A while ago I shared that I had just began to pray into the ministry of the Ati tribe … but after I visited their community at the north shore of our island I fell so very sick for over two months, it then took me another full month just to recover from it! It was the worse sickness I’ve had in years, maybe ever. I try to squeeze every hour, ever minute out of my waking days and to lose three months of productivity was upsetting. It was probably from the tribal witchcraft and undefeated territorial powers they live within.
I was feeling like I lost not only so much time but an important ministry opportunity to help the tribe to walk in their calling, but then remembered something God said to me one time. A few years ago I was walking my dog one night up in the hills of Mui Wo, up in Kau Tsuen, in Hong Kong where I had so many meaningful conversations with the Lord actually, and one night the Lord told me … “I can make up for a person’s ENTIRE life in less than ONE SECOND.” Wow!
We hear God talk about seasons of delay or blocks or stolen opportunities, etc., and then God gives ACCELERATION, or how he promises to restore DOUBLE what the locust has eaten, and other things like that, and I understood his intention to overturn the enemy’s obstructions in a new light. So this insight, like a promise came to mind and it helped me relax a little and just go with the Flow of His Glow and let him sort it all out. Later I heard him say this, That I will make up for lost time. I was first thinking of time lost that week. Then realized he meant more, like time during this sickness. Then I realized, wow, he meant more than that and was talking about time I lost over the last 7 years of struggle, harassment and privations! Wow, he really will make up double for all that was stolen, and even said over and over that he would DOUBLE the DOUBLE! Amen!
So He eventually asked me to get back to work slowly and soon enough he let me work on some large scale building plans for the future we have been aware of many years already, the first big hotel especially which he also named, but then gave me new direction. He asked me to also plan to build a modest church building and a family house! He asked me to plan to build the church with a budget of Php2m (about US$40,000) and the budget for the family house was larger than that, about double.
11 Houses over 7 Years
In all the plans he’s given me so far he’s never mentioned what budget I would have for our own living arrangements during the initial phases, and if you didn’t know this has been a huge problem for us during the last several years. We were able to stay in some houses for over a year, some almost two, but were also kicked out of some houses in less than a week, one in just three days. After searching for a house for weeks or even months usually and enduring all the struggle and cost of moving … and then to have to move again in mere days or weeks has been a real hardship to us here that we’ve faced several times. In fact notwithstanding those few places we stayed longer than a year, in just over 7 years we’ve stayed in 11 houses!
What normally happens is we search high and low and FINALLY find a place we can deal with and they let us move in and everyone is so nice and happy … but as soon as we do move in and are at their mercy, I think the warfare kicks in and turns them into puppets for the enemy to harass us, break our contracts and try their best to cause us personal harm. We lived under near constant threat from landlords for many years. In one case, after being illegally evicted by force we found a place in a town called Ubujan. It was near the top of Elly Hill near the idol shrine. There were haunted houses nearby and lots of demonic manifestations in that area, and we learned God’s plan was to put us there to fight the demonic power of that territory! It was harsh. The main landlord changed our contract every single month, and since the three siblings who co-owned the house were backstabbing each other, they did not always tell the others when and how much we had paid for rent and we were often in shouting matches over what we owed, even when it was already all paid in full, and even had to endure worse I can’t talk about as one of their other siblings constantly stalked our young girls and often hid in the bushes nearby to try get a look at them. So the owners were stealing from each other and unknowingly defending the idolatry and witchcraft demons we were fighting for the Lord, and we just got caught in between it all. Witchcraft makes everyone crazy! We finally moved out … and ended up renting a house … from that woman’s best friend!
In this next place the warfare to dethrone the principality over Elly Hill continued and was compounded by the numerous false Christian, cult and idolatry-based churches all around our house. Why were there so many apostate, sexually immoral, and idolatrous church leaders concentrated in such a small area? God told me that he needed a place to put all the Goats. So it seems he let them all group together in this small area, which may reveal a deeper dynamic of how God manages our communities than most have ever imagined! I knew it was a spiritually dark neighborhood, the territorial demons even manifested through the neighbor’s dog which attacked and killed one of our puppies and bit my gentle old dog several times and often tried to get into our house to attack us. This dog was named Beauty but by nature was an evil beast. God said it was manifesting the territorial demon we were fighting and when we prayed for protection and judgement … it suddenly died just a few days later. Who needs to endure this stress? Well, evidently the town needs someone to, in order to do the work to prepare the land for revival.
We faced dangerous harassment at the next house from the landlord’s wife, and the neighbors. Then the next-next house from the groundskeeper who was BY FAR the most belligerent man I’ve ever known, EVER! We paid rent and lived in the only house in a two-acre compound subdivided for 30 houses, and it was just him in a shanty as caretaker and us in the only house, but it was still too small a place to share. Constant assaults, arguments over the shared power and water bills, our plants, his goats, his chickens, our kids, our dogs … we became close friends with over 30 local poor kids who lived next door, and because we were so close to the schools we connected with several teenage girls at risk, two of whom moved in later. God showed the main friction with this cruel goat herder was also primarily from a territorial demon, from the city this time and we were very close to City Hall, and it was this demon which was manifesting through him … prayer, prayer, prayer.
It is still very painful to talk about the forced illegal eviction, but I also recall the 3 days we lived in Booy Village, also the haunted house in Manga, etc. etc. etc. All finally just before the pandemic we found a far away poor farmer’s house in San Isidro neighborhood and God hinted trouble was coming and we would be safe here. I loved the nature and animals and fruit tress, etc., but also endured a fair share of harassment, this time from the neighbors and town officials. The warfare here was prolonged and God said we didn’t really complete the assignment by the time we moved out, but would make a church in that area later and I think that would make up for the lost time from our incomplete work. And now when we have Sunday services in Sikatuna up to 10 kids from this neighborhood accompany us on a regular basis! So there was fruit even if we could have been more successful in that season. Then he moved us back to town where we are now, and said the next time we move it will be different. We will move into a house we build for ourselves! He recently began to confirm this word of blessings.
A Form of Compensation
Yes, a few weeks ago God said, and I think it was clearly in response to all the harassment and hardship Satan has inflicted on us as tenants in this town over these years, so it is partly in compensation for the evil we had to face for so long, but God said he was going to give me money, a lot of it! He said FIRST to build a church, I think he means in San Isidro, but then he said I can make a house for our family! He said he would show me ways to keep the cost below a certain budget but enabling me to be between 5 and 7 TIMES more cost effective than building such a house in the US!
I been working very hard to plan and design and learn about new materials and methods, etc., but began to pull back because the house I was planning was so nice and I didn’t feel I needed or deserved it, and I want to focus on my task in laying the foundation for revival … not in pampering myself with luxuries.
But He said, not to think like that because this is important. He said this will be a ministry training center, like a ministry base to train the coming new generation of ministers and so to plan and build it well, make it for many guests, prepare for the coming earthquake, and even over this short time he has also increased the number of kids I am personally taking care of! I’ve got a full house. Having only 12 at my table is a relief meaning that five or six of the others are on night shift or sleeping in.
He also asked me to NAME the house and I am really having a hard time to do that. But I’ve been learning new skills, like steel frame structural design, how to make low-weight fiber reinforced silica fume-strengthened foamed concrete, stamped and colored surface treatments, using EPS panels, hollow core slabs and other ways to save on materials, time and labor. God is blessing us and expanding our tents!!
So living by faith to me is not a luxury or hobby, it’s our survival. God has led us into hardships and difficulties, but we have overcome and come out of the wilderness leaning on our Beloved!
So I always keep reminding myself of what he has promised me, what he has advised me, how he has encouraged me and even a few times corrected me. His words to me hedge me in, helping me control my emotions and maintain my faith and keep my focus to work day by day to do what he has asked me to do. I keep a prayer notebook, a journal of his words to me, and my record goes back many years. That’s how I can share so many words and experiences from so long ago without forgetting! I do hope it can encourage people, give them the benefits of what I heard him tell me, but it’s probably mostly for me. I need to walk the course set before me. I want to lay hold of all that for which he has laid hold of me. I want to be and remain a faithful servant that he will find DOING what he asked me to do, even if he returns at a time I do not expect.
Eyes on the Prize
So many huge projects, buildings, businesses, tasks and even revelations he has given me, but SO WHAT! So what? Yes, he said, So what?! It’s not the THINGS we have or what he know, or what we accomplish that matters really, and while He said I will do all the things he said I will do, many of them plainly impossible, he said SO WHAT! … Because it is the PEOPLE he cares for, he said. It’s the people he died for. It’s the people he came to save and sent us in his place to reach. It’s the people he loves! …. We have many things to work on, tasks to complete, projects to do, houses, hotels and businesses to plan and build, but we would do well not to take our eyes off the main prize and it’s not the money, houses or accomplishments … what’s eternally important to God? It’s the PEOPLE, he said! The People!