By Mark Mayberry
The first part of the trip, the flight itself, and the travel from the United States to the Philippines went very smoothly. We are blessed in the modern era to travel the world with relative ease. Certainly, the cost has increased in recent years, and this is the most expensive trip I’ve experienced in terms of airfare. Still, it is remarkable that we can go to the other side of the world in approximately 24 hours, including the stops involved when there are three legs of the journey.
On Tuesday, we arrived at about 1:30 at the motel after deplaning, going through customs, and getting our luggage from the airport. It was about 2:00, or more likely 2:45, before I went to sleep, and then I woke up at 6:00 a.m. I visited with Sherelyn initially after she got home from her trip to Louisville. Then, after Ron and I had breakfast, we went to the money changers and converted some U.S. dollars into Philippine pesos.
Several Filipino brethren help unbox the Bible study materials that we brought with us from the United States in eight large shipping boxes. They repackaged the literature, and prepared to ship it to various places in the Philippines.
James Paet, Ron, and I then went to the Mall of Asia, where I got a new SIM card and a month’s worth of text and data for the phone that I use in the Philippines. We purchased a couple of items for Ron and then had lunch together. We came back and met with Chris Reeves at the motel. Afterward, we rested for about 40 minutes and then exercised for about an hour. In the evening, we had supper with Chris. Ron and I discussed our plans for tomorrow when we’re preaching in a one-day gospel meeting here in the Greater Manila area.
The preaching meeting on Wednesday was well attended. There were 54 in attendance, men and women alike, mostly gospel preachers from Metro Manila, some of whom had driven eight hours to attend. There was good attention. We had two sessions in the morning, another session in the afternoon, followed by a question and answer session. So the actual teaching offered was eight hours in total. Each of us addressed some topic relating to the heart of a gospel preacher. That was the title of Ron’s lesson. He had, of course, a biblically based presentation of how a preacher should view himself, and how his heart should be dedicated to both proclaiming the truth and accurately communicating God’s message, as well as applying it to his own life and doing so out of a desire to help other people get to heaven and help to save his family and as many as possible from the clutches of Satan.
My lesson dealt with 1 Corinthians 1:10-11, which addresses the issue of controversy and the exhortation that we should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. Over the course of my lesson, I focused on two basic areas. One, when it comes to doctrinal matters, we should strive for spiritual unity, respect the consistency of divine revelation, accurately divide the word of truth, and unite upon what the Scripture teaches. On the other end of the spectrum, when we deal with areas in which God’s word is silent or where we are not given specific instruction regarding the implementation of certain aspects of divine truth, where more than one approach is possible. For example, this principle would apply to choosing to be married or not be married as in 1 Corinthians 7, in view of the present distress, Paul gave his opinion that it’s better not to marry but certainly did not bind that upon others and was respectful of the fact that marriage provides a blessing for those involved in such a mutually supportive relationship. Basically, it was to help work through some of the difficulties that brethren here face, just like they have in America, over knowing when to stand firm and solidly committed to biblical principles and allowing brethren to have differing thoughts and responses in areas of judgment or personal application, not binding opinions as the Pharisees did, who were guilty of adding to and subtracting from the word of God. They would often build a hedge around the law and make the laws relating to personal cleanliness and ceremonial purity stricter than what the scriptures actually called for. At the same time, when it suited them, especially when it would impact them financially and relieve them from what some would view as an onerous burden, they loosed the implication inherent in the command, “Honor your father and your mother,” and allowed people to neglect that duty and the proper application of it. So they were opposing and binding and thus rendering worship vain.
On Thursday, Chris held a day-long session. James Paet took him to a nearby place to preach. His lessons focused on the family, encouraging both the men and women present, the husbands and wives, the preachers and their wives, to be mindful of their cultivated relationships with their children. His lessons were primarily on the family.
My initial plans were to join Ron and go to Malaysia. Unfortunately, as is often the case in travel overseas where the efficiencies of the United States are sometimes lacking, when we went to fly from Manila to Malaysia, the lines were so long that we ended up missing our flight. They had actually closed the gates and the doors of the plane by the time we reached the check-in window, and we were not allowed to board. We spent the next four or five hours trying to rebook a flight, which was a frustrating experience going from one company to another. When you buy an airfare or a flight ticket from a travel agent, sometimes if a complication ensues, the airlines want you to go back to the travel agent. They’re not willing to make the necessary changes to the existing tickets. With the time change that we faced in the United States being at night while we were trying to get rebooked, we couldn’t pursue the first and obvious option. Because the flight was booked with Malaysian Airlines, but the first part was serviced by a Filipino airline, one company tried to say it was the other company’s problem and responsibility to correct it. We spent about two hours at the Malaysian Airlines office. Although they didn’t have a ticket agent in the facility, yet a helpful young lady spent a lot of time with us trying to put us in touch via phone with a ticket agent. We spent about 45 minutes trying to rebook the flight, made progress, and then lost the connection, unable to reconnect with the same person. This happened at least twice. On the third time, they started saying there weren’t any flights available, and we would have to wait three days before we could fly. We went back to the motel and regrouped. Eventually, after several other futile attempts, we were able to get Ron scheduled to fly out later that evening. However, I was unable to fly to Malaysia due to complications with my passport, which expires in less than two months. Malaysia is very strict in their application of that window. It was perfectly fine to purchase the tickets several months ago, but this close to the expiration of the passport while overseas and unable to update it was a bridge too far. Ron went on his own, leaving at about 7:00 in the evening to catch a 9:00 flight, traveling overnight to Malaysia to begin preaching the next morning.
I revised my plans and will stay in Manila at least until Sunday, working with James Paet and going to various places where he scheduled several day-long sessions. I’ll work with him at the local congregation where he labors on Sunday and then fly to Tuguegarao on Monday.
On Friday, Chris Reeves and I traveled south of Manila to the Bancal-Carmona Church of Christ and worked with Brother Junie Samontina. It was a gathering primarily of young people, so our topics addressed their needs. I talked about passages in the New Testament that deal with the relationship between husbands and wives and also considered the text in Proverbs 31 about the worthy woman. In his first lesson, Chris discussed examples in the Bible of young men and women who put God first. In his second lesson, Chris talked about youth under pressure and the need to resist peer pressure and societal pressures to be sexually promiscuous, dishonest, lazy, and so on.
Throughout the day, we interacted with the young people during study periods and personal interaction, offering them counsel specifically directed at the challenges they will face and urging them to be faithful to God as they grow up.
It was a very beneficial day, and I enjoyed visiting this congregation again and seeing brethren with whom I had labored in the past. It was uplifting to work with such young people of potential.
