Butuan

The team arrived on Friday and enjoyed a much-deserved day of rest at a local resort. Great food. Great swimming. A good time was had by all.

Tim and I had been in another city, Dipolog, training pastors and scouting the area for water project possibilities. After 14 hours and four buses, we joined the team early Saturday morning.

The most obvious thing for the entire team about Butuan was the incredible unity among the pastors and believers in the city. We have never seen such inter-church unity in any city that Impact Nations has gone to. We ministered shoulder-to-shoulder with Free Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, United Church of Christ, Catholics, Vineyard, Pentecostals and independents. The presence of the Lord was almost overwhelming at times.

We began Saturday with a large training for pastors and leaders in the city. At the same time, we conducted a medical and dental clinic in an extremely poor Muslim district. During the clinic, one of the team led a children's program. At least 60 Muslim children prayed to receive the Lord! Again, many healing—deaf ears opened, a child's severe rash disappeared before everyone's eyes, arthritis was healed, fevers instantly left. We treated over 260 people who otherwise would not have received any medical attention.

In the evening, we held an outdoor meeting in a large park in the center of the city. Many came forward to give their lives to Jesus. The Gospel could be heard for several blocks around the park. Even before we started to preach, during the worship, a woman in intense pain with liver disease was healed. First she felt a lot of heat, then she began to weep as all the pain left her and her distended stomach instantly went flat. When she gave her testimony, healing broke out through the crowd during the preaching. Several people with deaf ears were healed. A woman had both her ears pop open. As she testified, another man was receiving prayer for paralysis all down his right side. He couldn't walk or raise his arm. The Impact team, along with some of the local leaders who had been trained that day, prayed several times for him. Before long he was walking, then raising his previously paralyzed arm to the height of his head. After the meeting, we walked through the park, talking with and praying for people who had been watching the meeting from a distance. Again, healing and salvation was happening around the park.

On Sunday, the Impact team divided up and ministered in 15 different churches around Butuan (again, reflecting the unity and diversity evident in this wonderful city). The team came back excited as God used each of them to heal, encourage, and lead people to salvation. It was a great opportunity to "build up, encourage and comfort" (1 Cor 14:3) the body of Christ in Butuan.

Monday morning began with a 45 minute trip to the town of Buena Vista . Again, we held a medical and dental clinic. Before I began to teach the pastors and leaders (some of whom had traveled a long way down from the mountains), I was asked to pray for a man who was in great pain. Six days earlier, Jonathan had fallen from the top of a three story high school. It is amazing that he wasn't killed. He broke two vertebrae, his wrist and dislocated his shoulder. Because of the pain, Jonathan could not stand, walk or sit. When I saw him, he was rigidly leaning against a chair, his face displaying the great pain that he was in. I prayed once and he felt no change. I told him that Jesus was going to heal him, and prayed again. This time he felt a significant improvement. After praying a third time (again with a big improvement), I asked one of the Impact team to keep praying while I began the teaching. A few minutes later, I noticed that none of the leaders were paying attention to me; instead, they were all looking outside the door at Jonathan. He was not only standing, but walking freely, bending over and doing everything he could to test his back. No pain and completely healed. No pain in his shoulder either. In fact a few hours later, Jonathan was praying for the sick and injured and God was using him to heal.

After the training, I had the leaders pray for the sick. All were instantly healed, including a man who had suffered four strokes that had affected his eyes. They wandered uncontrollably and could not focus. The first time they prayed, his eyes came into sharp focus, but with double vision. A second prayer and his vision was perfect. While he smiled, his wife wept with joy. Right beside him, a woman with a disabled right arm and hand (from a stroke) was healed. She kept opening and closing her fist and moving her arm all around.

During the clinic, some of the Impact team prayed for all who were waiting. We could not count how many were healed. One member reported that everyone she prayed for was healed—and she prayed for people for about 5 hours! 200-250 people were treated in the clinic. A woman brought in a little child with terrible burns over her arms and most of her torso. The child was covered with raw, open wounds. We prayed and the Lord miraculously put the child to sleep as the team cleaned and dressed the burned skin. This should have been excruciating, yet the child slept all the way through the process. Jesus is so full of mercy and kindness.

That evening we held two outdoor meetings. Lyn Ryan led a team of six in Buena Vista (where we had been all day) and the rest went back to the park in the middle of Butuan. In Buena Vista , over 35 gave their lives to the Lord. At the Butuan meeting, so many people came forward to receive the Lord that it took several minutes for them to gather and their were so many that there was no room left to pray for the sick (we had to do that some distance away at the side). Again, there were many miracles.

Here are a few more testimonies from the team:

Rebekah

The whole time with the kids, there was one boy, around 11 years, who appeared so desperate. He made incomprehensible sounds and reached out his hands and followed me. The children around him teased him and laughed at his constant efforts to get my attention.

As I walked back to the clinics a few children followed including this particular boy. As Rusty chattered with me about her healing, this boy, reached out his hands, and I put my hands on his mouth and prayed for his tongue to be loosened and be able to speak. At this the puppeteer, (local children's ministry worker), told me that he was deaf, I tested and he was. I put my hands on his ears and asked God to open his ears. At that moment, the boy became so excited and smiled intensely. He grabbed his ears in joy. I clicked as I had done before and this time he responded with each ear and jumped up and down, laughing and pointing to his ears.

God loves to heal his children, even those neglected deaf boys living in a garbage dump in Manila, Philippines . Glory to God!!

Vicki  

In Payatas, an old lady had a cataract in her left eye.  I prayed for her and she was healed!  I could see her iris clearly-her eye opened up and she said she could see!  She gave her testimony.

When we were on the bus, going to Payatas, I got a vision about a guy whose seat belt kept on coming off.  I asked the Lord, "What is it?"  He said to me, "You're going to meet someone tonight who has been in an accident recently."  Not a ladder accident, a car accident.  So when we got there, I asked what do I do now Lord?  He said to me, "go up and asked if anyone has been in a car accident."  Within a minute, a young man came up and said, "Yes, it's me".  That night he gave his life to Jesus.  He was so in awe that God had picked him out like that.

David Low

On Saturday, Jed was fixing people with glasses.  This lady had a big goiter on her throat, he called me and Lyn over to pray.  We came over to pray.  We went through the model and Jed kept praying-more Lord.  The more he waited and continued to pray, we could watch the goiter gradually shrink.  The lady was obviously thrilled because the goiter had affected her thyroid-she had no sense of hot and cold.  But when God was shrinking the goiter, she had this really cold sensation in her throat-a reactivation of her thyroid.

For more amazing stories from the Philippines, click here, for the final report.