Final Night in Manila

Sunset over Manila Bay.

It is 10:31 PM in Manila as I write these words. In just a few hours we get up, check out of the hotel, grab a cab, make our way to the airport, and check in for the long journey home. If I have figured it right, we should be back in Tupelo in about 36 hours.

But before we leave the Philippines . . . I wanted to share with all my readers the introduction to this week’s sermon. Because we recently switched over to a new server, we still haven’t worked out all the kinks in the new system and the sermon is in the queue waiting to be sent but that can’t happen until some DNS settings are changed and that can’t happen until, oh well, I don’t really know all that has to happen. That’s above my pay grade. But in the meantime, here’s the introduction:

Monday, April 6, 2009

Hello from Manila! I am writing this note from the Philippines where we are just a few hours away from the end of our visit to this wonderful land.

In the last 13 days I have spoken in three churches, given two commencement addresses, and preached six times (plus a Q&A) at a pastors’ conference. Marlene and I were joined on this trip by Derek Taylor, the KBM webmaster. Besides the encouragement of having him along to help us and to pray with us, Derek also gave invaluable counsel on Internet matters to a number of eager pastors and students. Plus he ended up preaching his first sermon. At 10:30 AM last Wednesday Pastor Zamar, the beloved patriarch of the Baptist movement, said, “Derek will preach this afternoon.” During the siesta period after lunch, Derek furiously scribbled a few notes and then gave a powerful message from Numbers 14.

It’s been that sort of trip. Nothing has gone exactly as we planned, and yet God helped us and gave us many open doors for ministry.

Several times during this trip I’ve mentioned that we keep track of where people who visit our website come from. We know that in the last year we’ve had almost 400,000 visits from 208 countries. And when we tallied up the results, we discovered that after the United States and Canada, we have had more visitors from the Philippines than from any other country. So this has been not just a ministry trip. It’s been a “KBM Family Visit” to our friends in the Philippines.

We love the Filipino believers. They have welcomed us with open arms, listened intently, prayed for us, and they have asked us to return as soon as we can.

You can check out the KBM weblog for pictures and news about the trip.

Special thanks to Pastor Antolin Zamar and his dear wife Nenita and to Dr. Edwin Bicar of the Bukidnon Seminary, Pastor and Mrs. Fidel of the Manila Baptist Church, Pastor Eyriche and Ellen Cortez and to George and Hedda Hizon for their incomparable hospitality.

And we are grateful to you who read the sermons each week for your love and prayers and for your support. Without you this ministry would not exist. By God’s grace we serve the body of Christ around the world through the Internet for encouragement and equipping so that we can all keep believing and serve the Lord more effectively.

So from Manila we say thank you for standing with us. We are happy we could come and do our little part to help the great saints of God in the Philippines. The blessing has been multiplied to us.

That’s where we are and what we’ve been doing. How happy we are to be part of God’s big worldwide family. Aren’t you glad to be a Christian? I am!

Happy Holy Week to one and all. In our little corner of the world, we say with all the saints that we believe that Jesus Christ is the mighty Son of God who on this Holy Week entered Jerusalem in obedience to the Father’s command so that he might die for us, standing in our place, taking our sin, bearing our burden, and opening the door of heaven for all who believe. And we happily affirm that on the third day he rose from the dead.

That’s the news from Manila—and from our hearts to yours. Enjoy this week, brothers and sisters! This is our week, the best, finest week of the year to be a Christian.

Ray Pritchard

(I have just posted the sermon that I hope we will send out soon: Worthy is the Lamb.)