All Stories | Pioneer Ministries Thailand Story
What we experience with God
Hope inmidst of Destruction
A few months ago, Cebu, an island known for its beauty and beaches, was hit hard by an earthquake, leaving many places severly devastated. Just a few weeks later, the same region was flooded and additionally destroyed by one of the strongest typhoons we had this year. As we have been praying for the region and the people since the calamities happened, we felt the past weeks, that we want to send a team there. Just simple, to pray and worship, bring Jesus and see how we can support the people practically. A team of five went and experienced God’s guidance during their week over there:
“We were surprised by the extent of the destruction caused by the storm surge five weeks ago in Liloan, a suburb of Cebu City. A huge area was flooded and many houses were destroyed. We prayed and worshiped in several places and next to a destroyed school, we were able to get in touch with affected families in an evacuation center. We felt this is the place to invest to and packed up relief goods. But besides the physical help we also really wanted to bring them the bread of life. So the next da we went back there and had a time of worship and prayer. Many people opened up to us and we could pray for them and encourage them. Later on, we distributed the food. As such distributions can get out of hand pretty fast, we specifically prayed beforehand for God’s peace and his protection for the whole time. And it was striking how calm and orderly the went. The atmosphere was really filled with the peace of God and with joy and even the people said, that this distribution was different to other helpers. The presence of God makes the difference!
On the next day we drove around 80km to another city, Bogo, which was severely destroyed by the earthquake. Also there, we didn’t have any contacts or idea where to go. But we prayed that God would lead us to a place that needed it most. After visiting some places, where we all didn’t have peace to stay, we got a hint from a lady owning a food place, guiding us to a small village out of the city. There the people were still living in tents, waiting for support that did not come until now. You could feel the heaviness and trauma. We started to just worship there and quite some from the village joined us and we could share Jesus with them, pray for them and encourage them. They didn’t expect anything else and were even more touched when we gave them our last bags of food and a bit of financial support. When we left, the people and the atmosphere were different.
The whole outreach was so led by the Holy Spirit and we were amazed how he brought us to the right places in the right time. And we are so thankful that we could bring Jesus, the joy of the world, the reason for the season. We continue to pray for all those precious families and believe that God has good things in store for Cebu!