Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
And anyone who would convert to Christianity would be considered
to be a trader. So when you go there, you
will not see any visible expression of Christianity because the
moment they declare that their life is at stake.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to Missions Insider podcast and inside look at the
world's most difficult mission Fields. Today we welcome back David
Bogosian and he's going to be sharing about his travel
to the Philippines. Welcome David, and what can you tell
us about the Philippines?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hey, guys, excited to be here with you. So I
had the privilege of visiting Mindon Now, which is a
southern island in the Philippines, and I visited a city
called Madawi, which is on a beautiful lake Lenao. When
you go there, you're just amazed at the beauty of
this place. There's a fog that rolls in every evening
like clockwork, and it's just a very majestic, beautiful place.
(01:03):
At the same time, it's a very dark place and
they have just recovered from a big war that took place,
and as you go through the city you see the
evidences of that. It's in some blocks, in some neighborhoods.
It looks literally like those images and pictures you see
from World War two of these bombed out neighborhoods, bullet
holes everywhere, evidence of aerial bombardments and artillery shells, hundreds
(01:27):
and hundreds of buildings destroyed, nobody living there anymore. And
the reason for that is because a few years back,
there was a group of ISIS related fighters who tried
to take over the city, a couple hundred of them,
and basically they did seize control of the city, and
then they tried to conscript the citizens of that city
into their army, and they were basically trying to start
(01:49):
a revolution in Mendan.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Now, minda, Now is a place that is full of
this kind of thing. It's been happening for a long time,
and this is just maybe the latest incident of that,
but certainly perhaps the most destructive. The entire population was
rooted of three hundred thousand people. Now, we've been partnering
with ministries in this area for a long time, for
(02:15):
a couple of decades. It's one of the most unreached
areas in the world. There is no visible expression of
Christianity in this place. When you arrive in Marawi, it
says welcome to the Islamic city of Marawi. It's part
of a region called the Autonomous Region of Muslim Indan
now and Muslims fought hard, what we're called rebels in
those days, but they fought hard to create this autonomous region.
(02:38):
Many people don't know this, but the COLT forty five
was actually invented to kill Muslims in Mendanew. The army,
the US Army, when we were occupying the Philippines, they
found that their weapons weren't good enough to stop the
charges of the Marineo people, and so they say, we
need a stronger gun, and so they actually invented the
(02:59):
COLT forty five to kill Muslims in the Philippines. So
there has been a long tradition of animosity between Muslims
and Christians in this region, and the Marinaw are very
proud they're the people group that live in the city
of Madawi. They're very proud of that heritage of being
the defenders of Islam. And anyone who would convert to
(03:21):
Christianity would be considered to be a trader. So this
is a very difficult environment for the Gospel. And yet
God has his people there, and even in this city
there are people that are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
A few days before I arrived, there was a bombing
in a gymnasium because some Catholics were having a mass
(03:42):
in the school gymnasium of the university there, Mende now
State University. And you know, the city was on edge
because you know this had happened. And so you see
just the evidence of just an unrest. That is, it's
just a very palpable unrest. No one knows when the
(04:03):
next thing is going to happen in this place. So
there's there's soldiers with machine guns patrolling. There's just evidence everywhere.
There's checkpoints that this is not a safe place. And
the residents who live there, they all live under this cloud.
This cloud or at any time this thing could happen again.
It's just simmering under the surface.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Wow. Now, despite that, are there ministries there that are
working to share the gospel? Currently?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
There are, and these are very brave people that are
doing this. Of course, we can't share too much information
because it's a high secure area. But I was able
to visit those people, people that we're supporting, and they're
doing an amazing job. They are loving people, They have
very practical ways to serve people, and there are people
that are responding to the gospel. And the biggest question
(04:53):
in these environments is what do you do with those people?
How do you help them? How do you help them
to grow in their faith and to share their faith
with people? And so, you know, Muslims, they are a
people that have no concept of the presence of God.
God is not here, God is in heaven, and so
there's very much this feeling of isolation from God. So
(05:17):
they pray to God every day, but they don't experience
his presence. The most important thing to reach Muslims is
to bring the presence of Christ into a place, just
having people there that are loving people, that are bringing
that sweet aroma of Jesus Christ into a place. As
the Apostle Paul said, we are like filling the world
with perfume, you know, and people can sense it. They
(05:40):
know that there's something different about a believer because they
have a connection with Jesus Christ. And so that's the
most important thing in a place like this is just
making sure that God's people stay present in those places
and that they're loving people and that they're a witness
and they're able to have practical ways that they can
serve people. And so one of the big things that happens.
(06:00):
One of the open areas in Mindon Now and actually
all of Minden Now is the campus of minden Now
State University. It is a place where both Muslims and
Christians are present. The Christian population is dwindling at minde
Now State University, but there are opportunities for Christian students
on that campus to be equipped in order to reach
(06:20):
out to their fellow Muslim students. And that's one of
the most beautiful things that is happening in this environment
is it's actually becoming a training ground for missionaries throughout
Mendan Now because Christian young people come there as students,
they learn about how to reach Muslims, and then they
themselves become missionaries and are being sent all over Mindan Now.
(06:42):
So there's an amazing missionary movement that is coming from
this campus, which is kind of like a neutral place
in this entire environment for Christians and Muslims to interact.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So I'm gleaning that this is just a very dangerous,
risky place for Christians. How is the church is the
church basically underground.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yes, that is correct. So when you go there, you
will not see any visible expression of Christianity. There was
one place actually that was a school operated by Christians.
It was from way back in the day when the
Americans occupied the Philippines. That place was destroyed completely in
this war. And so yes, you will not see that.
(07:26):
You will only see mosques. You will only hear the
call to prayer. You're not going to hear church bells ringing.
Even though this is a majority Catholic country. Even for Catholics,
their expression is very muted in this place.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So what would happen if, say some Christians were meeting
and word got out. What kinds of things are they risking?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
If they're from a Muslim background, they're risking everything because
they will be targeted, mostly by their family members. This
is an honor shame culture, and so they view it
as something that's bringing shame upon their family, and so
they have something called honor killings in these cultures where
a uncle or a even a brother will basically have
(08:11):
no choice from their standpoint. From the way they see it,
they'll have no choice but to do this in order
to preserve the honor of their family. And so everyone
who puts their faith in Christ from a Muslim background
in these environments knows the risks that they're taking. And
that's why you know, when we hear of people that
are having dreams and visions of Jesus, we take it
(08:31):
very seriously. We know these people are not making this
stuff up because the moment they declare that their life
is at stake. I met one person from a Muslim
background in the Philippines who was sharing her testimony for
the first time before the church, and she had had
three different visions of Jesus. The first one, Jesus appears
(08:53):
to her explains who he is, and so she goes
and tells her mom what happened and said, don't pay
any attention to that Jesus is like Satan. Now Muslims
don't actually believe that, but in the Philippines, in some
of these places, their understanding of who Jesus is very limited.
A few months later, Jesus appears again, and this time
(09:14):
she says to him, go away from me, you are
Satan and division ends. About six months later, she was
pregnant and she was very sick, and the doctor said
she was going to die, and this time she sees
Jesus appearing in her room, standing head to foot and
she says, why do you keep appearing to me like this?
She said, if you're really who you say you are,
then make me well and take away my fear. And
(09:36):
right there she was healed. So she became a follower
of Christ. Within a week, her uncle was made a
vendetta against her to kill her. And so she was
sharing her testimony of what she was going through and
that she had to relocate from her village to this
place where we were where she was sharing her testimony.
So that is actually a common occurrence among Marinew people,
(09:59):
among other people from a Muslim background in the Philippines.
I mean, I'm not saying it happens to everybody, but
it happens to thousands of people. And so that's one
of the important reasons for having missionaries in these places
is because one of the questions they asked them is, hey,
have you had a dream or a vision about Jesus?
Because it happens to so many people, and that can
lead into an amazing conversation. Some people ask, you know, hey,
(10:23):
if Jesus is doing this, why do we need to
send missionaries. He can just go and appear to everybody. Well,
if you look at the Great Commission, what did Jesus
say you're supposed to do. He said, we're supposed to
make disciples. He does the work of conversion. Actually, we're
not called to go and convert anybody. Jesus does the
work of converting people in the Holy Spirit. Our job
is to follow up with him. You know, this is
(10:44):
the same thing that Jesus says to the disciples in
John chapter four. He says, I'm sending you out there
to bring in what you didn't labor for. The hard
work has already been done. And that is very often
the case in the Great Commission. He's just asking us
to show up. And somebody wants said this about Hollywood.
They said, ninety percent of success in Hollywood is just
showing up and just being there because opportunity is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Well, that is also the case in the Great Commission.
So why Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are for you. Pray the Lord of the harvest
to send forth workers into the harvest field. And open
up your eyes and look at the harvest fields. They
are ripe, ready for harvest. Well, if you were to
walk into these places of minto now, if you were
to walk into Madawi City and you didn't have eyes
(11:28):
of faith, you wouldn't see that. You wouldn't see a
harvest field that was ripe. Just like the Disciples couldn't
see the Samaritans as being followers of Christ. They couldn't
see it. And so that is why Jesus takes them
in there. And the first movement of the Gospel actually
happens in a Samaritan village. And so it takes an
(11:49):
eye of faith. It takes Jesus opening our eyes to
go into a place like that and saying, you know what,
Jesus is Lord in this place. And that's what you
have to remind yourself of because when you show up
to Marawi City, basically you are confronted with that sign
that says this is the Islamic city in Madawi, and
they're telling you we're in charge here, but no, Jesus
(12:09):
says I'm in charge here. On the Cross, he purchased
men from every nation, tribe, people in language. He is
worthy of the worship of every single people group, including
the Marinaw people, and someday there will be I believe,
public worship of Jesus in those places, because Jesus is
lord over Maraawi. He's lord over every place on this planet.
(12:33):
And so as we go and we go in with
that boldness and with that authority that Jesus Christ reigns,
and we have to look at it through those eyes
of faith, that he is calling people that even in
a city like Madaw where you see no evidence of Christianity,
he has people. It's kind of like, you know what
God said to Elijah when he said it's only me, right,
(12:54):
He was just like, it's only me, And God says, no,
I've got five thousand people who haven't bad the need
to bail. He knows who are his in a city
like that, and it's our job to go and find
them and to bring them into his family.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I can imagine there are a lot of opportunities, practical
opportunities for missionaries there to share the gospel and show
love to people. Are there still many displaced people there
from the war that took place.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yes, so there are still many, many thousands of people
that are living in kind of temporary camps that were created.
Like I was saying earlier, there are still many neighborhoods
that haven't been rebuilt. So, you know, half the city
was destroyed and the government promised to go in and
to rebuild it, but that's been slow going. So there
are still many people that are displaced. So that is
(13:44):
a big opportunity to show compassion to people. There are
other very practical ways you can help people. I mean,
this is a very very poor area, very underdeveloped area.
Because of the unrest that's been there literally for a century,
this has been perhaps the most underdeveloped place in the Philippines. Now,
the Philippines is a poor country, but these are the
poorest of the poor. We're talking people that don't have electricity,
(14:07):
people that are living at an almost subsistence level, and
so that is a very practical way. One of the
things that missionaries have done in these areas is help
people to stay alive, help children to stay alive because
there's so many water borne illnesses. So one of the
very practical things you can do to help people, which
is being done is teaching people how to make water
(14:29):
filters from natural materials. You know, we can go to
Costco and buy a two hundred dollars water filter, but
you can actually do the same thing with rocks and
sands and pebbles and just layers what they call sand filters,
and so just with very simple knowledge and technology, using
what's there, they can actually help communities keep their babies,
(14:52):
keep their children alive. And then this really does open
up doors because if you love what people love most,
which are their kids, kids are their treasure. When you're
dealing with people that are in absolute poverty and the
definition of absolute poverty, or of people that live on less
than a dollar a day, those people what they treasure
(15:13):
most are their kids, and yet they're losing their kids.
So you can go in there and show people love
and compassion at that very basic area that is their
most important joy and treasure. That opens up amazing doors
for the gospel.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I'm sure that there are many needs in that area.
Can you share, like for our listeners, what are some
ways that they can be praying for missionaries that are
in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I think one of the most important things, as we've
been talking about, is the importance of presents keeping people there.
The enemy doesn't want God's people mingling with lost people,
and so one of the reasons for the unrest in
the Philippines. One of the reasons for the unrest all
throughout the ten forty window is because the enemy doesn't
(15:59):
want God's people in those places. He's trying to drive
them out, and so we have to insist that we
have the right to be there. Jesus said, all authority
and heaven on earth has been given to me, and
so we need to pray for the missionaries that God
would give them boldness and also calm and peace in
the midst of the storms that are surrounding them. When
(16:19):
I was there visiting some of the ministries that we support,
there were a group of young single lady missionaries that
were going off to a very dangerous place and then
the now and they had come to the headquarters there.
They were there for a couple of weeks and they
were just going back that day. And how brave are
these people going where? You know, if you and I
(16:42):
were to go there, literally, we would be snatched within
five minutes, we would be kidnapped. That is not an exaggeration.
They are just waiting for someone like us to show
up to kidnap us in these islands. And so they're
going to those types of places. It's not safe it's
not easy. They're putting their lives on the line, but
they're doing it because Christ is worthy of it. And
(17:03):
they're also doing it because they're seeing fruit. They're seeing
people respond. And that is the amazing promise that we've
been given that Jesus promises us, is that he has
people everywhere that he's calling, that he's calling out. And
that is the encouraging thing about missions that in many
ways you could say that the success of missions is
(17:23):
the greatest argument in its favor because wherever we go,
we find that Jesus is already there, already at work,
already drawing people to himself. So that is the big
prayer that God would lead the missionaries to these people,
to the people that He is drawing to himself, those
people who are seekers. It's not easy to find those
people because we're dealing with the population of millions of
(17:46):
people and we're only dealing and we only have a
few missionaries. So how can they find those people? It
needs to be supernatural encounters, divine opportunities. That's what we
need to pray for.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So when you said they were kidnap an American missionary,
who is they?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So these are groups like the Abu Saif you may
have remember Martin and Grasia Burnham who were kidnapped and
were held in the Sulu Archipelago region, and they would
love to be able to do that again. It would
be it would be their Their greatest gift to them
(18:25):
is if they could grab one of us and hold
us for ransom for millions of dollars, because then they
turn around and use that money to buy more weapons,
et cetera. And so it's interesting, you know Martin and Gracia,
they were held for many many months. Martin was killed
eventually when the Philippine Army went in there. And the
high speed boat that they used to kidnap the Burnhams
(18:49):
was basically financed by Kadafi in a previous ransom situation.
So that's how these groups operate. That's how they get
their money. They get their money through kidnapping, and so
they love to kidnap Americans and foreigners and Europeans. If
they can't do that, they will actually go after wealthy
Filipinos as well. But they would love to get a
(19:11):
hold of one of us. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Wow, So it sounds like this island is just kind
of covered with what terror.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Cells, Yes, you could say that. I mean, they don't
see themselves that way, right. They see themselves as freedom fighters.
They see themselves as fighting for their homeland. They want
to create a Islamic state in Mendo Now. It's interesting
if you read Gracia Burnham's book, I think it's called
In the Presence of My Enemies. She records some of
(19:39):
the conversations that she had with her kidnappers. They aboud
say of and she asked them, why are you doing this, like,
what is your vision your goal? And they said, well,
we want Mendan Now to be a Muslim island. And
she said, okay, well then what and they said, well,
then we're going to take over the Philippines and make
the Philippines a Muslim country and she said, okay, well
(20:00):
then what he said then the whole world, because that's
what we want to do is we want to create
a global coll of fate. It's all there in her book,
these conversations, and it's very eye opening. It reveals the
way that they think and so we look at them
as terrorists. They look at themselves as jihadists, that they
(20:21):
are doing this for God. And that's what Jesus said
was going to happen. The days are going to come
when people who kill you will think that they're doing
this for God, and so it's deception. Satan has deceived
them into thinking that violence is the answer, that killing
people and creating terror is the way they're going to
(20:42):
accomplish their goals. But they're not doing God's work, They're
doing the devil's work, and so they've been deceived. And
that's why the Gospel is so important, the Gospel of peace.
And one of the amazing things that happens when the
Gospel goes into a Muslim context is that people discover
the joy of forgiveness and the peace of forgiveness because
they don't have that. Every single Muslim in the world
(21:05):
lives in fear that when they die, they're going to
be sent to hell. They have no assurance of salvation.
I was talking with an emom recently and I asked
him this question. I said, look, we were on a
plane together, so I had hours to talk to this guy.
I said, I've never met a Muslim who had assurance
of salvation and he said, very forthright, none of us do.
And I said, that is an amazing contrast with where
(21:27):
we are as Christians, because Jesus died to give us
that assurance, so that never throughout the history of eternity
would we ever doubt the love of God. And when
I said that, he just really took that in. You know,
because Muslims really struggle with why did someone as perfect
as Jesus need to die that They really struggle with that,
(21:48):
why would God allow that to happen to one of
his servants, to one of his prophets. But when you
explain it to him from the purposes of God, what
he's trying to do through that sacrifice of the eyes
just begin to open up. So in any case, you know,
for Muslims, it's very, very challenging, very difficult for them
to be able to see things from any other perspective
(22:12):
but jihad, because there's nothing that would attract people to Islam.
It's an oppressive religion, and so the only thing that
they can see, the only way that they can spread
their religion is through fear. And you see that the
fear is very palpable. When you go into a Muslim area,
you feel the spirit of fear ruling over that place,
and it's literally like it's like a mafia. You know,
(22:34):
the mafia. Once you're in, you can't get out, right. Well,
that's the way Islam is. Once you are brought into Islam,
there's no leaving, and so everyone who has who has
come into that system lives in this fear that if
they try to leave, they'll be killed and literally that
can happen. I mean, that's what the Qur'an, that's what
Islam commands you to do to people like that, so
(22:57):
they live under that spirit of fear.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Did you yourself feel like you were in any danger
when you were visiting?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Definitely you feel that this is not a safe place.
I didn't feel any danger because you go into these
places and all is calm, you know, but that can
change on a dime. That can literally change while you're there,
and you hope and pray to God it doesn't right
while you're there. But definitely, that is a palpable feeling
(23:25):
that is there, that this is a powder keg waiting
to explode at any time. And that is why what
we're doing is so important, because there are these moments
that God gives us to be able to go in
and share the gospel with as many people as possible.
But that's a season that could change, you know, and
so we talk about this chiros concept, the concept that
(23:48):
there is a season of time that God has opened
up for harvest, for bringing people in and that season
may end, it may change very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So it sounds like men and now there is an
autonous region there for for Muslims. Correct, are there any
of the other islands where Islam is spreading to or
is that mostly contained in Minton? Now?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, so you have Minton now and then and then
beneath mind now you have the Sulu Archipelago chain of islands.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So there's are islands like Holo and Behol and Tawi Tawi.
There's a lot of people that live down there too
that are very difficult to reach with the gospel. It's
one of the most difficult to access places for evangelist
because those are places where the that are havens for
these kidnappers, for groups like the Alpo saif they hang
(24:38):
out there, and especially in the interior, that's where Martin
and Grasa were taken. Uh to one of these places,
basied the island of Bisilon. I mistakenly said, behold before
that bhol is a safe place. You can go there
beautiful place. Basilan is the place where where they were taken,
and that is a very dangerous place where basically you're
(24:59):
in you're in unshore territory, you're an unmapped territory in
the interior. There's no roads going into these places, right
except you know, makeshift type roads. And so that is
why they were so difficult to rescue them, because they
took them into the middle of a jungle.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
So where else did you visit? When the Philippines is
your old stopping grounds, right?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
You were?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You live there ten years?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Correct? So yes, I was a missionary there for ten years.
That was a very exciting time to be in the Philippines.
I was there and from nineteen ninety five to two
thousand and six, and that was an amazing time because
there was a great period of harvest that was taking place. Now,
these are among Catholic background people, but even many Muslim
people were coming to faith at that time. And so
(25:41):
the Philippines is a place where you now have probably
eighty thousand churches, you have millions and millions of believers.
When we were there, there were thousands of expatriot missionaries.
They're all going home now because you're like there's nothing
to do here anymore. The Filipinos are planning churches better
than we are now. The church that I was a
(26:02):
part of is probably over fifty thousand people and it's
the largest church now in the city of Manila and
planting daughter churches all over the place. So the church
is thriving in the Philippines in most places. The exceptions
of that are these places that are predominantly Muslim. But
here's the interesting thing. As we've been talking about God's
(26:22):
sovereignty over the migration of peoples and the mixing of
peoples of Christians and lost people those areas because they
are so economically depressed, hundreds of thousands of people are
leaving those areas and they're now coming to Manila and
they're coming to other places all over the Philippines. That's
(26:43):
opening up many, many doors and opportunities for Christians in
those places to reach out. Now, they don't necessarily do
that or know how to, and so they need to
be mobilized to do that. And one group that I
was meeting with is a group that is equipping Filipinos
or cross cultural outreach, and it literally is cross cultural
(27:03):
for them in many ways because they don't understand how
Muslims think. They're from a Catholic background, so these are
very different people. They might be able to speak a
common language, but culturally they're very very different. So they
need to be trained and equipped for how to reach
out to that context.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So what is one of your favorite things about the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I think the first thing that comes to my mind
are the people. They are the most friendly people that
you ever meet. And they love Americans. Even though you know,
you could say, oh, we were kind of a colonial
power there. They saw us as liberators from colonial Spain,
and we did a lot to help them. We did
a lot of good things in the Philippines in terms
(27:46):
of education and things like that. So they love Filipinos.
If they see an American like me, they'll say hi Joe,
And that's from g I Joe, right, that's from the
soldiers that were there, that's still there, carried over, you know,
many decades later. They love, you know, just American culture.
There's a part of it there where you feel like, hey,
(28:08):
you know, there's this almost feels like I'm at home,
you know, because there's so much American influence there. That's
one cool thing about the Philippines. Then there's the natural
beauty of the Philippines seven thousand islands. Here, it's a
tropical paradise. Once you get out of the city of Manila,
which is not an enjoyable place. You see that now
you know, I don't want to you know this Manila
(28:30):
too much. But even people that live there are like,
this is not a livable city. The traffic there is
like you would not believe. It was bad in the
nineties when I was there, And the streets haven't changed,
but more cars. They put five thousand new cars on
the road every day, and so it's become gridlock everywhere
throughout the city. But you get outside of the city
(28:50):
and you see what God has made. What we have
made is awful right everywhere. But what God has made
is so awesome. And just everything in the Philippines is
really a tropical paradise.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Wow. And so say I wanted to like find some gold,
Is that is it a place where I would go?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Hey, if you go to the Philippines and start talking gold,
you are going to get on an adventure like you
would not believe. So everybody in the Philippines is thinking
about treasure and their treasure hunters because Japanese bury gold
all over the place. In World War Two, our troops,
when our troops came back, you know, MacArthur said I'll
(29:30):
be back right and when he came back, it was
sort of a kind of surprised the Japanese and they
had brought their gold from all over ages of the
Philippines and they were melting it down into bars and
they were going to send it off to Japan. Well
we interrupted that process, and so they had to quick
and quickly hastily bury this stuff all over the place.
And so there are holes where I used to live,
(29:51):
there are stale thirty feet holes. There are many of
them actually in the area lived because where I lived
was actually a battlefield where two thousand American soldiers died.
And so there are bullets everywhere. There's artillery shells. If
you go over it, you know with a metal detector,
you're gonna get hits everywhere. Well, this is also a
place where they had to quickly bury this stuff. So
(30:14):
the anyway you go to the Philippines, you talk about
treasure entering in gold, and you will be brought to
people will have maps and they're ready to go on
a dig with you and you won't find anything, but
you'll have an adventure.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So you never found any gold, Huh.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I didn't go looking for it, but I never found it.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
You never dug a hole anywhere just for fun to
see if.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I was tempted so many times because I have friends
over there that tell me I know that there's gold here.
I had a guy, this is a true story, who
was working for me doing carpentry, and he disappeared for
two weeks, and I was like, what happened to my
buddy Demi? And then two weeks later he shows up
and he had been digging for gold, and literally this
is what happened. So a guy from Korea came to
(30:59):
visit the land where he was living, and he didn't
own this land. And the reason why there was a
Korean coming there is because the Japanese actually conscripted Korean
soldiers to go fight in the Philippines. And so this
guy comes with a map and he said his grandfather
gave him this map and said that he had buried
gold on this land and it had markings, you know,
(31:20):
that were still visible there, like markings they had made
on a rock here and things like that. So he
started digging. Well, the owner of the land that he
was living on found out that he was doing this,
and two weeks later said, I don't want you digging
on my land. And the reason for that is because
if it is found out that you discover gold, the
(31:42):
government will come and take half of it. So this
this had gone out in the neighborhood that they were
looking for gold on this property, and the owner wanted
to quiet that down. So my carpenter came back to work.
But you will hear those stories all over the place.
I could go on and on with him out of
stories that you will that I heard and that you
(32:02):
will hear if you go there about buried treasure.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
All right, well, thank you David for joining us again today.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Thank you guys, I have fun.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
And for our listeners. If you'd like to learn more
about the Philippines, go to christian Ay dot org. Backslash
Philippines
And anyone who would convert to Christianity would be considered
to be a trader. So when you go there, you
will not see any visible expression of Christianity because the
moment they declare that their life is at stake.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to Missions Insider podcast and inside look at the
world's most difficult mission Fields. Today we welcome back David
Bogosian and he's going to be sharing about his travel
to the Philippines. Welcome David, and what can you tell
us about the Philippines?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hey, guys, excited to be here with you. So I
had the privilege of visiting Mindon Now, which is a
southern island in the Philippines, and I visited a city
called Madawi, which is on a beautiful lake Lenao. When
you go there, you're just amazed at the beauty of
this place. There's a fog that rolls in every evening
like clockwork, and it's just a very majestic, beautiful place.
(01:03):
At the same time, it's a very dark place and
they have just recovered from a big war that took place,
and as you go through the city you see the
evidences of that. It's in some blocks, in some neighborhoods.
It looks literally like those images and pictures you see
from World War two of these bombed out neighborhoods, bullet
holes everywhere, evidence of aerial bombardments and artillery shells, hundreds
(01:27):
and hundreds of buildings destroyed, nobody living there anymore. And
the reason for that is because a few years back,
there was a group of ISIS related fighters who tried
to take over the city, a couple hundred of them,
and basically they did seize control of the city, and
then they tried to conscript the citizens of that city
into their army, and they were basically trying to start
(01:49):
a revolution in Mendan.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Now, minda, Now is a place that is full of
this kind of thing. It's been happening for a long time,
and this is just maybe the latest incident of that,
but certainly perhaps the most destructive. The entire population was
rooted of three hundred thousand people. Now, we've been partnering
with ministries in this area for a long time, for
(02:15):
a couple of decades. It's one of the most unreached
areas in the world. There is no visible expression of
Christianity in this place. When you arrive in Marawi, it
says welcome to the Islamic city of Marawi. It's part
of a region called the Autonomous Region of Muslim Indan
now and Muslims fought hard, what we're called rebels in
those days, but they fought hard to create this autonomous region.
(02:38):
Many people don't know this, but the COLT forty five
was actually invented to kill Muslims in Mendanew. The army,
the US Army, when we were occupying the Philippines, they
found that their weapons weren't good enough to stop the
charges of the Marineo people, and so they say, we
need a stronger gun, and so they actually invented the
(02:59):
COLT forty five to kill Muslims in the Philippines. So
there has been a long tradition of animosity between Muslims
and Christians in this region, and the Marinaw are very
proud they're the people group that live in the city
of Madawi. They're very proud of that heritage of being
the defenders of Islam. And anyone who would convert to
(03:21):
Christianity would be considered to be a trader. So this
is a very difficult environment for the Gospel. And yet
God has his people there, and even in this city
there are people that are coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
A few days before I arrived, there was a bombing
in a gymnasium because some Catholics were having a mass
(03:42):
in the school gymnasium of the university there, Mende now
State University. And you know, the city was on edge
because you know this had happened. And so you see
just the evidence of just an unrest. That is, it's
just a very palpable unrest. No one knows when the
(04:03):
next thing is going to happen in this place. So
there's there's soldiers with machine guns patrolling. There's just evidence everywhere.
There's checkpoints that this is not a safe place. And
the residents who live there, they all live under this cloud.
This cloud or at any time this thing could happen again.
It's just simmering under the surface.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Wow. Now, despite that, are there ministries there that are
working to share the gospel? Currently?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
There are, and these are very brave people that are
doing this. Of course, we can't share too much information
because it's a high secure area. But I was able
to visit those people, people that we're supporting, and they're
doing an amazing job. They are loving people, They have
very practical ways to serve people, and there are people
that are responding to the gospel. And the biggest question
(04:53):
in these environments is what do you do with those people?
How do you help them? How do you help them
to grow in their faith and to share their faith
with people? And so, you know, Muslims, they are a
people that have no concept of the presence of God.
God is not here, God is in heaven, and so
there's very much this feeling of isolation from God. So
(05:17):
they pray to God every day, but they don't experience
his presence. The most important thing to reach Muslims is
to bring the presence of Christ into a place, just
having people there that are loving people, that are bringing
that sweet aroma of Jesus Christ into a place. As
the Apostle Paul said, we are like filling the world
with perfume, you know, and people can sense it. They
(05:40):
know that there's something different about a believer because they
have a connection with Jesus Christ. And so that's the
most important thing in a place like this is just
making sure that God's people stay present in those places
and that they're loving people and that they're a witness
and they're able to have practical ways that they can
serve people. And so one of the big things that happens.
(06:00):
One of the open areas in Mindon Now and actually
all of Minden Now is the campus of minden Now
State University. It is a place where both Muslims and
Christians are present. The Christian population is dwindling at minde
Now State University, but there are opportunities for Christian students
on that campus to be equipped in order to reach
(06:20):
out to their fellow Muslim students. And that's one of
the most beautiful things that is happening in this environment
is it's actually becoming a training ground for missionaries throughout
Mendan Now because Christian young people come there as students,
they learn about how to reach Muslims, and then they
themselves become missionaries and are being sent all over Mindan Now.
(06:42):
So there's an amazing missionary movement that is coming from
this campus, which is kind of like a neutral place
in this entire environment for Christians and Muslims to interact.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So I'm gleaning that this is just a very dangerous,
risky place for Christians. How is the church is the
church basically underground.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yes, that is correct. So when you go there, you
will not see any visible expression of Christianity. There was
one place actually that was a school operated by Christians.
It was from way back in the day when the
Americans occupied the Philippines. That place was destroyed completely in
this war. And so yes, you will not see that.
(07:26):
You will only see mosques. You will only hear the
call to prayer. You're not going to hear church bells ringing.
Even though this is a majority Catholic country. Even for Catholics,
their expression is very muted in this place.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So what would happen if, say some Christians were meeting
and word got out. What kinds of things are they risking?
Speaker 1 (07:48):
If they're from a Muslim background, they're risking everything because
they will be targeted, mostly by their family members. This
is an honor shame culture, and so they view it
as something that's bringing shame upon their family, and so
they have something called honor killings in these cultures where
a uncle or a even a brother will basically have
(08:11):
no choice from their standpoint. From the way they see it,
they'll have no choice but to do this in order
to preserve the honor of their family. And so everyone
who puts their faith in Christ from a Muslim background
in these environments knows the risks that they're taking. And
that's why you know, when we hear of people that
are having dreams and visions of Jesus, we take it
(08:31):
very seriously. We know these people are not making this
stuff up because the moment they declare that their life
is at stake. I met one person from a Muslim
background in the Philippines who was sharing her testimony for
the first time before the church, and she had had
three different visions of Jesus. The first one, Jesus appears
(08:53):
to her explains who he is, and so she goes
and tells her mom what happened and said, don't pay
any attention to that Jesus is like Satan. Now Muslims
don't actually believe that, but in the Philippines, in some
of these places, their understanding of who Jesus is very limited.
A few months later, Jesus appears again, and this time
(09:14):
she says to him, go away from me, you are
Satan and division ends. About six months later, she was
pregnant and she was very sick, and the doctor said
she was going to die, and this time she sees
Jesus appearing in her room, standing head to foot and
she says, why do you keep appearing to me like this?
She said, if you're really who you say you are,
then make me well and take away my fear. And
(09:36):
right there she was healed. So she became a follower
of Christ. Within a week, her uncle was made a
vendetta against her to kill her. And so she was
sharing her testimony of what she was going through and
that she had to relocate from her village to this
place where we were where she was sharing her testimony.
So that is actually a common occurrence among Marinew people,
(09:59):
among other people from a Muslim background in the Philippines.
I mean, I'm not saying it happens to everybody, but
it happens to thousands of people. And so that's one
of the important reasons for having missionaries in these places
is because one of the questions they asked them is, hey,
have you had a dream or a vision about Jesus?
Because it happens to so many people, and that can
lead into an amazing conversation. Some people ask, you know, hey,
(10:23):
if Jesus is doing this, why do we need to
send missionaries. He can just go and appear to everybody. Well,
if you look at the Great Commission, what did Jesus
say you're supposed to do. He said, we're supposed to
make disciples. He does the work of conversion. Actually, we're
not called to go and convert anybody. Jesus does the
work of converting people in the Holy Spirit. Our job
is to follow up with him. You know, this is
(10:44):
the same thing that Jesus says to the disciples in
John chapter four. He says, I'm sending you out there
to bring in what you didn't labor for. The hard
work has already been done. And that is very often
the case in the Great Commission. He's just asking us
to show up. And somebody wants said this about Hollywood.
They said, ninety percent of success in Hollywood is just
showing up and just being there because opportunity is everywhere.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Well, that is also the case in the Great Commission.
So why Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, but the
workers are for you. Pray the Lord of the harvest
to send forth workers into the harvest field. And open
up your eyes and look at the harvest fields. They
are ripe, ready for harvest. Well, if you were to
walk into these places of minto now, if you were
to walk into Madawi City and you didn't have eyes
(11:28):
of faith, you wouldn't see that. You wouldn't see a
harvest field that was ripe. Just like the Disciples couldn't
see the Samaritans as being followers of Christ. They couldn't
see it. And so that is why Jesus takes them
in there. And the first movement of the Gospel actually
happens in a Samaritan village. And so it takes an
(11:49):
eye of faith. It takes Jesus opening our eyes to
go into a place like that and saying, you know what,
Jesus is Lord in this place. And that's what you
have to remind yourself of because when you show up
to Marawi City, basically you are confronted with that sign
that says this is the Islamic city in Madawi, and
they're telling you we're in charge here, but no, Jesus
(12:09):
says I'm in charge here. On the Cross, he purchased
men from every nation, tribe, people in language. He is
worthy of the worship of every single people group, including
the Marinaw people, and someday there will be I believe,
public worship of Jesus in those places, because Jesus is
lord over Maraawi. He's lord over every place on this planet.
(12:33):
And so as we go and we go in with
that boldness and with that authority that Jesus Christ reigns,
and we have to look at it through those eyes
of faith, that he is calling people that even in
a city like Madaw where you see no evidence of Christianity,
he has people. It's kind of like, you know what
God said to Elijah when he said it's only me, right,
(12:54):
He was just like, it's only me, And God says, no,
I've got five thousand people who haven't bad the need
to bail. He knows who are his in a city
like that, and it's our job to go and find
them and to bring them into his family.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I can imagine there are a lot of opportunities, practical
opportunities for missionaries there to share the gospel and show
love to people. Are there still many displaced people there
from the war that took place.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yes, so there are still many, many thousands of people
that are living in kind of temporary camps that were created.
Like I was saying earlier, there are still many neighborhoods
that haven't been rebuilt. So, you know, half the city
was destroyed and the government promised to go in and
to rebuild it, but that's been slow going. So there
are still many people that are displaced. So that is
(13:44):
a big opportunity to show compassion to people. There are
other very practical ways you can help people. I mean,
this is a very very poor area, very underdeveloped area.
Because of the unrest that's been there literally for a century,
this has been perhaps the most underdeveloped place in the Philippines. Now,
the Philippines is a poor country, but these are the
poorest of the poor. We're talking people that don't have electricity,
(14:07):
people that are living at an almost subsistence level, and
so that is a very practical way. One of the
things that missionaries have done in these areas is help
people to stay alive, help children to stay alive because
there's so many water borne illnesses. So one of the
very practical things you can do to help people, which
is being done is teaching people how to make water
(14:29):
filters from natural materials. You know, we can go to
Costco and buy a two hundred dollars water filter, but
you can actually do the same thing with rocks and
sands and pebbles and just layers what they call sand filters,
and so just with very simple knowledge and technology, using
what's there, they can actually help communities keep their babies,
(14:52):
keep their children alive. And then this really does open
up doors because if you love what people love most,
which are their kids, kids are their treasure. When you're
dealing with people that are in absolute poverty and the
definition of absolute poverty, or of people that live on less
than a dollar a day, those people what they treasure
(15:13):
most are their kids, and yet they're losing their kids.
So you can go in there and show people love
and compassion at that very basic area that is their
most important joy and treasure. That opens up amazing doors
for the gospel.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I'm sure that there are many needs in that area.
Can you share, like for our listeners, what are some
ways that they can be praying for missionaries that are
in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
I think one of the most important things, as we've
been talking about, is the importance of presents keeping people there.
The enemy doesn't want God's people mingling with lost people,
and so one of the reasons for the unrest in
the Philippines. One of the reasons for the unrest all
throughout the ten forty window is because the enemy doesn't
(15:59):
want God's people in those places. He's trying to drive
them out, and so we have to insist that we
have the right to be there. Jesus said, all authority
and heaven on earth has been given to me, and
so we need to pray for the missionaries that God
would give them boldness and also calm and peace in
the midst of the storms that are surrounding them. When
(16:19):
I was there visiting some of the ministries that we support,
there were a group of young single lady missionaries that
were going off to a very dangerous place and then
the now and they had come to the headquarters there.
They were there for a couple of weeks and they
were just going back that day. And how brave are
these people going where? You know, if you and I
(16:42):
were to go there, literally, we would be snatched within
five minutes, we would be kidnapped. That is not an exaggeration.
They are just waiting for someone like us to show
up to kidnap us in these islands. And so they're
going to those types of places. It's not safe it's
not easy. They're putting their lives on the line, but
they're doing it because Christ is worthy of it. And
(17:03):
they're also doing it because they're seeing fruit. They're seeing
people respond. And that is the amazing promise that we've
been given that Jesus promises us, is that he has
people everywhere that he's calling, that he's calling out. And
that is the encouraging thing about missions that in many
ways you could say that the success of missions is
(17:23):
the greatest argument in its favor because wherever we go,
we find that Jesus is already there, already at work,
already drawing people to himself. So that is the big
prayer that God would lead the missionaries to these people,
to the people that He is drawing to himself, those
people who are seekers. It's not easy to find those
people because we're dealing with the population of millions of
(17:46):
people and we're only dealing and we only have a
few missionaries. So how can they find those people? It
needs to be supernatural encounters, divine opportunities. That's what we
need to pray for.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So when you said they were kidnap an American missionary,
who is they?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
So these are groups like the Abu Saif you may
have remember Martin and Grasia Burnham who were kidnapped and
were held in the Sulu Archipelago region, and they would
love to be able to do that again. It would
be it would be their Their greatest gift to them
(18:25):
is if they could grab one of us and hold
us for ransom for millions of dollars, because then they
turn around and use that money to buy more weapons,
et cetera. And so it's interesting, you know Martin and Gracia,
they were held for many many months. Martin was killed
eventually when the Philippine Army went in there. And the
high speed boat that they used to kidnap the Burnhams
(18:49):
was basically financed by Kadafi in a previous ransom situation.
So that's how these groups operate. That's how they get
their money. They get their money through kidnapping, and so
they love to kidnap Americans and foreigners and Europeans. If
they can't do that, they will actually go after wealthy
Filipinos as well. But they would love to get a
(19:11):
hold of one of us. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Wow, So it sounds like this island is just kind
of covered with what terror.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Cells, Yes, you could say that. I mean, they don't
see themselves that way, right. They see themselves as freedom fighters.
They see themselves as fighting for their homeland. They want
to create a Islamic state in Mendo Now. It's interesting
if you read Gracia Burnham's book, I think it's called
In the Presence of My Enemies. She records some of
(19:39):
the conversations that she had with her kidnappers. They aboud
say of and she asked them, why are you doing this, like,
what is your vision your goal? And they said, well,
we want Mendan Now to be a Muslim island. And
she said, okay, well then what and they said, well,
then we're going to take over the Philippines and make
the Philippines a Muslim country and she said, okay, well
(20:00):
then what he said then the whole world, because that's
what we want to do is we want to create
a global coll of fate. It's all there in her book,
these conversations, and it's very eye opening. It reveals the
way that they think and so we look at them
as terrorists. They look at themselves as jihadists, that they
(20:21):
are doing this for God. And that's what Jesus said
was going to happen. The days are going to come
when people who kill you will think that they're doing
this for God, and so it's deception. Satan has deceived
them into thinking that violence is the answer, that killing
people and creating terror is the way they're going to
(20:42):
accomplish their goals. But they're not doing God's work, They're
doing the devil's work, and so they've been deceived. And
that's why the Gospel is so important, the Gospel of peace.
And one of the amazing things that happens when the
Gospel goes into a Muslim context is that people discover
the joy of forgiveness and the peace of forgiveness because
they don't have that. Every single Muslim in the world
(21:05):
lives in fear that when they die, they're going to
be sent to hell. They have no assurance of salvation.
I was talking with an emom recently and I asked
him this question. I said, look, we were on a
plane together, so I had hours to talk to this guy.
I said, I've never met a Muslim who had assurance
of salvation and he said, very forthright, none of us do.
And I said, that is an amazing contrast with where
(21:27):
we are as Christians, because Jesus died to give us
that assurance, so that never throughout the history of eternity
would we ever doubt the love of God. And when
I said that, he just really took that in. You know,
because Muslims really struggle with why did someone as perfect
as Jesus need to die that They really struggle with that,
(21:48):
why would God allow that to happen to one of
his servants, to one of his prophets. But when you
explain it to him from the purposes of God, what
he's trying to do through that sacrifice of the eyes
just begin to open up. So in any case, you know,
for Muslims, it's very, very challenging, very difficult for them
to be able to see things from any other perspective
(22:12):
but jihad, because there's nothing that would attract people to Islam.
It's an oppressive religion, and so the only thing that
they can see, the only way that they can spread
their religion is through fear. And you see that the
fear is very palpable. When you go into a Muslim area,
you feel the spirit of fear ruling over that place,
and it's literally like it's like a mafia. You know,
(22:34):
the mafia. Once you're in, you can't get out, right. Well,
that's the way Islam is. Once you are brought into Islam,
there's no leaving, and so everyone who has who has
come into that system lives in this fear that if
they try to leave, they'll be killed and literally that
can happen. I mean, that's what the Qur'an, that's what
Islam commands you to do to people like that, so
(22:57):
they live under that spirit of fear.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Did you yourself feel like you were in any danger
when you were visiting?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Definitely you feel that this is not a safe place.
I didn't feel any danger because you go into these
places and all is calm, you know, but that can
change on a dime. That can literally change while you're there,
and you hope and pray to God it doesn't right
while you're there. But definitely, that is a palpable feeling
(23:25):
that is there, that this is a powder keg waiting
to explode at any time. And that is why what
we're doing is so important, because there are these moments
that God gives us to be able to go in
and share the gospel with as many people as possible.
But that's a season that could change, you know, and
so we talk about this chiros concept, the concept that
(23:48):
there is a season of time that God has opened
up for harvest, for bringing people in and that season
may end, it may change very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
So it sounds like men and now there is an
autonous region there for for Muslims. Correct, are there any
of the other islands where Islam is spreading to or
is that mostly contained in Minton? Now?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, so you have Minton now and then and then
beneath mind now you have the Sulu Archipelago chain of islands.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So there's are islands like Holo and Behol and Tawi Tawi.
There's a lot of people that live down there too
that are very difficult to reach with the gospel. It's
one of the most difficult to access places for evangelist
because those are places where the that are havens for
these kidnappers, for groups like the Alpo saif they hang
(24:38):
out there, and especially in the interior, that's where Martin
and Grasa were taken. Uh to one of these places,
basied the island of Bisilon. I mistakenly said, behold before
that bhol is a safe place. You can go there
beautiful place. Basilan is the place where where they were taken,
and that is a very dangerous place where basically you're
(24:59):
in you're in unshore territory, you're an unmapped territory in
the interior. There's no roads going into these places, right
except you know, makeshift type roads. And so that is
why they were so difficult to rescue them, because they
took them into the middle of a jungle.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
So where else did you visit? When the Philippines is
your old stopping grounds, right?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
You were?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You live there ten years?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Correct? So yes, I was a missionary there for ten years.
That was a very exciting time to be in the Philippines.
I was there and from nineteen ninety five to two
thousand and six, and that was an amazing time because
there was a great period of harvest that was taking place. Now,
these are among Catholic background people, but even many Muslim
people were coming to faith at that time. And so
(25:41):
the Philippines is a place where you now have probably
eighty thousand churches, you have millions and millions of believers.
When we were there, there were thousands of expatriot missionaries.
They're all going home now because you're like there's nothing
to do here anymore. The Filipinos are planning churches better
than we are now. The church that I was a
(26:02):
part of is probably over fifty thousand people and it's
the largest church now in the city of Manila and
planting daughter churches all over the place. So the church
is thriving in the Philippines in most places. The exceptions
of that are these places that are predominantly Muslim. But
here's the interesting thing. As we've been talking about God's
(26:22):
sovereignty over the migration of peoples and the mixing of
peoples of Christians and lost people those areas because they
are so economically depressed, hundreds of thousands of people are
leaving those areas and they're now coming to Manila and
they're coming to other places all over the Philippines. That's
(26:43):
opening up many, many doors and opportunities for Christians in
those places to reach out. Now, they don't necessarily do
that or know how to, and so they need to
be mobilized to do that. And one group that I
was meeting with is a group that is equipping Filipinos
or cross cultural outreach, and it literally is cross cultural
(27:03):
for them in many ways because they don't understand how
Muslims think. They're from a Catholic background, so these are
very different people. They might be able to speak a
common language, but culturally they're very very different. So they
need to be trained and equipped for how to reach
out to that context.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So what is one of your favorite things about the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
I think the first thing that comes to my mind
are the people. They are the most friendly people that
you ever meet. And they love Americans. Even though you know,
you could say, oh, we were kind of a colonial
power there. They saw us as liberators from colonial Spain,
and we did a lot to help them. We did
a lot of good things in the Philippines in terms
(27:46):
of education and things like that. So they love Filipinos.
If they see an American like me, they'll say hi Joe,
And that's from g I Joe, right, that's from the
soldiers that were there, that's still there, carried over, you know,
many decades later. They love, you know, just American culture.
There's a part of it there where you feel like, hey,
(28:08):
you know, there's this almost feels like I'm at home,
you know, because there's so much American influence there. That's
one cool thing about the Philippines. Then there's the natural
beauty of the Philippines seven thousand islands. Here, it's a
tropical paradise. Once you get out of the city of Manila,
which is not an enjoyable place. You see that now
you know, I don't want to you know this Manila
(28:30):
too much. But even people that live there are like,
this is not a livable city. The traffic there is
like you would not believe. It was bad in the
nineties when I was there, And the streets haven't changed,
but more cars. They put five thousand new cars on
the road every day, and so it's become gridlock everywhere
throughout the city. But you get outside of the city
(28:50):
and you see what God has made. What we have
made is awful right everywhere. But what God has made
is so awesome. And just everything in the Philippines is
really a tropical paradise.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Wow. And so say I wanted to like find some gold,
Is that is it a place where I would go?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Hey, if you go to the Philippines and start talking gold,
you are going to get on an adventure like you
would not believe. So everybody in the Philippines is thinking
about treasure and their treasure hunters because Japanese bury gold
all over the place. In World War Two, our troops,
when our troops came back, you know, MacArthur said I'll
(29:30):
be back right and when he came back, it was
sort of a kind of surprised the Japanese and they
had brought their gold from all over ages of the
Philippines and they were melting it down into bars and
they were going to send it off to Japan. Well
we interrupted that process, and so they had to quick
and quickly hastily bury this stuff all over the place.
And so there are holes where I used to live,
(29:51):
there are stale thirty feet holes. There are many of
them actually in the area lived because where I lived
was actually a battlefield where two thousand American soldiers died.
And so there are bullets everywhere. There's artillery shells. If
you go over it, you know with a metal detector,
you're gonna get hits everywhere. Well, this is also a
place where they had to quickly bury this stuff. So
(30:14):
the anyway you go to the Philippines, you talk about
treasure entering in gold, and you will be brought to
people will have maps and they're ready to go on
a dig with you and you won't find anything, but
you'll have an adventure.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
So you never found any gold, Huh.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I didn't go looking for it, but I never found it.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
You never dug a hole anywhere just for fun to
see if.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I was tempted so many times because I have friends
over there that tell me I know that there's gold here.
I had a guy, this is a true story, who
was working for me doing carpentry, and he disappeared for
two weeks, and I was like, what happened to my
buddy Demi? And then two weeks later he shows up
and he had been digging for gold, and literally this
is what happened. So a guy from Korea came to
(30:59):
visit the land where he was living, and he didn't
own this land. And the reason why there was a
Korean coming there is because the Japanese actually conscripted Korean
soldiers to go fight in the Philippines. And so this
guy comes with a map and he said his grandfather
gave him this map and said that he had buried
gold on this land and it had markings, you know,
(31:20):
that were still visible there, like markings they had made
on a rock here and things like that. So he
started digging. Well, the owner of the land that he
was living on found out that he was doing this,
and two weeks later said, I don't want you digging
on my land. And the reason for that is because
if it is found out that you discover gold, the
(31:42):
government will come and take half of it. So this
this had gone out in the neighborhood that they were
looking for gold on this property, and the owner wanted
to quiet that down. So my carpenter came back to work.
But you will hear those stories all over the place.
I could go on and on with him out of
stories that you will that I heard and that you
(32:02):
will hear if you go there about buried treasure.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
All right, well, thank you David for joining us again today.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Thank you guys, I have fun.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
And for our listeners. If you'd like to learn more
about the Philippines, go to christian Ay dot org. Backslash
Philippines
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