June 19th, 2010
“…hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Mt 6:9b-10
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ---Mt 28:19
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” ---Acts 1:8
Dear Friends,
Hi. Emie and I pray for the Lord to help you----and bless, strengthen, and encourage you in all areas of your life. May His blessings be unique and a pleasant surprise to you.
Psalm 116:1 NIV “Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”
This Sunday , June 20th we will be celebrating Father’s Day. I already received 3 homemade cards from the triplets: Faith Hope, and Joy. Gracia had helped them---and she and Hugh will probably be giving me their homemade cards tomorrow. As Faith, Hope, & Joy enthusiastically handed me my Father’s Day cards tonight, with big smiles they said: “Happy Mother’s Day”. It was funny. /Side note: [The triplets were excited this week as they started their 1st day of School on Tuesday---they are in Kindergarten I; and Hugh is in the 3rd grade & Gracia in the 5th grade.]
May God bless and help the fathers in this world to become the true fathers that God created them to be. And may children honor their parents and receive the promise in Eph. 6:3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” I read a quote from a person who must have had a very good father and wanted to honor him: “Dad, you’re someone to look up to no matter how tall I’ve grown.”
Good parenting is an important responsibility and with God’s help we all can become better parents. Individually, all of us come from different backgrounds as children, some remembering their childhood with happiness and some with sorrow. Yet whatever our human family background---all of us who know Jesus as Savior & Lord have one very important truth in common: God is our Father. It is His Fatherhood we should focus on and look to for our example. His love is perfect. He is never too busy for us, He will comfort and help us. God our Father greets us with open arms & He gives us forgiveness, restoration, and great love and blessing.
Saying: “Thanks” and “Happy Father’s Day” to God is a good idea. It is because of God our Father’s love, mercy, and grace---that we live and breathe, and every genuine blessing that we have ever received is truly from Him. “Yet, O Lord, You are our Father…Is.64:8a & “A father to the fatherless and a defender of widows, is God…” Ps 68:5
The 1st part of the month on a Wednesday, I visited one of churches we helped pioneer which qualifies in “and to the ends of the earth” category. It is located up in a Siteo (smaller than a village), called “Sinabag” in the Northwestern part of Leyte Island in what they call mountains here in the Philippines (what we would call big hills in the States). It takes about 3 hours to get there from Tacloban when it is not the rainy season, otherwise the final 6 miles can be very muddy and hard to travel on. My nephew/ son Nonoy, Pastor Bobet (from that church) and Pastor Teddy & his wife Gena from our church in Looc, Biliran Is. traveled with me.
The final part of the trip is up a fairly steep--rough narrow road which is more like a big trail, and I could not use the Hi-Ace van on it. So although I had been having problems with sore feet and at a very recent doctor’s appointment had been advised to for 2 weeks, reduce by 90/% my walking, etc., ----there was not much option so walking up the hillside we all go. It is a fairly steady climb for a little less than a mile and you arrive at the little church and several small native houses overlooking a beautiful valley below.
The people there are poor farmers who have government given lands farther up in the hills which they grow crops on to make their subsistence living. In that hilly area and for a pastor to minister to the people several kilometers away, even a motorcycle is not sufficient---so last year we helped Pastor Bobet to buy a small horse.
He is now able to easily travel to the members further in the mountains for prayer, fellowship, and Bible study.
I was there to visit and fellowship with some of the family and church members there. We also moved some small benches out to a vacant lot recently purchased for a future new native church building. As the sun was setting and we looked over the valley and hills----we sang praise & worship songs to the Lord and prayed.
Later I had dinner with them in their small one room house that serves as the living room, dining, and bedroom.
Many families in the rural Philippines just roll out small reed mats on the floor and all sleep together at night.
It was a very nice time of fellowship and the people were happy I had come to visit them.
Over the next 2-3 weeks I hope to travel to most of the 21 churches and spend time with the pastors, their families, and church leaders for a time of fellowship and prayer. For some it might be in the morning, others at noon or evening. To visit every church on a Sunday would take 5 months so this will be shorter visits of prayer and fellowship at various time of the week. By the time you get this newsletter, God willing--- I will be on the road traveling to several churches and in part of the trip traveling by boat to 2 churches on the small islands.
Three Sundays ago, in the afternoon---Emie & I traveled with some of our Tacloban church members to visit the town of Lapaz where we are starting to pioneer a new church that came about as a result of people saved during our Sunday radio broadcasts. Many of the people at our meeting there are seniors in their sixties & seventies, but they are excited about coming to know Jesus as their Savior & Lord and want to serve Him. We prayed for several people there that day and the Lord was touching people’s lives.
When we were leaving and driving though the downtown area there were crowds of people on both sides of the road and people running to the scene of a very bad accident between 2 motorcycles which had a head-on collision. On the left side of the road was a pool of blood. We could not see the accident victims because of the crowds. I drove further & pulled the van off the road, and Emie and I went back. The 1st man was bloody with head and body wounds and was being held in a sitting position. He was conscious and Emie was able to speak to him in dialect and he prayed with her to receive Jesus as Savior & Lord. The man across the street where the pool of blood was, almost had his leg severed at the knee and was very pale. He was still conscious and once again Emie shared with him in the native language and he softly prayed with her to receive Jesus as Savior & Lord. No ambulance from a nearby city had arrived yet and there were no medics or doctors in that area. The 1st man I would have estimated had a 90% chance of survival, but the 2nd man did not appear to have much hope of surviving.(he died 2 days later) But they both had been able to pray to God and ask Jesus to be their Savior & Lord.
As we have entered into the first weeks of our 19th year in missions, once again Emie and I and the ministry workers here in the Philippines would like to say “Thank-you so very much” for helping us share the gospel of Jesus Christ here in the Philippines and some other countries. People are being saved, strengthened and encouraged in their faith & service to the Lord, and helped in a variety of ways. Your prayers, encouragement, and financial investments in sharing the gospel is helping reach people for Jesus. Your faithful partnership is very important and greatly appreciated. We pray God richly blesses you.
In Christ’s love,
P.S. Please pray for God’s blessings upon Emie for her 50th birthday July 10th and our 18th wedding anniversary on July 23rd. Thanks Gordon & Emie
…the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” --James 5:16b NLT
P.S.S. Please Pray for us and the ministry workers: The requests are for God’s blessing upon the fruitfulness of the ministry outreaches, and for His protection, clear guidance & special anointing, and for provision & good health.
Also please pray that God will raise up 70+ more intercessory prayer partners to intercede for us and the Eternal Life Ministries International workers and partners; that together we can reach many more people for Christ.
Finances: This ministry from the beginning in 1992 has been a faith based ministry. We thank God for touching the hearts of faithful people to help us financially to share the gospel in the mission’s field in the Philippines and a few other countries. Please pray for the Lord to bless and reward all our current financial partners and for the Lord to raise up 35 new financial ministry partners; & that God will supply $1000. + in additional monthly donations to Eternal Life Ministries Int’l for the ministry outreaches to help in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need a breakthrough & help in that area.
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good work.” ---2 Cor. 9:8 Thanks again & God bless you always.
