Participants:
Series Code: AFM
Program Code: AFM000004
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00:43 Hi, I'm Jay Wintermeyer with Adventist Frontier Missions.
00:46 You know, we live in a world where we can communicate 00:49 with people anywhere instantly. Science and medicine have 00:51 advanced to the point where even the birth of a child 00:54 is being broken down into mollecular action. 00:56 What people once considered miraculous, many take for 01:00 granted. If scientists can explain it, people say God 01:03 isn't even involved. 01:04 I invite you to spend the next few minutes with me on a 01:06 journey to the Philippines. 01:18 On the Philippine island of Mindoro, lives a people known 01:22 as the Alangan. 01:24 This mountain tribe has worshipped evil spirits 01:26 for centuries. 01:30 In 1994, Adventist Frontier Missions began a project 01:34 reaching the Alangan with the gospel, training them to 01:37 share Jesus Christ with their own people. 01:39 Come with me to Mindoro and see for yourself if God 01:42 still works through miracles. 02:00 The Alangan village of Pandurukan is situated in a 02:04 small mountain valley on the edge of Makatikong river. 02:08 Each morning, cooking fires send up a blanket of smoke 02:11 that covers the primitive huts with a pale translucent haze. 02:20 My name is Bistacio and I live in Pandurukan. 02:25 One morning I woke up and began to build a cooking fire 02:29 for breakfast when I noticed that my house was 02:32 shaking. Our homes are built on platforms about the ground 02:37 and termites often eat the main supports, so we frequently 02:41 have to rebuild. 02:43 I decided that I would climb further up into the mountains 02:47 to find some good wood to replace the weakened 02:50 timbers. After breakfast, I made my way up the river valley 02:55 searching for the right-sized hardwoood trees. 02:58 I climbed higher and higher. 03:01 Earlier that same morning, something else awoke and began 03:05 to search for food. Slowly it slid out from behind a large 03:09 rock. The inky black scales rippled along the thick 03:13 eight-foot-long body. It was a Dupong viper. 03:16 This viper's venom is extremely poisonous. 03:20 Noiselessly, it glided along the ground searching 03:24 for food. 03:26 About the middle of the day, the stream bed I was hiking in 03:30 narrowed almost to a point. 03:33 As I made my way toward the 03:36 end, I noticed a stand of trees further up the mountain. 03:40 They looked just the right size. 03:45 The viper began to its way down the mountain searching 03:49 among the rocks and gravel for food. 03:53 Suddenly, the snake detected movement. 03:56 It crawled behind a large rock and waited. 04:00 I came to the end of the canyon and started to 04:03 climb the rock wall. 04:05 I climbed up to a ledge almost 50 feet above the 04:09 canyon floor. It was about five feet wide. 04:14 Beady black eyes followed Bastacio's every move. 04:18 Suddenly, the snake began to move forward rapidly. 04:22 I had just stopped at the ledge to catch my breath. 04:26 I looked up at the wall to plan my route to the top 04:30 when all of a sudden an enormous black snake 04:32 hurtled down directly towards me. 04:35 I screamed, "Jesus, save me!" 04:41 When I didn't feel anything hit me, I opened my eyes. 04:45 The snake was gone. I looked around the ledge 04:49 but there was no snake. 04:51 I searched the rocks below and further up the rock wall 04:56 but I didn't find it. 04:58 The snake had vanished. 05:01 I went home praising God for saving me 05:05 from certain death. 05:25 Ramon grew up high in the mountains of Mindoro. 05:28 One day a friend from his village came home with a Bible. 05:35 I could hardly believe it - a real book that talked to you? 05:41 I begged Lunito to make it talk for me. 05:44 He proudly opened the Bible and slowly traced the words 05:48 with his fingers. "In the beginning, God 05:52 created the heavens and the earth. 05:57 In the weeks and months that followed, Ramon watched 05:59 Lunito read the Bible. Lunito read about the powerful 06:03 God who answered prayers. Ramon decided to see if God 06:06 would answer his prayer. 06:09 "God," I prayed, "I want to learn to read as fast 06:12 as I can and to be able to write fast and neat. " 06:17 Amazingly, he soon began to pick out letters and words 06:20 Before long he was reading and writing on his own. 06:24 God had answered his prayer and taught him to 06:26 read and write. 06:28 God did care about him. 06:31 One day Ramon heard there were missionaries living in 06:34 Pandurukan. It only took one visit to the little village 06:37 at the foot of the mountains to light a burning desire in 06:40 his heart to know more about God and the Bible. 06:43 He longed to move to Pandurukan, but the elders 06:46 in his village refused. 06:48 One night Ramon had a dream. 06:52 Jesus stood before me. He was clothed in brilliant 06:55 white light. "Why have you called me?" Jesus asked. 06:59 "Oh, Jesus!" I cried. "I want to live in Pandurukan 07:03 so I can go to church and learn the answers 07:06 to my questions. " 07:07 "Don't worry, Ramon," Jesus said. "Soon you will 07:12 move there. " And He pointed over His shoulder in the 07:15 direction of Pandurukan. 07:17 Slowly the dream faded, and I woke up. 07:21 Ramon's desire to move to Pandurukan grew but the 07:25 elders still refused to let him move. 07:28 Then one day his wife, Dulian, fell to the floor of their hut, 07:31 unconscious. When she awoke, she had lost all feeling and 07:35 strength in the left side of her body. She had a hard 07:38 time breathing. Ramon was terrified and immediately 07:41 began praying for her healing. However, as the days slipped 07:44 into weeks and the village elders performed spirit 07:47 ceremonies, Dulian did not get better. 07:50 Finally, the village elders met to discuss the situation. 07:53 They decided Dulian wasn't getting better because Ramon 07:56 was reading the Bible. 08:00 I was devastated. How could I stop reading the Bible? 08:05 At last, I reluctantly promised to stop. However, late at night 08:10 after everyone was asleep, I would pull my blanket up 08:14 over my head and use my flashlight to read. 08:18 Weeks turned into months, but still there was no change 08:21 in Dulian's condition. One night, the village elders 08:24 caught Ramon reading. "Ramon, you will have to 08:27 stop reading the Bible! Don't you want you wife 08:29 to get well?" 08:31 Reluctantly, Ramon put the Bible away and didn't pray 08:34 or read the Bible for three months. 08:37 The elders continued Dulian's treatments with no results. 08:42 I became very discouraged. Why hadn't Jesus heard me 08:48 and healed my wife? Perhaps the old men are 08:51 right and there is nothing to this Jesus. 08:54 That night I had another dream that gave me the 08:58 desire to read the Bible and pray again. 09:00 One evening as Ramon was reading from the Old Testament, 09:03 the thought came to him that the patriarchs build altars 09:06 before they prayed. Why shouldn't he try it? 09:09 The next morning I hiked to a remote, secluded place 09:13 and began to construct an altar. When I was finished, 09:17 I dropped to my knees, clasped my hands together, 09:20 and poured out my request for healing for Dulian. 09:28 When I walked in the door, Dulian was sitting upright. 09:32 The hair on the back of my neck stood up. "Dulian!" 09:35 "You're well! How did this happen?" 09:38 "A little while ago," Dulian said, "I just felt like 09:41 sitting up. I can breathe fine now, see?" 09:45 And she took a deep breath. 09:49 Dulian's strength gradually returned until she was 09:51 working and walking as if she had never been ill. 09:55 Ramon's wish to move to Pandurukan grew even stronger. 09:58 But, the elders still refused to let them leave. 10:02 Then one day, after Ramon helped save the lives of many 10:05 sick children in the village, the elders allowed his family 10:08 to move to Pandurukan. 10:09 Within two weeks, he along with six other young men, 10:12 was baptized in a stream near the Amnay River. 10:17 Ramon has a heart for the Alangan people, and it seems 10:20 that God, through dreams and life experiences, has been 10:23 preparing Ramon to be a leader among the Alangan. 10:26 After Ramon moved to Pandurukan and was baptized, 10:29 he continued praying for the people of his village. 10:32 Time after time he visited with them and invited them to move 10:35 to Pandurukan so they could learn about God and the Bible. 10:38 Eventually, Ramon was able to see his entire village move 10:42 to Pandurukan, and all of the elders who once opposed 10:44 his reading the Bible and his move to Pandurukan, 10:47 were baptized. Today Ramon plays a key role 10:50 in the Alangan Seventh-day Adventist church. 11:00 I went to use the jeep and I started it up 11:03 and it had no oil pressure. 11:04 Sometimes things look the darkest before dawn. 11:14 One Sabbath we had a fellowship in Sablayan. 11:17 Usually the lowlander fellowships would try to 11:21 run a shuttle service with our jeep so that all the 11:24 church members in all the different Mangyan villages 11:27 could also attend. And so, this particular 11:29 Sabbath, Curtis was driving the jeep. During the dry 11:33 season, we like to use the shortcut through the Patrick 11:36 River. The problem is there are some deep canals that you have 11:40 to go in. And it had rained the night before, I believe, 11:43 so there was lots of water there. 11:45 Curtis had a jeep full of about 60-70 people, 11:49 so it was really loaded down. 11:50 And I think what happened is when it went down into the 11:53 water, it sucked up some of the water into the air 11:56 filter. And when it did that, it tried to burn the water 12:00 which raised the crankcase pressure and it blew the oil 12:04 cap off. Then when that happened, the increased 12:08 pressure as he drove along... the oil was just coming out 12:11 of the engine. He kept on driving, went to Sablayan, 12:14 people got off, we had a real good fellowship. We had some 12:18 baptisms. At about four-o'clock in the afternoon, they all 12:22 piled back on the jeep, and the jeep went back 12:25 through all those river crossings. 12:27 Well, Sunday morning I went to use the jeep and I 12:30 started it up and it had no oil pressure and it 12:34 sounded pretty bad. So I looked and pulled the 12:37 dipstick off and there was no oil on the dipstick. 12:40 And I thought, "Oh, no. The jeep engine is fried. " 12:46 I have worked in the automotive industry for 12:50 a good many years, and I have seen a lot of 12:53 vehicles that have gone through deep water and 12:56 sucked up water in the air intake systems. 12:59 I have never actually seen an engine run once 13:02 it got water in its cylinders. It usually destroys 13:06 the engine. So I got my oil pan and crawled under 13:09 the jeep and I drained pan after pan of nothing but 13:13 water and milk, which is like oil mixed with water. 13:16 At least two or two and a half of thoses were almost 13:20 clear - just like straight water. 13:21 After all of the water was out of the engine, there 13:25 was just like a drop, drop, drop... and that was all the oil 13:29 that was in the engine. 13:30 I thought, "Oh, no. Here we've just fried this vehicle. " 13:35 Sunday morning Tim kept coming up with bulletins 13:37 about how bad it was and how there was really no 13:40 oil and how there was water in everything. And there was 13:44 water every time he changed the oil. And he kept 13:46 going down to the nearest place to buy oil, and he would 13:48 buy more oil and he would come back and say, "I gotta 13:51 do it again. " That first little light was after the first water 13:54 was taken out. And he put the oil back in and he tried 13:57 to start the jeep. I think I probably went running down 14:00 there and said, "Is it really running?" Because we just 14:03 couldn't believe it would run again. So that was 14:04 exciting. We were so thrilled! 14:08 At the end of the day we pulled the jeep out of 14:11 the garage, out of the shed, and we called all the village 14:14 "Anybody who wants a ride?" And we all went to Palipappa, 14:17 the little market two kilometers away, just to see if it would 14:20 run. And sure - it ran the whole way, and we were 14:22 praising God. 14:25 You know, when I started the jeep up, the final time 14:28 with all the oil in it... smooth as silk, no knock, 14:31 no, no, any... I can't detect any difference in the engine 14:36 or in its power. It's not burning any oil. It's a 14:40 total miracle that it could have gone 50-60 kilometers 14:44 with no oil in the engine. It was wonderful. 15:10 I have worshiped the spirits all my life. When I got sick, 15:15 I would go to the witch doctor for healing. 15:18 Usually, he would kill a chicken and brush its wings 15:22 back and forth across my body as he prayed 15:25 to his favorite spirit. 15:30 It always seemed to work. 15:32 Well, there was a dry spell where we didn't have any 15:35 rain for quite a few months. And so all the Mangyan 15:39 mountain farms dried up and so they were very, very hungry. 15:43 Many people died of starvation. 15:48 We were so hungry, I decided it would be better 15:52 to kill one of the lowlander carabao than starve 15:56 to death. I took a few men with me and we went 16:00 down to where the carabao were grazing. 16:02 I knew it was wrong, but we killed some carabao anyway. 16:06 I don't know exactly whether they killed all three 16:09 in one night or whether they killed one one night 16:11 and one the next week and another the next week. 16:14 But, anyway, a total of three carabao were killed. 16:18 Of course, when the owners learned that their carabao 16:22 were dead, they were furious! 16:25 Groups of lowlanders made midnight raids on our villages. 16:29 They stole our goats and other livestock. They even 16:33 threatened to kill us. Finally, the mayor of the 16:37 biggest lowlander city near our village called a meeting. 16:41 So what happened is the mayor said those people 16:44 will pay for those carabao. They found out who actually did 16:47 the killing, and then they fined them either in a carabao 16:51 or the money to buy the equivalent carabao. 16:53 They took up a collection from all the villages and 16:56 payed off the fine and payed off the carabao. 16:58 Then those responsible had to work off their debt to 17:04 these other villages. Well, Mintu was assigned 17:08 to Pandurukan. 17:10 Rosita and I moved to Pandurukan to work off my debt. 17:15 One morning, I heard singing. It wasn't like most Alangan 17:20 songs, so I got up to invesigate. It was coming 17:24 from a building on the edge of the village. 17:28 Peeping around the door of the building, I saw men, women and 17:32 children with clean, shining faces. I slipped into the back 17:36 row and listened. I watched as a missionary told 17:40 wonderful stories. I enjoyed it so much; 17:44 I decided to come again. 17:49 Rosita never came with me, but at night I would share 17:53 what I had learned with her. 17:56 Not long after our arrival in Pandurukan, Rosita 18:00 and I had a little baby boy. We named him Simon. 18:04 When he was four months old, Simon got a cold. 18:07 He sniffled and shook his little head trying to breathe 18:12 easier. Nothing we did seemed to help. 18:16 In fact, it wasn't long before Simon had Pneumonia. 18:21 Rosita and I considered asking a witch doctor to 18:25 perform a spirit ceremony to fight the spirits, 18:28 but something inside me made me hesitate. 18:32 I knew from listening in church, that God was more 18:37 powerful than all the spirits. The next Sabbath 18:41 I asked the church members to pray for Simon. 18:44 Dawn Holbrook began giving him medicine and 18:48 steam treatments. 18:50 Sabbath afternoon we were in our AY afternoon program. 18:53 Suddenly, someone came running over to the AY and said, 18:56 "Ma'am, hurry up! Come quick! Simon is really sick. " 18:59 So I went with them. I could not believe how 19:02 he looked. It was not the same fat little healthy boy 19:04 I had started on an antibiotic yesterday. 19:06 He was sick. He was struggling to breathe. He was too weak 19:10 to even cough. He was laying flat in the hammock and that's 19:13 just really hard when you're having difficulty breathing. 19:16 So I had his mother sit him up, sit in the hammock, and 19:18 hold him upright in her lap. And I listened and there 19:21 was hardly any air moving in his lungs. 19:24 He was so sick his lips were turning blue and 19:26 his fingernails were blue. I prayed with Rosita that 19:29 he would be given life until the time that the 19:32 medicine would work. He was getting worse, 19:34 and getting worse and worse. 19:38 Simon was dying. His little face was pinched 19:43 and blue. Gradually, he became weaker. 19:47 His pulse flickered and faded. The end was very near. 19:53 Mintu said, "Pray for him!" So we prayed together and 19:57 I looked up and his head was drooping down and 19:59 his eyes were glazed over like they often do just before 20:02 they die. And he was just really struggling to move 20:06 any air. Just then, his head dropped onto his chest 20:10 and he wasn't breathing. Mintu said afterwards that 20:14 his pulse stopped. 20:15 Tim and Dawn and Libritu, one of the church elders, 20:19 knelt around Simon. We all bowed our heads 20:23 and prayed for Simon's healing. 20:27 When we finished praying, I could feel Simon's pulse again! 20:31 For hours we sat there and as he got better and 20:34 better, pretty soon they said, "You know, it's getting dark. " 20:37 It was sundown by now. "Why don't you go home?" 20:39 He's doing okay. " And the mother started 20:41 cooking supper and the villagers started dispersing. 20:44 So I went home and we praised God that Simon 20:47 was alive. Then I went back at eight o'clock and the 20:50 picture had totally changed. Simon was laying on a bamboo 20:53 mat on the floor. He was lying flat on his back. 20:56 His breathing was normal. There were no retractions 21:00 of his neck muscles or his chest. His eyes were bright 21:03 clear and brown. His skin was just the normal soft, 21:07 baby soft brown and he looked at me and smiled 21:10 as if he knew what had happened. 21:12 The following Sabbath, Rosita and a smiling, 21:17 healthy Simon came with me to church. 21:20 I shared how God had healed Simon and how 21:23 Rosita was now coming to church. 21:25 God allowed me to commit a serious crime, 21:29 used that crime to bring me to live in a place 21:32 where I could hear the gospel, and then allowed 21:35 my only boy to nearly die, all to show His 21:39 mighty power and cause my faith to grow. 21:42 That is the greatest miracle. 22:05 One night Lunito came up to our door and 22:09 gave us a bunch of bananas. And we started 22:14 talking, and he told us that we had a fire and 22:18 "God saved me. " 22:19 And we said, "You had a fire and God saved you?" 22:23 "Tell us about it. " 22:24 He was out building a rice paddy in the delta 22:29 area of the Amnay River. 22:31 One day he was working there and Atorney 22:35 one of the young people was helping him and 22:38 also an old man who has TB that Lunito 22:43 has been treating... They built a little doghouse like - 22:47 I call them dog houses - they are little... just a piece of 22:50 thatching maybe four feet high, and that's where 22:54 they stay at night. 22:55 Well, the old man and Atorney were sitting 22:57 in there cooking their noon meal. But all of a sudden 23:00 Atorney and the old man smelled smoke, and so 23:03 they look out behind their house, and here's 23:06 this wall of flame coming down towards them. 23:09 This fire was like a mile long and about, you know, 23:15 30-40 feet high. 23:16 And the wind was blowing it directly towards them. 23:22 And they call, "Lunito! Lunito!" But he doesn't hear 23:26 them because he is so far away and he is busy 23:29 working and clearing. They keep hollering 23:32 at him, and Lunito never looks up until he smells 23:35 the smoke. And then he looks up and he sees this 23:38 wall of fire. And he just runs toward the hut. 23:42 He grabs his knife and tells Atorney to start 23:45 clearing a space around the huts so that maybe 23:48 the fire will jump over. Well, after a few minutes 23:51 they realize there is no way they are going 23:53 to do that with this wall of flame coming 23:56 towards them. So what they did is he sent 23:58 Atorney back to the hut and he stood 24:01 between the hut and the wall of flame. 24:04 The fire came within a foot of my huts. 24:08 There was nothing I could do, so I prayed, 24:11 "God, if You want us to live, please save us. " 24:16 Immediately after I prayed, a wind came from behind 24:20 me and blew straight into the fire. 24:24 When he prayed, the fire had come up within 24:26 a foot of his hut. 24:30 The fire split in two and went over and around the huts. 24:36 The winds were so forceful that you could see 24:39 smoke and stuff swirling on the edges, and he could hear 24:42 the howling of the wind as the two winds hit. 24:47 So when I heard that, I was sick with Malaria 24:49 and I was really hardly moving. But I said, 24:52 "This I got to see!" 24:56 So the next day we took Lunito and Dawn and 24:59 myself and John and got in the jeep and drove out as far as we 25:02 could and then hiked in quite a way. 25:04 We walked through some rice paddies and just kept 25:08 walking and walking and pretty soon it just 25:11 got into a dry river bed. He said, "Now here is 25:14 where I plow. " And we walked across 25:15 and where the plowing stopped, There was just the saw 25:19 grass standing - a little bit of it - but it was just black. 25:22 All the canes were just black all up and down. 25:24 He said, "This is where the fire was. " 25:26 There was his little hut, and the clearing was 25:29 maybe 20 feet across, and we walked until we came 25:33 to the hut. We were walking through black that had been 25:35 charred and burned. We came to the first 25:37 hut and we walked out onto new sand. 25:39 And we looked at the spot and sure enough. The hut was 25:43 right here - six inches away from the back of the hut 25:49 there was a line of black grass, just charred ground. 25:53 And then you could see on the sides where the fire 25:58 continued on down. 25:59 This brown dry grass had no ashes on it. 26:02 None of the grass had been touched. Cinders 26:05 hadn't blown over, the ashes hadn't blown in. 26:08 And Lunito was showing me there's - it was maybe this far 26:11 between a tree and his house. And I walked all the way around 26:14 them, and you can see the grass coming up to behind 26:17 their house is black. And right at the house, 26:20 almost where the grass is going going off into the ground 26:24 almost to that very thatching, it's black. 26:27 We didn't see how that could happen other than 26:30 it was a total miracle. 26:31 It just gave me goosebumps to be there. 26:35 I'm thankful that God sent the cold wind to spare our 26:39 lives, so I can continue to serve Him. 26:54 These stories and countless others like them are ample 26:57 evidence that God is working mightily among the Alangan. 27:00 Miracles? If you ask Lunito, 27:03 he will tell you he has witnessed with his own eyes 27:05 God's hand at work. 27:07 Ask Mintu or Ramon, and they will tell you the 27:11 same thing. 27:12 God works through miracles today. 27:20 Adventist Frontier Missions trains and equips ordinary 27:23 people for the extraordinary task of reaching into 27:26 unreached people groups, raising up new believers 27:29 and planting growing churches. Just like Tim and Dawn 27:32 Holbrook, AFM has dozens of other missionaries 27:34 around the world, raising up new believers in unreached 27:37 people groups. 27:39 Would you like to make a significant impact on 27:41 the world for Christ through missions? 27:42 There are three ways you can do that. 27:44 First of all, you can pray. Jesus asked us to pray. 27:48 He said, "Pray for the harvest, for the harvest is great, but 27:50 the laborers are few. " 27:52 The second thing you can do is answer Christ's call in 27:54 Matthew 28. And that's to reach the unreached. 27:57 Go and be a missionary. There are thousands of 28:00 people groups around the world. Approximately 10,000 28:03 unreached people groups - and you can make a difference. 28:06 Finally, you could be a missionary sender. 28:09 AFM and all of our missionaries are entirely supported by 28:13 generous gifts from people just like you. 28:15 If you would like some more information, 28:20 our phone numbers is 1-800-YES-4AFM. 28:23 You can also visit our website at 28:27 www. afmonline. org |
Revised 2014-12-17