JESUS HEALS TODAY!

Our international team of 20 who travelled to meet the beautiful people of the Philippines included Australians, Americans, South Africans, a Japanese and a Canadian. We came to freely distribute water filters to schools and remote villages in the province of East Samar.

To bring clean water for new life, we took a one-hour plane ride from Manilla and then a three-hour bus trip to Borongan, the Capital of the province of East Samar. From that base we would travel many hours each day, mainly by mini- van. We would visit poverty-stricken remote areas, sometimes also travel in small river boats, other times hiking kilometres over the hills in the steamy, hot weather. The Lord kept us all fit and well, which is nothing short of a miracle considering the condition of some of our backs!

When we arrived in the villages’ we went out in teams of two, just like Jesus sent out His disciples, but this time with one male and one female (plus a translator).

We would deliver a filter system to every 5th home who were willing to share with their neighbours. Calling them all together, we would say, “we come in the name of Jesus Christ who loves you and wants you well and that you no longer have to get sick or die because of unclean drinking water.”

Depending on the Holy Spirit leading we would sometimes demonstrate how the filter worked first and then demonstrate, Jesus heals, or vice versa. All teams reported, the vast majority of people prayed for were healed, or their condition significantly improved.

We would simply lay hands on them and, in faith, command “healing in the name of Jesus.”

The team were well prepared in advance for the trip. From the time of registration up to the time of departure, Impact Nations would regularly send from the word of God powerful teaching videos on healing and other forms of encouragement to overcome the lies of the enemy. This would raise our faith to know. “Yes, God could even use us.”

As part of the preparation there was an optional pre-mission weekend of intercession in Manila which powerfully fuelled our trip. I felt the Lord wanted me to participate in this when He perfectly opened up the dates for me to travel.

The team was great! We all knew, we are nothing without Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, and we are humbly and totally dependent on Him. Usually we would begin and end every day with group worship, prayer and declaration, bringing the glory to God.

When obedience and humility are joined, there is authority. God performed mighty miracles in our midst.

I was very aware of the compassion of Jesus flowing into and from my heart that the Lord so loves these beautiful people! He is actually there with the poor, the lowly and the broken-hearted. We just have to go and meet Him there, allowing ourselves to be His instruments.

In this way, I personally saw Jesus remove pain from arthritic knees and all sorts of body parts, open deaf ears and clear chests thus enabling people to breathe properly.

Jesus made feeling return to numb limbs. He dispelled dizziness from a family of four. Many had their vision restored. One Grandma who first said “I can see you are wearing blue” after prayer was able to read the telephone number in fine print from a business card.

One man permanently bent over double at almost 90 degrees was able to stand upright after one prayer. Every team member had amazing stories of being eye witnesses to the fact that Jesus still heals today.

The most important miracle of all is the miracle of Salvation. Once people could see the power of the name of Jesus and received healing, they wanted to know Him personally. The first day visiting villages, my partner and I counted 21 salvations. The second day in the villages there were 30 salvations for our team.

The third day, we went to a high school, we were told they understood English, and we could speak to them directly about Jesus. After (almost) everyone had raised their hands I felt I had to call the Pastor in to translate because I thought they didn’t really understand me. And he said “No, they all want Jesus.” I was overjoyed!

This continued in the next two classrooms that day. I stopped counting Salvations at that point as there were too many to count (class sizes are large in the Philippines!) And that was only our two- man team report on the one day of several days when all the teams spent time at schools.

There were also a few opportunities for open air crusades and it was so wonderful to see crowds make the decision to follow Jesus.

GOD IS SO GOOD! Oh, how we are blessed when we step out!

ALL GLORY BE UNTO THE LORD!

In all, we distributed 146 water filters in schools and villages that service 2,000 school children and 1,100 families, providing safe, clean water for the next 10-20 years.

(Further information: Eastern Samar regularly suffers heavily from powerful typhoons, with residents often having to rebuild their lives from scratch. This is a very poor area which has no regular supply of clean drinking water. If people want clean water, they have to buy bottled water, further impoverishing them. (The distributed water filters remove e-coli, botulism, cholera, typhoid, cryptosporidium, amoebic dysentery, salmonella, etc). Schools that received the water filters last year are reporting no recorded deaths of children and a huge decline in absenteeism.

https://impactnationsaustralia.org.au/projects/clean-water-for-philippines-schools/ )

~ Sue