Thursday, July 21, 2016

Mercy Girls Take Butuan

Ready for the ride!

This past week, the Mercy Midwives girls were given the opportunity to visit a little village in Butuan, which is a city on northern Mindanao, a few hours away from Davao. We have loved working in the city, but honestly it is not a representation of how the majority of people live in the Philippines, so it was exciting for us to go and experience village life. We stayed with the Mountain Harvesters team so we were also excited about getting to visit another team and see what the Lord was doing in & through them!
We headed out on Wednesday morning and after driving for about 5 hours we made it to Butuan City where we had to transfer to motorcycles to go the rest of the way. They call the motorcycles with wings (as you can see below) habal-habals... and they are super fun to ride!

The Mercy Midwives girls with our translator, Belle
After loading up and strapping on our stuff (bags & food for the combined teams of 10), we rode for about an hour and a half to Limatok, the village where we would be staying. The village is so full of green vegetation and is located in a gorgeous spot in the mountains. It kind of looks like Jurassic Park! I wish I could describe to you how beautiful and peaceful it is. 

The Mountain Harvesters team usually spends their days going house to house sharing the gospel during the week, so we just tagged along with them. After traveling most of the day on Wednesday, we started Thursday morning bright and early going house to house. Kate and I went with one of the other girls and our translator to a woman's house who had been interested in Bible study while the other girls split up to visit another house. We were able to share the gospel with the woman and Kate shared her testimony, and afterwards the womand said she wanted to accept Christ as her Savior! We prayed with her and gave her a Bible and told her we would come back the next day to talk about baptism. This was one of my favorite moments on the trip, because on our very first home visit a woman accepted Christ. 
Doing A Bible study on Friday Night

The Lord keeps proving his faithfulness over and over. He is showing us that if we will step out and do things that are uncomfortable (like sharing the gospel or having to cook over a fire for a few days)... He will move in mighty ways! Praise God for this trip to Butuan. We really enjoyed the rest of our time with the Mountain Harvesters and made it back to Davao safely. Now only one week left!


Pray for the people we met and ministered to in Butuan, especially for the woman who is a new believer.
Pray that God would keep moving in mighty ways in that village
Pray for our last week here in the Philippines, that we will finish the race strong!
Teaching the kids how to brush their teeth
Mountain Harvesters and Mercy Midwives :)
Cooking Breakfast