After an hour and half flight to Detroit, twelve hour flight to Nagoya, Japan, and four more hours to Manilla, I arrived in the Philippines in the early morning of July 15^th.  Though it was only a little after midnight the streets  of the city were still jammed.  Crammed into a taxi, our team of three Americans and one Canadian made our way down Edsa, the longest street in Manila to our hotel, an hour away.  The Eurotel could have been a hotel anywhere in the world, but when we exited its front doors the next morning we knew we were “not in Kansas” anymore.  The oppressive humidity made the air feel like soup and the overwhelming, unfamiliar smells guaranteed you were in a place you had never visited before.  Across the street was one of the many SM “super malls” strategically located along Manilla’s Metro Rail system. 

Our guides, Mark, a graduate student, and Eric, a pastor, introduced us to the city and their culture.  We rode the Metro, went through a street market, passed the Cathedral of the Black Nazarene (RC), rode a Jeepney, visited old Manilla and Intramuros, the walled city of Spanish colonial days.  We paid our respects to the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, who was martyred while peacefully advocating for freedom from Spanish tyranny.  We learned about their pre-Spanish history, and saw a treasure in gold at the Ayala museum in the heart of the swanky business district of Makati. And we saw squalid slums from the packed Metro as we headed home. 

The next day we rode south from Manilla to Tagaytay, a resort town on the rim of the lake-filled crater of the ancient Taal volcano.  We asked lots of questions about the culture, the economy, the educational system, and the state of the Christian church to prepare us for the next day when we would begin our actual mission: leading a week long retreat for pastors and youth leaders called Heart of the Leader (HOL).  In the evening we went by motorcycle cart to the staff house for Global Youth Ministry Network’s Asia office, met the GYMN team and had supper together.  Imagine having fifteen people for dinner and running water available only from 5-10 a.m.!  We ate the mandatory treat for foreigners: balut – duck’s eggs containing a fourteen day old duck embryo.

After attending a mega-church almost next door to our hotel we left for the Christian retreat center in the mountains where Heart of the Leader would be held.  Caliraya resort sits on an island in a man-made lake with a vista of distant mountains.  We stayed in a dormitory (ten men in one room, two showers, one sink and toilet). We had air-conditioned meeting rooms and delicious meals in an un-air-conditioned banquet room with a view.  By now we had been joined by another American, Chris Davis, the head of GYMN.  Heart of the Leader is his adaptation of the Pastor’s of Excellence program I have been helping to lead at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, in fact I was Chris’ mentor for POE.  This trip to the Philippines had us leading the first two segments of the four part POE/HOL program.  We will be returning to the Philippines in February to lead the final two parts.

The fifteen Philippine pastors, and one each from Nepal and Kenya, completed a Spiritual Competency Profile and Stress Processing Report.  In the Discovery retreat we used these tools to assess spiritual health and then through scripture, prayer and time for reflection sought God’s direction for their lives.  Wednesday was a free day we used to connect the pastors in support groups by playing and completing challenges together.  The pastors encouraged one another to brave the zip line, climbing wall, and bungee trampoline.  We developed team work playing volley ball with an eight-foot tall “earth-ball”.  The second half of the week our focus was on the importance of Christian community.  Pastor’s often feel isolated, unable to share their true needs with anyone, and alone.  This contributes to the high rates of burnout and moral failure.  Our goal was to motivate and empower these pastors to develop supportive spiritual relationships with each other which will enable them to keep growing in their faith.

My primary role during the week was to mentor a group of four pastors.  I also led the devotions one morning sharing my own testimony of God’s grace in my life and gave a lecture, “When Community Fails.”  My group consisted of a twenty three year old man who has just become a pastor, a twenty five year old woman who leads a teen ministry with girls, a twenty eight year old woman who is the business administrator of GYMN and leads the youth group in her church and a thirty five year old Kenyan youth pastor with 900 in his youth group and 300 in his young adult fellowship in Nairobi!  We were diverse, but all love the Lord and eagerly want to share him with others.  In a note they gave me the last day they all indicated how much this week had meant to them.  We are committed to continuing to encourage one another and will keep in touch online until we meet again next year.

I was inspired by the stories of church growth in the Philippines and the faith of the pastors I met.  We had wonderful times of worship each day led by the Filipinos.  God again spoke his words of love to me.  If only the world could know how much God loves us.  We are precious to him.  He wants us to enjoy him and the amazing world he has created for us.  He doesn’t want us to be lonely, or defeated or discouraged.  If we will only come to him daily, he will live in us, and grow us, and transform us to be like his Son.  This is the Good News we have to share with the world, starting right here in our own community!

                                                                                                                        Gary Nicholson