During Summer 2022, I served with Nehemiah Teams on Camiguin Island in the Philippines. About three weeks into the trip, our team was starting to lose steam and I especially felt overwhelmed & exhausted from living hardships and discouraging responses to the gospel. I even began to doubt God's willingness to perform miracles.
One day, as I sat at an ultimate low, I prayed to God and said "Lord, I can't keep asking you to show me something if I won't actually listen and look." So I decided to look, and that's when God brought Nanay Bibi.
Our team met Nanay on the narrow wall of a giant canal. She was struggling to get on the wall and when she saw us she cried out and said "Please help me, I have no food and my husband is sick." Later I learned that the reason she had no food or help was because her family had rejected her for abandoning the island's Catholic faith.
We immediately helped her back to her hut, since she was in no condition to be moving, let alone climbing. Then we shared the gospel with her and she broke down in tears.
When we told her that faith in Jesus meant she would have an eternal relationship with God now on Earth and forever in Heaven, she nodded her head eagerly and asked to have it. We prayed with her. When she opened her eyes we saw tears of joy in her eyes as she jumped and praised God! I had never seen such immediate faith in the few words we were able to share with her that day. A week after her salvation I received news that she had been baptized and is remaining as faithful to God as physically possible for someone in her condition.
Now, a year later, I've gotten to come back & see her once more and hear how she admitted she was ready to die that day. She said she was terrified of dying, but that she "just wanted to be with God forever." It was hard to listen and watch her recount her past because she was obviously in a lot more physical pain than before. Some of the men with us had to carry her to a seat just so she could come out. What really struck me about that whole encounter was that our team had made no intention to meet Nanay that day. We simply remained faithful in going and God answered my prayer by saying "I have some one special for you to meet, and I want you to tell her about me." I witnessed the miracle of this woman's salvation as she rested on her potential deathbed.
The problem with people in the same condition as Nanay is: first, there are few gospel proclaiming Christians going to the far reaches to find people like her, and secondly, there are few Christians willing to stay, disciple, and support new believers. I recall Mathew 9:37 when Jesus says "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."
-Nathaniel
Philippine Summer: Camiguin Island
Pray that God sends disciplining believers willing to testify to God's grace and minister to the needs of Camiguin Island. All it took was one faithful conversation for one more soul to be added to God's kingdom. Praise the Lord.