No water. No electricity. No communications. These were the conditions on Bantayan Island following Typhoon Haiyan. Most of the island was completely destroyed, impacting thousands of families. The family of Pastor Dennis Medosa survived the storm, and thankfully escaped with no physical injuries. But their lives had been completely rearranged.
During the storm, the family was huddled inside their home. The storm began to rip their house apart, and fearing for their lives, they fled to the nearby church building. Next, the storm ripped the roof off of the church building. With nowhere else to go, the family weathered the storm inside the church. The typhoon blasted Bantayan Island for 5 hours, and daylight showed the devastation that it had wrought.
Bantayan Baptist Church has a main church building, operates a Christian school, and has 4 feeding centers for underprivileged families. All of them were utterly destroyed during the typhoon. All of the school supplies and books, the computer center, the church benches, the musical instruments – everything is in ruins. Pastor Dennis says, “basically we are back to zero in our ministry”.
Global Surge is committed to helping Pastor Dennis and Bantayan Baptist Church rebuild. We are partnering with them to strengthen their ministry and expand their influence on the island.
We will be helping in several phases of relief:
Phase 1 ($25,000) – providing immediate relief to the community through food, water, temporary shelter, etc. Phase 2 ($50,000) – rebuilding Bantayan Baptist Church, the pastor’s home, the Christian school, and feeding centers Phase 3 continuing support through specific projects to stabilize the church and impact the community
Our initial goal is to give a total of $75,000 in two phases. Phase 1 is completely funded and is now ongoing. We need your help to fund Phase 2 ($50,000) and rebuild this ministry. To date, we have $25,400 committed for Phase 2.
Please consider a gift to help us rebuild the ministries of Bantayan Baptist Church.
Golf immortal Arnold Palmer recalls a lesson about overconfidence: “It was the final hole of the 1961 Masters tournament, and I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, “Congratulations.” I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus.
On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters. You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again. I haven’t in the 30 years since.”
Focus is important. Lose it and you lose your way.
Sometimes we miss what God is saying because we are too focused on earthly circumstances and not on Him. This happens to me, to you, and we have a record of it happening to the disciples. In fact, the account in Mark chapter 8 is a little humorous, or would be, if the subject was not so serious. In the account, the disciples in the boat with Jesus were so focused on their hunger that they missed an entire spiritual lesson, and Jesus could not have been more frustrated with them.
Why does this video make us emotional? It’s one word: sacrifice.
We understand the sacrifice that the soldiers – and their families – make every day. And when those sacrifices are rewarded with a surprise homecoming, it brings us to tears. Even outside looking in, sacrifice moves us in powerful ways.
This is one reason the gospel is so powerful – it is the story of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf.
We hear a lot about momentum in ministry. But do we really understand what we’re hearing? To really harness the power of something, you must understand it. To harness the power of wind for sailing, you must understand principles about how a sail works. In the same way, in order to harness the power of momentum, we must first understand what it is.
I have experienced momentum in my ministry, only to let it slip away and vanish. I didn’t harness it because I didn’t understand it. Yet even though I didn’t understand it, I could “feel” it. I know you know the “feeling” of momentum too; it’s tangible.
When a sports team begins to score points and make up the deficit – they have momentum. And everyone – players, coaches, and fans – can feel it. When your ministry team experiences a big win, there is a sense of momentum. You can “feel” it. But what are we really feeling? What is momentum?
The Philippines, my home, was ravaged yesterday by the worst typhoon (hurricane) to ever make landfall. Ever. It was an significant event in history. It’s also a significant event Biblically.
My house was not damaged by the storm – we live in Manila which was out of the direct path. But I have seen, heard, and felt the impact to the Philippines. I have experienced the chaos that the storm caused. In a similar way, you did too. You saw the news reports, the satellite images, the Twitter trends. We are all aware of the impact of storms like this.
There have been other recent weather related events, in the Philippines and elsewhere, that have caused the world to pay attention. Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Sandy, the tsunami in Japan, the recent earthquake in the Philippines, and now Typhoon Haiyan. And that’s not all of the major events recently, just a handpicked few.
So what is the biblical meaning? Is there a reason that events like this are taking place?
