For nearly three weeks, I have been TRYING to write this prayer letter, but to no avail. However, I believe that today is the day, and God is going to help me get it done! Sometimes I think that maybe I should send out a “pre-prayer-letter” letter asking people to pray that I will be able to finish my letter. 😊

We have just finished up our election season here in the Philippines, and the last couple of months have been more than a little chaotic. While we have never experienced violence during elections like many countries do, we always struggle as a church during elections due to Dapitan’s prolific corruption—specifically in the area of vote selling. In the nearly eight years we have been here, we have gone through three major elections, and we have lost members in every one of them, largely due to the strong stance I take against vote selling—it is a hill that I am willing to die on! Outside of the obvious legal implications, nothing in the Dapitanon culture embodies faithlessness more than vote selling! It is a clear message to God, other Christians, and the unsaved world that God’s people don’t believe that He will take care of them. Coming into this election season, I thought that this year was going to be different, but I was wrong. In the Filipino culture, if someone doesn’t like your preaching, they don’t come talk to you about it; they just disappear, and the church is left with the stinging realization of what happened.

That being said, we have also seen many blessings over the last couple of months. The vast majority of our people really grew during this election season, as one by one they made the decision that this year would be different. I can’t wait to see how God will bless their decision of faith in the face of intense social and family pressure to just accept the money like everyone else. We have also been blessed as a family over the last couple of months with much-improved health. Ruth is tired but doing well with her pregnancy; she just recently passed into the third trimester. Please pray that God will give her strength for the last few months and a “relatively” easy delivery in August.

Please keep the following prayer requests in mind:
• God’s hand has been very evident over the last couple of months since we restarted our jail ministry. Please pray that He will continue to work and that lives will be truly changed.
• We have really struggled over the last year in dealing with Joseph’s U.S. and Filipino paperwork. Right now, we are nervously awaiting the return of his passport. We should have received it three weeks ago, and we really need it. Please pray that we will receive it soon.

Dividends on Your Investment

I typically prefer to tell a more recent soul-winning story, but none of my recent soul-winning experiences have quite gripped my heart like what happened a few weeks ago on April 25. We were soul winning in a distant barangay called Maria Uray. For those who are unfamiliar with the Philippines, Filipino cities are divided into areas called barangays, and within these barangays are areas called puroks. Purok technically means “village,” but practically, a purok is a neighborhood. We have been soul winning in Barangay Maria Uray a decent number of times over the years, but on this particular day, after dropping off our soul winners at strategic locations across the barangay, I made a point of going myself to a specific purok which we had never been able to get to in the past. Initially, I found the children to be friendly and the adults to be relatively aloof. This is nothing new in Dapitan, which has been a citadel of Catholicism for decades. However, after sharing the Gospel with some children, I started a conversation with two college-aged men. At first they were hesitant to listen; I could tell that they were worried about what their neighbors would think. However, after a few minutes, they agreed to sit down and listen to the Gospel in a sheltered area next to a roadside store. As I began sharing the Gospel, their discomfort continued, but after about 10 minutes, an older gentlemen walked up and started listening from about 15 feet away. I was initially afraid that he would cause trouble, but within a few minutes, he was nodding his head and even answering my questions when the young men hesitated. As I continued sharing the Gospel, albeit at a higher volume, I suddenly realized that the woman watching the store had sat down on a bench behind me to listen as well. When I reached the end of my Gospel presentation, the older man stood up from where he had been sitting and came over to the shelter to join us in prayer. When it was all said and done, the older gentlemen, the two college-aged men, a little girl, and the woman watching the store all decided to put their faith in Jesus Christ! Soul winning still works!

After we prayed, I found out that the older gentlemen is a barangay counselor, and it seems that God may be preparing to open a door for us, using his influence. The first thing he said after he got saved was, “When can you come back here again? There are many other people you could talk to.” I don’t know for sure, but it seems that God is preparing to open a door for some kind of ministry in the area. It looks like it would be a great opportunity for some of our preacher boys. Please pray that God would guide me clearly.

Yours for souls,

Mike Morrissey