A real thriller in Manila!

A mission trip to the Philippines, complete with high school outreach and a triple wedding, was a great training ground, reports MiT Kevin Kirkland.

Rugby Elim has been supporting Elim’s work in the Philippines for the past 16 years and in February I travelled there with my wife Stephanie and son Luke to visit our missionary – who is also my sister-in-law – Lynette Orange. Lynette is based in Antipolo in Manila where she is principal of City Gates Academy. Our trip was an annual one our church makes to support Lynette but it was also a great opportunity for me as a trainee minister.

One of the highlights was a three-day mission trip to a project Rugby and Carlisle Elim support in a province called Bambang – a six-hour drive north of Antipolo. Luke and I travelled there to help the local pastor, Pastor Lahai Roi Bigay, run a youth outreach in a high school.

This outreach was so important. Bambang is one of the poorest areas in the country and the senior class we worked with had shrunk from 60-70 pupils to around 40 as many had dropped out, were now in prison or had got into drugs. There’s a life and death reality to the decisions these young people make, so it was an emotional and powerful moment when we presented the gospel to them and prayed for them and many of the students and teachers responded.

Pastor Lahai is now looking to launch a Youth Alpha in the school so it was great for me to be able to strengthen our church’s relationship with him in order to support that.

It was good for Luke too. He’s 18 and is off to Bible college in September so this was valuable experience for him.

Another highlight was spending time with my mentor, Glenn Isaguirre, who is the lead pastor of the Living Epistles churches in Manila and is soon to be ordained as a bishop. He kept me busy preaching in five different locations and officiating a mass wedding. This was my first wedding as an MiT and it involved fumbling my way through marrying three couples partly in the Tagalog language! An interesting but wonderful experience, with plenty of guidance from Glenn.

We managed to have social times and a few meals together, too. Even though we’re usually 7,000 miles apart we keep in close contact. I like that Elim is international and that these mentorships can work even if they’re on the other side of the world.

This trip provided some great opportunities for me as a MiT. Our training includes a core competency in missions and evangelism so I did a lot of reflecting on how to adapt my communication style and cope with the different cultural setting as I presented the gospel. It was handy getting my first wedding under my belt too, because I have my first UK one in August – marrying just one couple in English, thankfully!

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.