After picking up groceries at the store, we witnessed a parade winding through the city streets. “It was almost robotic,” a team member remarked. This was our first encounter with lostness in the area, and it was a painful realization. Trucks adorned with flowers, a statue of a saint, and people singing while walking slowly with candles painted a vivid picture of the world we had just moved to. As we slowly drove by, it became all too real.
While walking through the city on an off day to travel from the mall to a nearby flower shop, we cut through a park that led us to the local Catholic church of the city. This was unlike the little churches we had passed by on the road. It was grand, it was decorated, it was heartbreaking.
“Mary was everywhere, I did not like that and it made me so sad,” Laurel recalled, “There were so many statues, it’s just so wrong to worship a statue of any kind.”
There was a vendor selling candles, reminding us of Matthew 21 when Jesus saw vendors in the temple and flipped tables.
Inside were a few people in pews, possibly praying, possibly searching for a feeling, possibly trying to find peace, but most definitely lost.
As we had been continuously praying for God to break our hearts for the lost each day, He truly did and continues to.
2 Corinthians 3:14-17 reminds us: "But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
Join us praying for freedom. For strongholds to be broken. Pray that the veil will be lifted from the eyes of the people of Bicol. Pray for the lost.