She shared from Luke 11:9-10 about keeping on asking, seeking, and knocking.  One of her observations was that prayer does not change God or His mind, but it changes us.  I was blessed again to hear this, and was reminded of many of my own struggles with faith and what it really means to live by faith.

"And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for. Keep on looking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened.  For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks." (Luke 11:9-10)

Getting what you want from God is a process!  The epistle of James reminds us that sometimes when we ask, "you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong - you want only what will give you pleasure." (James 4:3 NLT).  We do not always start out asking God for what He wills or for what is best for us.  We will never get what we want until we want what God will!   We must keep on asking until WE are changed enough to ask according to GOD'S will!  Keep on asking!

Not only do we have to persevere in asking, but we have to get busy and go looking for what we are asking for!  We must seek it!  More than that, we must keep on seeking it until we find it.  I have to confess I have sometimes been guilty of standing around idly waiting for God to give me what I want while doing nothing about the need myself.  Most times we have a part to play in finding what we want from God!  I wonder how many times the Lord has had to stand around waiting for me to do my part!

We have to get busy seeking His answers, looking for the things we want from God.  While we are seeking, the Holy Spirit can prepare us and guide us to the place and time when we can receive what we are asking for.  The road through this life has many turns and twists, you cannot see very far ahead!  Don't stand by the side of the road waiting for the blessing, it is just up ahead waiting around the next curve or over the next mountain!  Keep on looking!

Finally, we have to knock on some doors.  There are barriers all along the way, but faith overcomes!  Every day of our lives God allows trials and troubles to challenge us.  However, these struggles are allowed so that we can grow up more in Christ and become more like Him.  God wants us to be more than we can be without Him, and that means overcoming our own limits and trying things we cannot do.

The answers to our prayers often wait behind closed doors that seem impossible to open.  Meantime, we often times stand around outside letting fear and doubt keep us from boldly knocking on those doors!  The Lord wants us to work with Him to overcome the obstacles, not by might or power, but by His Spirit!  We have to knock, we have to act, we have to believe His Word and trust that when we overcome our fear and doubt and start to move ahead, He will keep His promises to us and we will overcome!  If one door does not open, find another one.  Keep on knocking!

Faith waits on God, but not by standing to the side waiting for the windows of heaven to open over our heads.  Faith puts us to work.  Genuine faith compels us to say "I believe this so much that I am going to do something about it!"  The something God wants us to do usually is more than we can do in our own strength, but that is so we can experience more of Him. 

We will always get what we want when we want what God wants! God's Word says so, "We can be confident that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. And if we know he is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that he will give us what we ask for." (1 John 5:14-15 NLT)

Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.  Don't give up!  You will always get what you want from God!

Several SEAMIST supporters responded with funds to buy rice, and we were all pretty excited to be going and to be delivering such a big blessing.  In fact, we were only going to deliver about 40% of the blessing this trip, praise God!

The first hour and a half of the trip was smooth going and we dropped off a young woman at her parents place about one fourth of the way to Negros.  However, just a few more miles down the road, the fuel pump gave out.  I had asked our "mechanic" three to change the pump in fact, each time he said the pump was ok.  It was my first test of patience for the day.

Over the next six hours we would be tried with several mechanical and fuel problems due to clogged filters and dirt in the fuel tank as well as overheating when one of the plugs in the engine started leaking water.  Even the brakes (serviced three days ago by our faithful "mechanic" gave out 90%!  But, by God's grace, we finally were buying sacks of rice by 4 PM in Mabinay, near to the Aeta churches.

It was fun to watch the trainees as we crawled up the mountain on a pretty bad road.  It is one of those roads where you pass a section and say, "Well, at least it can't get any worse than that!" and then it DOES!  The four miles up the mountain on the sugar cane truck roads is quite a challenge for most.

However, when you there and these wonderful loving people come out to hug you and cry on you and thank you for coming, it is sure worth the ride.  Pastor Rostom, the first of the Aeta leaders, was so happy I thought he was going to cry, and best of all, he was not happy to see the rice, but he was genuinely happy to see us.  Now, THAT is blessing!

After a short while of unloading we settled down to an evening of peaceful eating simple noodles and rice, and fellowship so sweet we do not need a common language.  My Cebuano is so little that you could put it all on one small page, and their English is only equal to that.  But you can say a lot with a smile, a nod, a hug, and a few words.  The night was very dark and so quiet you could hear bugs crawling around!  And cool!  The altitude is about 4000 feet I think.

In the morning, we had church and the rice was bagged up and passed out to those nearby.  The smiles and tears here and there said thank you in a way I rarely see.  We took a little video to say thank you to the givers, but there was one bigger blessing to come.  (The video is here: rice.wmv)

We asked the Aeta if they wanted to send a message to Sister Edah Cordova, the wife of Pastor Rodel Cordova who was the one who really brought Jesus to the Aeta.  Pastor Rodel, aged 31, died in July, 2008 of liver cancer and his wife Edah and their two sons have gone on to become missionaries to the Shan in Thailand.  What I saw in those minutes when the Aeta sent their love to Edah for the sacrifice she and Rodel made to bring them Jesus made me cry.

In fact, there were tears everywhere.  They miss her, they love her, they wish she could see them and they could see her.  However they understand that God called her to go on to another tribe like theirs and the other tribes need Jesus too.  The Aeta themselves hear God calling them to preach the gospel to other tribes, so they just sent their love and prayers and promises not to forget her and the boys and assuring Edah that they pray for her all the time.

Now that is what missions is all about.  It made my day and it made all that car trouble we had and all that we would have over the next 8 hours worth it.  To see Jesus manifest in a tribe many people thought was useless and "just a bunch of nasty violent people" is amazing.  Love never fails, and Jesus never fails.  Pray for a hundred more tribes to accept Christ and enjoy the transformation that the Aeta have experienced!  To God be the glory!

This year we have one couple with five years of ministry experience that, God willing, will go to Thailand soon.  There are several other young men and women who will go someday, most of them confess a call to a specific place or people.  A surprising number of them are from "ministry families", two of them are grandchildren to one of the first men I led to Christ here in the Philippines in 1991!

All of the trainees are eager to learn and to prepare for their future work expanding God's kingdom.  We know from experience that the path they have chosen is a very difficult one and there will be much opposition.  Our hope is that all of them will one day plant churches in un-reached people groups.  This is an exciting time for SEAMIST as we prepare another generation of workers.

Thank you for your prayer for Eleazer, Genesis, Ken, Ginalyn, Elaiza, Syraby, and James.  May God grant them the grace and power to finish the plan He has for their lives!

Aeta Pastor Johnny Lindayo and many dozens of Aeta Christians celebrated the faithfulness of God March 15 during their first church anniversary. Only one year ago they were just a handful of new believers exploring the joys of their new life in Christ. God is really blessing Alambihoran and His children! Today things have changed.

Poverty, drunkenness, and despair were the most common characteristics in their village in the past, but today everything is changing. Now there is hope and the future is bright. Not everyone in the village is a believer yet, and there is in fact much persecution, but those who are following Jesus are not dismayed, they are filled with joy and happiness!

Their new church building was completed a few months ago, and it is already overflowing every service. The Aeta here have received healings, deliverances, and salvation even though they have no "professional pastors" or priest, no bible school graduates, and no missionary to do the work of the ministry. Instead, they have learned that they have the authority as believers to use the Name of Jesus to experience the Power of God to help them against the enemies of their souls and of their God.

Western missionaries who have visited the Aeta Tribal Churches in the area have been amazed that the people have learned so quickly to practice their faith so effectively. The churches planted in this formerly unreached people group are all self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating. The three pastors and 20 elders do not receive salaries, and they are the decision makers. Outside assistance has been in the form of roofing materials, teaching leaders, and monthly visits to encourage the disciples.

Three more pastors and several new elders will be ordained and appointed in April. Pray for the Aeta Negritos of Negros Island as they continue to grow in the knowledge and mercy of God. Many of them have learned to read the Bible now, and their lives keep getting better and better as God answers their prayers!

One of our workers here got so excited over news about an answered prayer that he woke me up at midnight last night just to tell me about it. You may not understand his joy unless you have lived in the not so developed part of the world. He was rejoicing because he had received a text message that a car licence he has been expecting for weeks was finally processed. The fact that it happened over the year end holiday is nothing short of a miracle. He was amazed and so were we. God answers prayer!

There were many trials for us in 2008. Some of those trials discouraged us more than a little. Some of them made us wonder why the Lord was allowing them to happen. Some of them made us angry at the devil or at men who seemed to be working for him. However, all of the trials brought us to our knees in prayer before the Lord, which has to be the most right thing we did all year. God answers prayer!

It is with much joy that I sit here today and recount a few of the many blessings we enjoyed in 2008 as well. Big blessings like the tremendous growth in the Aeta work started by our beloved brother, Pastor Rodel Cordova just 18 months ago. Today it is a fast growing people group movement, with more than one thousand believers and over a dozen groups of believers meeting regularly. More than 20 Aeta men and women are ordained elders, three of them are pastors. 20 more men and women will be ordained in February. God answers prayer!

We have 9 men and women in training currently from three continents... Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We asked the Lord for laborers for His harvest! God answers prayer! We have full time workers in four of the eleven countries in South East Asia. God answers prayer! We will open a school in Thailand in the next few months, we prayed for the funds to start a foundation and in 3 weeks, we had the $1000 we need to get the ball rolling! God answers prayer!

On and on the list goes. June and I wanted to take some time to relax with Ken this year. We have not taken a "vacation" for three years. We prayed, God provided through my business plenty of extra income to pay for 10 days in Thailand and Vietnam for all three of us. God answers prayer! There were SO MANY other things as well, there is no time to tell them all. God is good!

What amazes me most is that I know that we have done nothing more than He gave us to do, and usually we fell far short of even that, yet His grace and favor continue to flow over our lives. What I mean is that we really do not deserve these blessings, yet they come and keep on coming. God’s grace is amazing indeed. I thank God today He is not giving us what we deserve, but instead, He is giving us His grace and favor! Hallelujah! Thank YOU Lord!

A prophet in Singapore sent me an email today, and while I am very careful about personal prophecies, he really encouraged me with a word that the Lord is not only going continue to bless us, but even to increase those blessings beyond what we are asking or thinking! YES! I receive the promises of God for His many blessings. We sure need them! Thank YOU Lord!

So, to close this, I want to encourage you, whoever you are, to call upon the Name of the Lord today. He answers prayer! Ask Him to bless you. Ask Him for more of His grace and favor. Ask Him to make this day, week, month, year the BEST of your life. If you are a child of God in Jesus Christ, then you can count on your Father in heaven to keep every one of the promises He makes for His children. Enjoy the many blessings! It helps a lot while we endure the rest of life in this sin broken world.

Until He comes --- Richard