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0:48Philippines, right there in the middle, there's about 7,000 islands. There's just about a dozen major islands, and then there's just a bajillion just little islands in there. So this is the main island of the Philippines. You can see Manila, it's the capital. And then about halfway up, there's a little town called Baguio, and that's up in the mountains. Those were the two towns where we were. This was Higher Rock Christian Church in Manila. That was the, we got there the first Saturday that we were there. Tom did an all-day teaching. In fact, he taught, I think I kind of. Tallied it up, and he did about 24-ish total hours of teaching over about a 10-day period, probably to maybe a thousand different people.

1:41Those are not hard numbers, but that gives you some idea. Basically, it was a teaching tour for our pastor. So, that Saturday, he did an all-day seminar on the sufficiency, the clarity, the authority of Scripture, and just sort of why we preach Christ alone, scripture alone, and the importance of that, not just from the pulpit, but for the church to be that kind of church. This was outside Sunday morning there in an office building, basically in the middle of downtown downtown Manila.

2:16Monday night, he taught the preaching one course at Higher Rock that's for the Expositors Academy, which is the TMAI affiliate seminary there. And they're the ones that actually got us over there teaching. And so, he was teaching this class, and there were how many different nationalities in there via Zoom? Four or five at least. Half a dozen. We had probably about 50 guys, 40 to 50 in class, and then at least that many via Zoom. You can kind of see on the Zoom screen, I mean, and that was, there were two screens like that in the back scan. Yeah.

2:56Yeah, some places we couldn't, yeah, they wouldn't let us come into as on. Evangelical purposes. So that was really neat to see all of these guys. This is just some of the view of some of the guys in the class in person. And then Wednesday, he did a marriage seminar without his wife, which was challenging. But this was at the International Baptist Church Manila, which is at another area in downtown. Downtown Manila is just sort of sprawling. You can look out at just building after building. There's big buildings all as far as the eye can see. And the intersections, you can imagine a typical intersection in our streets. You've got a couple of four-lane roads coming together, crosswalks, and all that, but zero control, like no stop signs, no traffic lights, no blinking lights, no nothing. Everybody just sort of comes up to the intersection and they just, I call it schmoozing. You just, everybody just kind of schmoozes through the intersection, and it works. I don't know how, but it works. And we didn't see any wrecks. We weren't in any wrecks. But apparently, you know, but one consequence of that is basically if you're going to go five miles across town, it's going to take you an hour. I mean, you just, you just, it's, it's about ten minutes per mile, you know, if you're making good time.

4:25This is a Southern Baptist church that was, I think, planted by the IMB. Did an all-day marriage seminar. It was all day Wednesday on a Wednesday, and there were 100 plus people there. And they all were they all wished that Nancy had been there as well, but you know, it was they they got mu they got the gist of it anyway. I don't know, they really appreciated it. Uh there's a good action shot. Uh and then uh let's see, Thursday was another teaching. All the cell groups for Higher Rock did another teaching time with them. Then we drove on Friday we drove to Baggio, which was about a five-hour, four and a half hour drive up in the mountains, not quite a mile high. There used to be, well, the American military built an RR camp up there. It's got a Nicholas golf course. I mean, it's pretty swank and or bougie, as as Elise likes to say.

5:31It's beautiful up there. It's like being in the East Texas piney woods, but you're on a mountain. And they've got these nice hotels up there. And the houses, that picture at the beginning was just, you can see the houses just on the hillsides. Guiding Light Christian Church was our host up there. Let me go back. Nope, where am I? Oh, man. I just, nope, nope. Let's see. We backed up. There we are at Guiding Light. Yeah. Okay, there we go.

6:00They've got a big building. It kind of has a warehouse vibe to it, but it has a balcony that's unfinished, and they have a lot of space, so there's a lot of things they can do. He did basically the same thing that he did the Saturday before, an all-day seminar there and packed the house. Just a bunch of people did a few book signings. They love his hermeneutics for the rest of us, the Jesus, the Alpha and Omega Bible Study. They've gotten a hold of a bunch of those. I guess, did we send some over to they printed a bunch of them over there, and they just loved it. So, I mean, he was sort of a celebrity, which was kind of fun, you know.

6:42We went and visited. Anyone heard of Faith Academy? I think it's the biggest missionary K-12 in the world. It's huge. It's been there for a long time, I think since 1957. We got to tour that campus, which was really neat. They have boarding facilities, and it's run by missionaries. It's really for missionaries, but they do allow some others in there. But really a fantastic facility there. Got to tour old Manila. Manila was originally the Spanish were there for hundreds of years. They built really a fort, a large fort, and a wall, and the wall is still there. So that was fun. We got to tour all of that and see the history.

7:31Yeah, MacArthur. This is in the Manila Hotel. It's where General Douglas MacArthur stayed. He and his family took up the entire fifth floor of the hotel. He went there in the 30s. We sent him over after we bought the Philippines from Spain after the Spanish-American War for $20 million and then came up with a 10-year plan for them to get to full independence, sent MacArthur over there to train their troops and help them do that. And so he was living there when World War II happened. And so then you would be more familiar with the story of MacArthur at that point. But this was, you know, MacArthur slept here. And apparently, Dr. John visited the Philippines, and he is a distant relative. And so they let him stay here free. So both MacArthurs have slept in that bed.

8:19And then MacArthur and Elise both sat at that desk. And then we got to visit the Manila American Cemetery, which is the largest American cemetery that's not on U.S. soil, I think, basically. It's the largest one anywhere. Very impressive, sobering. Looking for names on the walls. What's really it was encouraging because they have these walls. I have some pictures somewhere of some of the walls, and they just have the names of the missing on all these walls. This huge monument to the missing.

9:00Missing in action from World War II. And a lot of the names now have a little emblem that they've stuck next to them, and they've managed to identify a lot of the remains. So it's encouraging to see more and more of those. You know, the work is still going on to this day now that we have DNA and things like that, that they can identify some folks. All right, this, the church there, Higher Rock, ministers to these folks. These people are, they basically, they're homeless people that have built a community. This is a cemetery.

9:36This is basically like an outdoor mausoleum. Every one of those little boxes has a body in it. And this is just the street through it's a public cemetery. You can see some of the boxes are open. There's nothing in there, but they'll store things in there. They'll have building supplies or personal belongings or something. And you can see some shanties that are built up on top. And it's hard to see, kind of in the middle, right in front of, above that guy's head on the left, there's a little sign. There's a gap between the two blocks of tombs. And the gap is not much wider than the pulpit here.

10:12You could fit motorcycle handlebars because they did. But there's just this narrow passageway, and it goes back, and then it splits off two other directions, and you're just going through this maze back there. And they've built little houses, little dwelling places. Here and there, it opens up, and they'll have chickens, or they'll have. Doves in cages or whatever, and they've just kind of built a place for them to live there. And you can see the, I don't know if you can see the blue stuff strung across the street. There's PEX tubing and electrical wire. They've tapped into city services and brought power and water, so they have limited access to that sort of thing. They have coin-op Wi-Fi, so you can go plug a coin into a box on the wall, and you'll get internet access for a few minutes. So really rough conditions, and the church goes in and ministers to these folks. We were passing out vouchers and flyers for some medical services that they're going to do later this month. And Elise was a celebrity there because none of them had ever seen a tall, blonde American girl up close and personal. And so the kids really were just, they were enthralled. So, in fact, all the folks at the church say, we need to bring you because they're used to us. They don't come see us anymore, but they will come see you.

11:32Oh, man. Okay. Now, Balut. Anybody know what Balut is? Anyone had Balut? All right. Good, we are. Yes. They let a duck egg, they get a fertilized duck egg and they let it develop until just before it gets starts getting feathers in there, and then they boil it. And then you have to, you crack the top of it off and Drink the juice. It's kind of like duck soup. And that's not too bad. And then you put salt on it.

12:07And that's what you look like after you eat balut. Yeah. And September 1st in the Philippines, Christmas starts. So these were all in the hotels. And Elise decided that she's going to have her wedding there. Whenever she gets married, eventually, it's going to be over there because there's so much Christmas. It's, you know, I think Tom told her what she needs to do is go ahead and move over there and, you know, find a local guy and make friends there. So then you don't have to fly a bunch of people over. Yeah, more cost-effective that way. And in fact, we know a guy who's a good pancake chef who would, I think it was so funny. This guy at the hotel, who was the guy that was making omelets and pancakes, we would go over and get a pancake and we would get a pancake. Elise would go get a pancake and she would get a work of art. I mean, it was like a heart-shaped pancake and it had like swirls of chocolate and strawberries and all this. Like, what in the world? And we figured pancake guy was, you know, I told her she needed to tell him if pancake was a good guy. Guy's going to make you another pancake. He needs to talk to your dad first.

13:36But these are some of the opportunities. One of the big takeaways that I had, I'm going to get Elise to, is Elise in here? Where is Elise? Oh, she's hiding in the back. Oh, good. I'm going to get Elise. You can make your way up here, but kind of my big takeaway was just it was super encouraging to see a vibrant, healthy, growing local church that is proclaiming the name of Christ. A sister church, they do things a lot, very similar to the way we do them.

14:08They believe the same way we do, and just to see them having an impact in their community, that was just really exciting. So there's some things that we see that we can do. They're ministering to an Indigenous tribe there that's kind of up in the mountains. They don't have any access to water. I think they have to walk a number of miles to get fresh water. And so they want to do a water well. And so we're going to look into the possibility of doing a project like that with them. And then other things were just some seminars that we might do similar to what we did this trip, just take a small team to do some teaching and some things like that. But in general, I mean, the church is just doing great. I mean, they really don't need a lot of help. That's just really fun to spend some time. Elise, what was your you want to give your takeaway? What's your Big couple of takeaways.

15:06Oh my goodness. Um so there's a couple of like there's so many cool things about the Philippines, but I think like my top two like most meaningful things about the Philippines was probably like how like just the people, like the churches there, like it's crazy to see how much they love Christ and how hard their lives are, and yet they're still so passionate about the word. Like all three churches like welcomed us super nicely and they were like super they I noticed they had a particular love for missions. Like they have a lot of different like Mr. Garner and I went and joined the First Fruits Ministries which was just crazy. And like what they're doing is we gave out like vouchers, like tickets and then like on October 14th or something they go there and get like a checkup from the doctors in the local church. And it's just like the church is like paying for all of the supplies and such. And I'd also say like another meaningful thing was just the history of the Philippines, like the war and I just I never really thought about how much history is involved in the Philippines. And it was really cool to see like that memorial place that we went to. It was very like um sobering and eye-opening just to see how many people like gave their life in the war and such. And I think there was like 17,000 people had died. Like Americans or bullshit.

16:42There were what 17,000 listed. Yeah, and it was just it was crazy to see like you'd walk through those um what were those like things like where you see all the people missing in action. There was like this whole place of just names and there was just so many people, like just like so many names. And it was just very like sobering and it's cool to see because the Philippines remember the history pretty well, so it was really easy to connect with them because they all love Americans. And so yeah, I'd probably say those were like my top two most meaningful things. But it was just a really good trip overall. Just getting to know Mr. Gardner and, you know, it was solid. But yeah, and we met like so many godly and nice people and they're just doing it's just encouraging to see how much like good work they're doing over there in the Philippines. So I'd say it was a pretty successful trip overall. But yeah.

17:36Yeah. It was good. Yeah, the Filipinos, kind of their bird's eye view of history was that the Spanish came in and taught them how to be slaves and the Americans came in and taught them how to be independent. And so they really like Americans, which was really nice for us. Because we stick out like a sore thumb over there. So it's good to be liked. All right, that's all we have. Tom? Oh, yeah, any questions? Anybody got any?

18:06Nothing. We did a great job. We answered all the questions. Well, good evening. Howdy. It was a very special trip trying to, again, what John said, churches and being ministering with churches. Maybe we may get some of the church leadership over here to spend some time with us this spring. But a lot of things happening over there, a lot of opportunities for the future and ministry. They have certainly welcomed us back. There's really all levels of ministry involvement, medical missions, the wells, all that kind of stuff. But then just a lot of teaching opportunities and that kind of thing. So be in prayer about the kind of about going, perhaps, getting involved a little more with our missions program, what we have going through here at the church. I really appreciate John Gardner. I wouldn't take these trips. Without him, it's a lot to put together and it's a lot to have happen. And so, I encourage you all to be in prayer for the missions ministry here at Emmanuel. We have standing invitations to be involved really around the globe and various levels that we can help. And so, I would encourage you to think and pray and to be mindful of how you can participate.

20:01And I just recommend going on some of these short-term trips. I think it will give you a vision for the church at large, church around the world, and what a joy it is to be involved. And you can talk to me, you can talk to John, and we have mission sites requested to be in Africa. We've been against that standing invitation to be in Africa, to a lot going on in Latin America, and now with the Philippines, a lot there and other places as well. We have invitations. We're trying to just pick a few and try to, with the resources and time that we have, try to be careful and be able to provide meaningful help when we do. So, across the board, There's needs. We need senders, we need goers, and we need prayers. And so those are the spectrum. So, well, anybody have a question? I've got a little bit of things I can talk about. Yes, ma'am.

21:23Do they all speak English? Pretty much they all understand English. I preached a Tagalog service, and really they speak so much English, even the Tagalog can understand it. It's a lot of taggish. It's kind of a back and forth. But it's interesting because the language is very similar to, or I hear a lot of the same words that we use in Spanish. After 300 years of Spanish occupied, they pick up a lot of Spanish. And so a lot of the words are Spanish and a mixture, kind of a confluence of words. But for the most part, yes, they speak English, and certainly they understand English. And so talk a little bit about the significance of the Philippines and the strategic importance in terms of the TMAI mission to that part of the report. Yes.

22:25What has happened over there is for whatever rea they there it's strategically located in Asia there, but there are so many countries that are seeking help and involvement and the training center there for pastors, you saw me teaching, they are touching countries, Cambodia, Myanmar, of course, which is in full civil war right now, but there was in that in that class people from Myanmar, pastors, Pakistan. I mean, you can't try to get into Pakistan with a gospel message. And there I am over there teaching pastors there from Pakistan on the line. And so that is and that's what this training center is set up for. It has connected well with an Indonesia, just and Malaysia. These countries were all represented there and beyond. And it's very strategically located. And we're connecting with churches, good Bible-believing churches that you would and throughout, and in places that you wouldn't imagine a witness, a little body like this would and just right there. And connecting with the ministry, and so very strategically located for ministering in Asia.

24:11Thank you. Yes? Are there any restrictions there as far as like do they have like open religious freedom to take the gospel to like the on-reach people groups or do they have any sort of like limitation on who can go and that sort of thing? Okay, so you're you're let me repeat what you're you're asking are there restrictions in the Philippines themselves about where the gospel can go? There isn't that I'm aware of. They are now I know when you get further south it's much more Islamic and so they're they're met with a lot more hostility but this church that we're that we were connected with is doing a lot of active ministry down there and that's one place where they want to build put construct the water well to but they are a very aggressive in their missions outreach and that's what's exciting to see is the these churches are catching they are excited about the things that a church should be excited about and missions being one of them they are aggressive in their outreach as you saw the ministry among the tombs I never that was a new Shelf for me, seeing a whole civilization really in living in tombs, and really literally living in the tombs. And then this church having such a passion to reach them. And so I'm very much a strong supporter of church-to-church ministry. As we missions, our paradigm is to come under the local church to be part of that effort to strengthen local churches. And I think that's what you see in the book of Acts, a lot of the strengthening of churches and coming under that local leadership of those churches. And so, and they have a vision for the people groups. And yes, they are in the zone where there are unreached groups, and they are mindful. And part of this water well is involved with a group of people called the Ada people that haven't had a witness there for very long. It might even, not too long ago, they probably may have been considered unreached. And the definition of unreached and reached is kind of fluid.

26:43But they do now have a witness, but largely, but certainly needing churches established and we're working with them, training with them, and being involved with the formation of the pastor. And that. So, not so much restrictions in the Philippines. But now, taking a trip to Pakistan is a little different. And taking a trip to Malaysia is a little different. And even Indonesia parts. But we're doing Cambodia. I mean, you talk about a history there. I've just seen the gospel really advance where it is in the global south. It's very exciting to see. It's exciting to be part of. And we are part of it. And so I hope trips like this and you can think about being a sender, goer, or prayer. And it's really a way to touch the world from even where we live. Yes, sir. One more thing, and you can add to this, but it's a I'll stay it up to the missionist.

28:05They have biblical truth, biblical community, biblical mission. And this is part of the biblical mission aspect of our church. It can certainly be local missions, pioneers and water parties. We give the support at I and B and other Baptist missions. But this is one of our top-level, global missions. And it's a very At the low cost, we pay for two plane tickets. And Thomas goes over there and speaks to pastors in places that you can heard. And so I just want to also appreciate the amazing reach we have through TNA to reach people that otherwise we've not really reached. So that's a few important things. Yeah, I feel like it's an incredible situation that just, you know, we were complaining about how long it took to get over there. You know, it's a 14-hour flight. Imagine that, you know, just crossing the Pacific in 14 hours. It took us longer to get there, but even in 24-hour travel time. And they have set so much, because we're working with the church, we are able to step in, and I feel like the stage has been set for ministry on a very deep level. And they love our church. They love Americans. They loved John. They loved Elise. And these things, you think, well, I may not do very much, but I tell you, going over there and connecting with people, just having Elise there created a whole lot of other connections. Points.

30:02The ladies loved having Elise there. They took her around and spent a lot of time and poured a lot of time into her. The young ladies wanted to connect with her, and there's just friendships. And so, yeah, so there's life on life mission, and the stage is set. I feel like I come in and I'm able to teach a very aggressive time, but they've set all the stage up. It's almost like in years past, it would take a lifetime of a missionary to be able to work up to the kinds of opportunities that, when working through the local churches like this, that they just set up and they're so welcoming and so desirous. What they want from the people in the states is they want training, they want teaching.

31:02And then, when you can connect and add these other layers of connection, like water wells and the medical missions and the dental missions, and all that. And all these things are part of this church connecting with their community on many layers. And so, when we do go and we are part of it, we're advancing that work. Even if we're just doing a little bit, we're part of that. Effort and and but they set up a they take care of setting up the the stage, as I say, for ministry. And we can blow in and do a lot of teaching and then move on. And so it's a lot of mileage that we cover because we are connected with these churches. And so, again, that's a wonderful opportunity.

32:07Yes? What is the religious demographic there? Well, you have you can imagine with three hundred years of Spanish, you're going to have a large Catholic population. More recently, the charismatic movement, Pentecostal, has been there. And after a generation, you know, I think this is pretty true of the Global South that I've seen anecdotally, and that's all I can and others that have been there, that I hear. You have the Pentecostal movement, and really, in some ways, the charismatic and more of an Extreme charismatic than what you would typically think in the U.S. charismatic, but much more extreme.

33:10And that has been going on for 30 years, really. And what happens is, after a generation of that, some of the churches are like, we're looking for something, we want to go deeper into the Word, we want to be, and so that's where I feel like we are right now with a lot of that is there are people that are coming out of that Pentecostalism and wanting something a little more substantive of the Word. And they've had the emotional, the big, but that's still a very big element there. But there is somewhat of an exodus happening that I'm witnessing. People have kind of tired of that and left with a desire for more depth and training. And that's where we come in. Now there's in the global south and hearing it all over, give us, we want to understand the Bible, we want to understand how to proclaim it, and they're really coming to that. Beyond that, there is a strong Muslim population that is growing. And it is happening more in the south of the Philippines and continues to grow. And and certainly in Indonesia, very uh large areas of um you know Islam is and certainly Pakistan and uh the most so those are the demographics.

34:56Yes. Uh you mentioned uh some of the indigenous uh people some of the mountains that hate I think what are their names? Yes. Are they more of an animist uh like an older I mean like their old school religion phrase? I imagine. I don't I don't know. I didn't ask those questions what but but a lot of it is. A lot of that whole area is and so and even with uh Roman Catholicism you have a lot of the syncretism with the uh anim animism and it gets pretty extreme uh down there in some some places. Uh the syncretism is pretty pretty gross. There is uh cults down there is uh a uh a cult that um it's called the what was that that big major one called John?

35:52Inglesia de Cristo. Uh Iglesia de Cristo. Yeah, they call it the our guys are calling it the Iglesia. Yeah. They all have the same buildings. They own the stadium. They have these same buildings. And the idea is that Christ is going to return and the whole church building goes up with it. So everybody in the building, so the church, so they all have the same shape, very wealthy, and political parties when they come, they seek their support to help get them in office because they are pretty large. But it's so you have a lot of the cults and stuff like that. But largely, I would say Catholicism, charismatic, and then you have your Islamic in the South, and then you've got these growing Bible baptistic type ministries.

37:01You know, I think since it's 6:58, we'll probably call it an evening, and I won't get into what I have here, and we'll pick that up maybe at another time. But I appreciate you all in the churches, there sends their appreciation. I hope to have some of the pastors there come this spring and make. Or maybe from the International Baptist Church, the pastor is stateside now. May try to get him over here. But anyway, just it's a good time to be alive and be involved in these worldwide missions. And it's a good thing to occupy our time and days with. Let me pray. And I guess, and then let me show you one thing. You want to show me, you want to give me one thing they do there that was kind of unique.

38:07This is what they do with their frogs. They take their frogs and they can turn them into little purses. So if you, and it's a really neat bougie. So, anyway, if anybody wants to take a look at the bougie frog, I'll put them up here. So anyway. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for our church family. Thank you for the way you love us. And thank you for the way you love people around the world. And Father, it's a joy to be involved in what you're doing and just to even just catch a glimpse and hear what you're doing. These are good things and good days. Even though evil is all around, Father, we see your gospel. Taking territory. We see lives being changed. And Father, there is no boundary in your mind. And Father, we just thank you for the privilege of being your people. Be with us this week as we go and we witness and we seek to be the church in our community and seek to make you known. Help us, Father, to be that church that's committed to truth and committed to establishing and building and nurturing our community in the Word and being part of missions at home and abroad and everywhere else. Father, please go with us now. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.