Evangelism at the Basilica

The men were invited to a Men's Breakfast with Grace Talisay Fellowship this morning. Jeff, Dojo and Robert did an on the spot devotion for the men. They all said it went great and they had a wonderful time with Pastor Joel. 

Today was the first really overwhelming day... All of us jumped in the van after the Men's Breakfast and headed to the oldest Catholic Basilica in the Philippines to do some street evangelism. This area is the hub of the church and there were people everywhere. As soon as we got out of the van we were approached by women and children begging for food. 

1st overwhelming moment. 

Your mind and heart are pulled in so many directions. There are people selling things outside of the church along with the beggars. Pearls, jewelry, candles, rosaries and the like. There was no such thing as personal space. They wanted to make sure you saw what they were selling. At one point Seth just went across the street to McDonald's and bought the little kids and babies food. 

We all decide to walk around outside the gate of the compound for a bit. Christine, Sheila and I started talking to some people. It is very intimidating to strike up a deep conversation with a stranger and try to share the gospel. This is not something I do all the time so I was panicking that I wouldn't know what to say next. And there were moments I didn't know what to say next. Christine jumped in and helped, thankfully. We ended up walking through the gates to hand out tracks and try to share with people closer to the entrance of the church.

2nd overwhelming moment...

As we walked into the church there were people all around me touching statues while praying, kissing them and standing is front of them worshipping. There was so much to take in. There was a line wrapped around to walk up and kiss a baby Jesus. The three of us sat down on a pew to take it all in and I couldn't hold back my tears. My heart felt so burdened for these people who are so deceived by the Catholic church. I've been into a Catholic church before but this was like nothing I had ever seen. We left there and walked into the courtyard to see if we could talk to some more people and hand out the rest of our tracks. Probably 10 minutes had past and as we were talking to some young girls a couple security guards came over to us and said we would need to leave. So we said goodbye to the girls and met up with the others who were also told they would need to leave the gate but we could be outside of the gates. Dojo said the security guard told him they don't allow born again Christians here to talk to people inside the compound of the Basilica. He said "You can go outside and do whatever you want. We just have to respect each other's religion." 

What?!!!! Don't Catholics call themselves Christians? 

But the security guard knew exactly what was going on and why we were there. 

So we left. We continued to talk to people outside of the gates. Christine and I stopped 3 young girls around 15 years old. They were lovely to talk to and Christine gave them the classic Ray Comfort way to the gospel. :) They were very receptive to the truth. We prayed with them and for them and went on our way. 

We were set to meet up with Christine's brother, E.J.  She hadn't seen him in 4 years. It was a sweet little reunion. E.J. spent the rest of the day with us and we have had a great time getting to know him. He is not a born again believer and Greg was able to share the gospel with him on one of our car rides. We invited him to church on Sunday. 

After that we all went back to the hotel and grabbed our bathing suits and went to the beach for a couple of hours and then ended the night with some BBQ.