Friday, September 27, 2013

Health Opens Doors!



Doors, doors and more doors.

Doing outreach for God involves lots of doors – mostly closed doors. We always pray that God will show us how to get inside those closed doors to share Jesus with those inside.

Here at PAFCOE, our students have been finding that the health message really opens doors! These are doors that would otherwise stay tightly closed. One student said, “I was so inspired by the very people I did not expect would be interested in our health survey. Two people came to do the health survey and after they were done, many, many people started coming to us and began asking what we were doing and they were so interested, even though it was raining very heavily. Health really is the key into someone’s heart!”

Last week, the students learned how to do health surveys and found them to be very successful. Then, if they find someone who is sick, they offer to do simple natural treatments on them to help them get better. These treatments are usually very effective and a great blessing to the ones receiving them – and also to the one giving it, too! One student said this:

“This week, we got to do 2 treatments on our ‘patients.’ It’s so inspiring to see people smile and have happy hearts because someone cared for them! Their smiles lifted my heart and I am also gladdened. Indeed there is joy in serving others!”

Sometimes all it takes is to get the right person interested and the rest will follow, as is the case with this student:

“Our inspiring experience this week is that we went out doing health surveys and hardly anyone was interested. We tried and tried to show them the benefits of the health survey, but they just weren’t interested. Finally we surveyed one man and he enjoyed it a great deal! Then he offered that we do the health survey on each of his family members (10 in all). Then he went to his neighbors and told them that they should participate in this really great survey. We were so inspired that God used him to help reach people that we couldn’t without him!”

At another place, our students found they were the center of attraction! Here’s what one said:

“I see God’s love in our outreach this week in the hearts of the people we are working for. I could not imagine that these people will really accept our health survey offer to them, but God had already prepared the people of this place where we went. We are like sugar that attracts millions of ants. The people came flocking around us and were so excited to see what we were doing. We had only one blood pressure cuff, but we used it on so many people and they were so happy to learn more about health!”

Though everyone was busy treating the sick out in the community, some of the treatments had to be given to the students and staff because they were sick, too! One student said, “This week, it was Sunday and I was not feeling well. I felt so cold and was full of aches. When the outreach came in the afternoon, my mind was in a turmoil. I didn’t want to go out. The rain was pouring and it added to the reason of why I didn’t want to go out. I fought with myself for awhile. Then I decided to go out for outreach anyways. And that day, God gave us another interest to work with! What a blessing! I’m so glad I went out!”

Another student said, “I’ve seen God’s love to my classmates who showed their love and care not only for me but for so many others. Many of us were sick this week and I have seen how so many of the classmates willingly offered to help the others get well. Truly God’s love can still be seen through His children. Others volunteered to do hydrotherapy on those who were sick instead of doing their assignments. They were so thoughtful!”
Student demonstrating how to do the hot foot bath.

And of course, every week we struggle with having so much rain that it makes it difficult to go out on outreach. One student said, “I was so worried this week when we had a new outreach territory and the rain was coming. As we were conducting our health surveys, I could see the rain really was coming. My companions and I prayed that the rain will stop so that we can finish our outreach and make it back to the classroom in the evening without getting too wet. The rain slowed down and we ran fast to the jeepney and praise God we didn’t get wet that day!”

And sometimes God sends people to help encourage us along the way! One student said this: “It has really been an inspiring week! One day a man opened the door to us and amazingly enough, he congratulated us and said, ‘Continue the good work. Continue reaching people!’ Later on that day, another lady said, ‘Reach more people and reach those who never heard of God’s love.’ We never expected that such random people will encourage us, but they did! It was just what we needed because we were very cold and soaked from the heavy rain. God is so good!”

Yes, friends, the health message really does reach those who would not be interested any other way! 

Health is the key to all those closed doors!

Use health and see what doors God will open for you, too!