Missions - Go
The Philippines
ABOUT PHILIPPINES: CEBU
Cebu, Philippines is a Short Term Mission (STM) trip location. Find out more about STM trips here.
Ministry Opportunities:
- Ministry to YWAM Staff
- Children and Mothers Ministry
- Youth Ministry
- Prison Ministry
MINISTRY OPPORTUNITIES
Children and Mothers Ministry
We shared the Word of the Lord through a skit; despite sin and rejection, the Father pursues and loves.
We shared the joy of the Lord through games, dance and action songs.
We shared the salvation of the Lord through craft; a bracelet reminding them that Jesus redeems and saves.
We shared the love of the Lord through praying with them.
Our young people were blessed as we gave unto the Lord.
Ati Tribe
ABOUT PHILIPPINES: DAVAO
Davao, Philippines is a Short Term Mission (STM) trip location. Find out more about STM trips here.
Ministry Opportunities:
- Home Visitation
- School Outreach
- Sunday School
HEAR FROM OUR TRIPPERS
PLACEHOLDER HEADER
'God Can Use Anyone' by Kang Wen Xu (21 y/o), STM 2023
Initially, I was hesitant about signing up for the mission trip. I had not gone for any major church events before, like church camp or retreat, so this was a huge step-up for me. I also wasn’t sure how I could contribute to the team, as I didn’t know what gifts I possessed, nor did I have any prior experience in missions. There are many stories in the Bible about God using ordinary people, with no special gifts or abilities, for His ministry. If I truly believed that God could use anyone, this was the time to exercise my faith. So, I decided to trust God and obey.
During the first few days of ministry, I struggled greatly with fear and pride. I was not brave enough to approach strangers and strike up conversations with them, and when I did, I could not find the words to say. I began comparing myself with the other trippers, who could engage in meaningful conversations and intercession with ease. During debrief every night, everyone would share their testimonies from the day, which were so powerful and filled with emotion, whereas I had nothing much to say. I also began to envy the gifts that the other trippers had – those who could lead worship, dance well, do prophetic art, and design the skit and crafts which were so impactful. I was angry and disappointed in myself for not having the same emotional experiences as everyone else, and for not having the courage to fully engage with the people we were ministering to. On the ride back from the tribe visit, I shared with a friend Tim about how useless I felt. He proceeded to pray for me, and volunteered to accompany me to talk to people in the subsequent days.
As the days went by, things began to improve. One morning, as we were headed to the mall for a grocery run, the Lord prompted me to bring the prophetic cards although there was no dedicated ministry time. Why not? So I brought the cards with me, as instructed. At the mall, we came across a drinks stall called ‘Hebrews Shebrews’ – an interesting name – and together with Tim, we approached the stall owner, asking how he was, and offered to pray for him. We blessed him with a card with 1 Peter 2:9 written on it, which I thought was very fitting given the name of the store. Later that evening, the team headed out to the market for a chill night out. Once again, there was no dedicated ministry time, but I brought the cards with me. At the beach, we came across two boys who were there smoking. Together with two other teammates, we started a conversation with them which ultimately led to one of the boys sharing the struggles he was going through; he was carrying a heavy burden and guilt with him for many months since his grandma passed away last year. He poured out his heart to us and began to cry, and we prayed for him, and gave him and his friends a card each. I was amazed by what God did that day. All I did was bring the cards, and the Lord did the rest of the work.
These encounters left me in awe of what God could do, even with someone as inexperienced and lacking as me. In the subsequent days, the Lord increased my courage and boldness. With His help, and the encouragement of the team, I was able to overcome my fears, like talking to strangers and praying for them, as well as leading one of the prayer segments during the overnight worship.
One of the trip devotions was based on 1 Corinthians 12, about spiritual gifts and unity in the body of Christ. I found myself to be exactly as Paul described in verses 15 to 18:
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
I believe that through this trip, God was correcting my misconceptions about spiritual gifts, and has revealed to me the value of the gifts He has given me. He has taught me not to covet the gifts that others have, and that no gift is any less than the other.
Coming back from this trip, I am confident that despite my weaknesses and shortcomings, God can still use me for His ministry work. At the end of the day, it is not my own wisdom, experience or skill, but His Spirit that works within me and enables me to be fruitful. I want to continue serving the Lord using the gifts He has given me, wherever He leads me next. I hope that my testimony will encourage others who aren’t sure if they are ‘good enough’ to serve the Lord. God can use anyone. He can use all of our gifts for His ministry, and is well pleased when we do it.
'Wala Kang Katulad O Dios! (There is No One Like Our God!)' by Beatrice Hew (22y/o), STM 2023
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
If God did it before, He will do it again. But it doesn’t mean He will do it in the same way, or use the same things to convict our hearts and reveal His.
I came to Cebu with so much pride that had to be broken down moment by moment and day by day — I thought I knew what had to be done in ministry, but my ideas were flawed. I thought I knew how to be relational, but I hit many walls along the way.
We were out doing ministry in the slums where I was assigned to be with the mothers. I ended up being surrounded by a bunch of children who were curious and eager to explore the pipe cleaners used for the mother’s craft. I hesitated to give them out at first, because I looked down at my ziplock bag and there was not enough for everybody. Such little faith! Just then, Coyle (son of the YWAM staff Kuya Charles) climbed into my lap and wanted to play. Kuya Charles called, “Coyle! Don’t disturb Ate B. Come here.” But he refused to leave. I told Coyle, “Now I need to focus on the children. Later when we get back to the base I’ll play with you okay?” Coyle just ignored me and continued to dig into the bag of pipe cleaners.
I decided to go ahead and give them out — rushing to make flowers for the children, but the feeling of unrest grew stronger as more children approached and the pipe cleaners in my bag were dwindling. I felt overwhelmed, and sought to share with Coyle who was still on my lap, “Coyle…What should I do? I don’t have enough crafts for everyone.“ The boy replied to me with a song, “WALA KANG KATULAD O DIOS”. Meaning “There is no one like our God” in Tagalog. A truth I failed to recognise and was too blind to see in the midst of the work. As God turned my attention to Coyle, I took a pause on the crafts. I realised he was saying really funny things. He kept crying out, “I’m English! You are English!” I replied, “No Coyle… I’m Chinese.” And he asked, “How do you say fire in Chinese?” And soon enough… The children around me were chanting “火！火!”
I thought Coyle was distracting at first, but I didn’t notice that God had sent him my way. He showed me a tiny flower he made with 1 or 2 pipe cleaners — It suddenly hit me that I didn’t have to assign 4 pipe cleaners to a flower. Holy Spirit prompted, “Are you here just to make them happy? Just to give out flowers?” And from there He inspired the idea to make a heart with one pipe cleaner for the little ones. God used a child to humble me deeply.
Throughout the rest of the trip, I was repeatedly humbled as I realised, even the seemingly good things… We can get it wrong.
I left this trip with a renewed mind and heart. I have seen God’s work, but there’s also much that I’ve not. I cannot figure out the extent of His ways, and the only way to continue to worship and please Him is to completely depend on Him in every situation and need, to not assume what He wills, and to continually offer up a broken and contrite Spirit.
'FULLY Dependent on Him' by Genevieve Lee (21 y/o), STM 2023
There was a lot of striving & doing before I went on the Cebu mission trip. As someone who always HAS to sit & pray & plan out before going into anything major, going from one daily task to another then ‘BAM’ flying to Cebu made me feel very unprepared. I still remember the afternoon before our flight, when I was in church with a friend, and I completely broke down, just telling her how totally unsettled my heart was for this Cebu trip, that I didn’t feel like I had anything left out of myself to give, or maybe I even made a wrong choice in signing up, that maybe I was simply running ahead of myself to commit to things that I couldn’t fulfil.
She told me that God gave her an image of someone leaning back into the arms of God, so she sat behind me, and asked me to lean back against her hands as she prayed for the upcoming trip. Yet as she started praying, the only thing running through my mind was ‘What if my weight is too heavy? What if her arms get tired?’ and I started trying to lift myself up while still maintaining the posture of leaning back (it’s so tiring TT). Somewhere along the lines of me trying to do both, the Lord asked me, “How is this being fully dependent on me?” If I knew & TRUSTED that He has got me, that Abba’s arms are strong enough to hold my weight, to delight in me resting against Him, why did I try to get up in my own strength? At what point of my relationship in Christ, did I start trying to balance between looking as if I’m depending on Him, yet still trying to do things my way and in my strength?
So I resolved to put my worries aside, to stop worrying about whether He will come through, and simply to be expectant that He will. And He did. Like the lyrics go; This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet, the Lord delivered – He broke expectations, broke barriers & showed me new ways of trusting in Him. In all the slums, the village tribe & the detention centre that we went to, all the evangelism, He was working. He did not fail, neither our ministry, nor in their lives. He revealed to me that to be dependent on Him, was simply to move by faith, not by sight.
A particular situation that really stood out to me was when we visited a village tribe. The chief, Pastor Joel, was sharing about the water line situation in the village, where about 150 families had to share a singular pipeline and/or a tub of water that had been collected from the rain, and he asked for our prayers for rain. Even when the ground was so cracked and dry almost everywhere in the village, he praised the Lord with faith & certainty of His deliverance. And Abba did. When we left the village, and all through the night, it rained as though the Lord was saying, “I got you.”
Isaiah 55:10-11
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Not all of it was without sacrifice, for when it rained the house roofs leaked. And before the rain came, there probably were many nights of worrying & water rationing. But the Lord has a purpose for all He does, and to be fully dependent on Him is to trust that what He says will come to pass. For me after Cebu, it’s still a long process of reminding myself not to do things as I see the need to, but as He wills. And for Pastor Joel’s tribe, it’s about holding on and praising Him until the next rain comes.
'Cebu Mission Trip (Nov 2022) Testimony' by Bernice Toh, STM 2022
“Give a cup of cold water in Jesus name. Fill a bowl from the wells of salvation, but do not stop there, bow low and wash feet… Compassion that ceases with a handshake is limited. The water you have must be dirtied by the feet of others.” (Adapted from The Growing Pains of Peter by Terry Atkinson)
There was an outpouring of God’s love as we washed the feet of the base staff. It was really a God moment; the Holy Spirit’s presence was immense. John 13 – Jesus washing His disciples’ feet. Our team slogan was ‘Here to Love, Here to Serve’, but throughout the trip, it really felt like it was ‘Here to Be Loved, Here to Be Served’. The warmth and hospitality the base staff showed us in spite of how ‘little’ they had overwhelmed us. We felt the Lord leading us in this prophetic act as a display of Christ’s humility and servanthood. Going through every crevice of their feet, washing away every single bit of dirt served as a reminder that the old is gone and the new has come. Our sins are forgiven because of His finished work on the cross. Matthew 20:28 – He came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The humility expressed by His act with towel and basin foreshadowed His ultimate act of humility and love on the cross.
As we washed their feet, tears were shed, hearts were filled, joy overflowed. We prayed for them one by one, each as His precious child. Afraid, but we obeyed. God was not looking for ability, but availability and I was amazed that the prayers and visions received spoke to them. To each one, God’s word for them held a distinctively personal meaning. As I prayed, I received visions for two of the staff I prayed for. For one, it was a vision of a fire burning brightly for God. He mentioned how it encouraged him as he was moving into a new season in his faith journey with the Lord. The word reminded him to stand and fight for the Lord and that the Lord will use him in His perfect timing.
For another, it was a vision of a lion; one that was bold and courageous, armed with strength for battle. He then shared that he actually had a lion tattoo on his back to remind him of just that same promise from the Lord! The word released really reaffirmed him of his call to go to the nations, to the unreached, to fight for the Lord even when it seemed difficult. Indeed, God is omniscient, all-knowing, to speak to us and through us at His own special timing.
I believe that as we acted in obedience to what He has called us to do, to be willing to “get our hands dirty” as we learnt to love and serve even if it did not “feel convenient”, God empowers. Truly God does not call the equipped, but He equips the called. We might have felt afraid or awkward to wash their feet or even apprehensive to pray, but when God calls, we just have to go. He blew our minds, He delivered and He spoke. Indeed, He is the God who heals and the God who hears our prayers!
'HE Loves Me!' by Grace Melody Tam, STM 2022
The Cebu misson trip in November 2022 helped me understand how God loves us and what His love means, even though I didn’t even know that I lacked this understanding. It opened my eyes to the depth and quality of Jesus’ love through my interactions with the team, base staff, the people we met during ministry and especially the children at the base.
I went into this trip from a season of mental and physical brokenness. I had been falling sick a lot more than usual in the past month or so and still had food poisoning when we left for Cebu. I had also been having anxiety attacks and episodes of very negative thinking that I didn’t know how to control. God placed two good friends in my life whom I confided in about these episodes and revealed Himself to me through one of them before the trip, but my struggles were still unresolved. A lot of these moments stemmed from feeling unworthy and a fear of not being loved enough in the way that I wanted to be, and feeling that I wasn’t special. My perception of God’s love before the trip was that He loved all of us equally and in the same way, which I believed was fair but made me think that I needed to pursue other sources of exclusive and special love because I was just another child of God out of everyone in the world, and there was no way I could be His favourite or uniquely loved by Him.
I have always loved kids a lot and seeing them never fails to make me smile, but I have never understood why because I don’t have younger siblings or cousins whom I see regularly. I had received something like a calling related to children on two occasions a few months before the trip through a dream and during the church conference but didn’t quite know what to do with it. I think this trip was a confirmation that my love for kids was legitimate and also an explanation of why I love kids so much.
There are 3 kids on the base, Coyle, who is five, Colin, who is three, and Cattleya Faith, who is one. I got to know Coyle and Colin’s mother first while washing clothes together and only started interacting with the kids after that. They’re really good kids, super smart and super sweet, and every moment of playing with them and talking and listening to them was truly a joy. They would drag me around and ask to be carried, or played in the back of the base’s pickup truck and seeing their smiles was really very precious. I got especially close to Coyle who would come and sit on my lap during base games or after meals. All three of them are some of the smartest kids I’ve met.
They did some really precious and adorable things that spoke to me a lot, like Coyle telling me “I missed you” after we went for ministry or Cattleya dragging a chair for me to sit on during word by heart and trying to give me water when I had a fever. I was super impressed and had big, big love for them after interacting with them for less than a day.
During debrief on the second night I was hit by a revelation that God loves me in the same way I loved the kids, but many times more. I very clearly felt a sense of Him telling me that “the love you have for these children is only a fraction of the love I have for you”. There were many, many ways that His love was similar or the same as what I felt for the kids, like the desire to spend all my time with them and protect them and have their attention and to see them be happy, the joy I felt when they chose to spend time with me, and the pride I felt looking at them navigate the world. I could only understand this because I had experienced loving the kids in a fierce and protective way. Everything I was willing to do for the kids and all I felt for them was what God felt for me as well, but many times more. It was super overwhelming to know that God’s love for me was so strong and so personal.
I also received a vision of a pile of ordinary rocks with a diamond among them, and God picking up one of the small rocks instead of the diamond. I felt Him say that “this is exactly what I’ve been looking for” and rejoice. This changed my perspective of how God loves, and reconfirmed that He truly leaves the 99 in search for His children whom He loves personally and uniquely. It also reminded me that I didn’t need to prove myself or make sure that everyone liked me, because I already had God’s approval.
There are many other instances when God revealed His love to me in very real and amazing ways, like through the stars on the rooftop, the worship, placing certain people in the team and base to tell me exactly what truths and encouragement I needed to hear and pray life over me, and the generous, welcoming and giving love from the base staff. The ministry was also filled with wonder because the children were so wonderful and joyful and trusting. I heard God’s voice unprompted for the first time during this trip, and even though what He told me was not something I wanted to hear, I realised that it was what I needed to hear to make the right choice.
This trip was a turning point for me in terms of understanding the love of Christ and fixing my eyes on Him. My perspective of my life and future is now different and though I still struggle, I know I can plug into Him for comfort and encouragement. I’m super grateful to Him for the extravagant love, grace and mercy He has shown me through this trip and throughout my life, and for the people He has placed in my life, including the team leaders and the ones back home who were more supportive and loving than I could ever ask for. All glory to God!
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