As an eighteen year old, I joined Youth With A Mission (YWAM), one of the largest short term mission organizations in the world. The outreach portion of my Discipleship Training School with YWAM was in The Philippines. While there, we partnered with a local church to serve food in what was called “The Dumps” – literally entire villages built on garbage heaps. We also helped with children’s Bible Schools in those impoverished areas.
Unbeknownst to me, a woman from the Marcos’ Palace had several occasions to observe our group. She saw us meeting practical needs as well as heart needs by sharing the gospel and singing about the love of Christ. Several different times she approached myself and others and asked why we were there. Eventually she learned that we actually paid our own way to come to their country to share our hope in Jesus Christ.
Jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes and a lot of dust/dirt were our daily attire. We were there to serve, and yet in this service Jesus came shining through. It turned out that this woman was one of the Marcos’s key Aides and she invited me (alone) to come to the Palace. While her motives may have been more public-relations motivated, God had other plans. After she got me all cleaned up, I entered the large compound, and surrendered my Visa at the gate of the government Palace grounds. Trusting the Lord for this opportunity, I just spoke a silent prayer, “Lord, You arranged this. This could only be You, have Your way here.”
The female aide clearly had photo opportunities in mind, after all, an “American was in the Palace.” But, because of the unrest going on outside the palace (it was just 2 weeks before the Aquino Regime overthrew the government) there were much more government/military officials around than there were photographers.
As we entered a very large hall, about 40 well dressed military officers left what looked to be a heated meeting. The Aide spoke up and explained that I was in the country from America to share hope with the people. There was a lot of loud chatter in a foreign language. (I continued to silently pray!) Five minutes later a piano was brought in, chairs were set up, and I shared a number of songs with these men including “People need the Lord.” I ended this short mini-concert with a prayer and asked that the Lord would make Himself real to every person there.
This was the least of my expectations/motivations in going to this needy nation! I could never have imagined that God would open doors like this for His name to be glorified, but I do know one thing… it would never have happened had I not said, “Yes” to serving.
Mark 10: 43-45 “But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
God also calls us to be “…faithful in the small things before you can be trusted with much,” in Luke 16:10. If you desire to be promoted or if you are being trained for a leadership position today, perhaps you should be focusing on where you can serve others. Then, let God open doors of promotion for you as you diligently pray for His name to be glorified in doing so.
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