!
