Country Profile: Philippines

The Philippines is the third largest English speaking country in the world. It has a rich history combining Asian, European, and American influences. Prior to Spanish colonisation in 1521, the Filipinos had a rich culture and were trading with the Chinese and the Japanese. In 1898, after 350 years and 300 rebellions, the Filipinos, succeeded in winning their independence.

Filipinos are a freedom-loving people, having waged two peaceful, bloodless revolutions against what were perceived as corrupt regimes. Filipinos are a fun-loving people. Throughout the islands, there are fiestas celebrated everyday and foreign guests are always welcome to their homes.

The Filipinos are divided geographically and culturally into regions, and each regional group is recognisable by distinct traits and dialects - the sturdy and frugal llocanos of the north, the industrious Tagalogs of the central plains, the carefree Visayans from the central islands, and the colourful tribesmen and religious Moslems of Mindanao. Tribal communities can be found scattered across the archipelago. The Philippines has more than 111 dialects spoken, owing to the subdivisions of these basic regional and cultural groups.

Religion:

Predominantly Christian.
Catholics - 82.9%
Protestants - 5.4%
Islam - 4.6%
Philippine Independent Church - 2.6%
Iglesia ni Cristo - 2.3%

Source: Philippine Department of Tourism (2010)

MINISTRY FOCUS AND OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE:

A.      MISSIONS MOBILISATION

1.       Church partnership

OMP works and partners with Christian churches across the country. Church partnership includes ministries with children, women, teens, and other opportunities. Recently, OMP Manila and Cebu offices are reaching out to the mothers, and gradually the whole family, of the children under the outreach church partners. OMP staff helps with the teens and women’s Bible Study with one church working with the Manila office. Aside from the mentioned ministries, OMP also trains church partners with evangelism skills and ministry concept. OMP has been and will be working with churches from the mountain remote areas, including indigenous groups, down to the islets in the south.

2.       Short-term missions team

OMP has been hosting several teams from abroad to do missions exposure in the Philippines. Most teams go to Cebu. With the ministry, OMP allows teams to work with the marginalised and poor, indigenous ethnic groups, and island and mountain ministries. OMP’s main work is with children and teens under partnership with churches.

3.     TEAM (Totally Excited About Missions)

Totally Excited About Missions (TEAM) is a youth missions discipleship club of OMP. It was first launched in Cebu in 2005. TEAM aims that through this club many young people will be exposed, excited and engaged into missions, and will eventually become equipped and better missionaries to go whether locally or internationally and serve God through different ministries. TEAM in Cebu is also the core group that oversees the Go Extra Mile training and exposure. TEAM has produced missionaries who are now serving in different OM fields, ship ministry, and other missions area. TEAM program includes adventure missions like, mountain hiking to far-flung areas and do missions, rappelling, etc.

B.      MISSIONS TRAINING

1.       Global Challenge: Go Extra Mile

OMP Global Challenge (GC) is called Go Extra MILE (Mobilisation and Immersion for a Life-changing Exposure). It is a 17-day missions training and exposure, five days of training and 12 days of exposure to areas where the Gospel is barely shared. It includes missions study, creative ministry training, spiritual discipline, Bible camp workshop, OM orientation, and mission exposure. Filipinos planning to join OM through field offices or ship ministry are required to join the program. OMP has accommodated STEPpers (Short Term Exposure Program participants) and foreigners joining. Both Manila and Cebu offices hold the GC annually: during April in Manila, and October in Cebu.

C.      TRANSFORMATIONAL MINISTRIES

1.       Educational programs: daycare, back-to-school, scholarships

OMP has established two daycare centres. In Cebu, there are 70 students for both Kindergartens 1 and 2. Kapasar daycare centre in Cebu is a community school catering to the relocated families from the port in the main city. These families were transferred due to the city development project of the Government. In Manila, OMP’s partnership with Taytay Fishport Alliance Church has established an informal preparatory class to church members’ kids and neighbours. There are 25 pupils attending class, including a 12-year-old girl, who has no knowledge of reading or writing. Aside from the schools, OMP has also given more than a thousand pieces of educational materials to children of its outreach areas. This distribution had opened a positive relationship between OMP and local government units. It has also encouraged many outreach kids to pursue schooling, especially the streetkids of the Tuesday Feeding program. OMP Cebu Ministries has been supporting selected children from all its 14 outreach areas with school fees and other school needs. It helped the organisation reached out to the parents and families of these scholars, who were active in the outreach areas. From 20 scholars, it has now reached to 30 from primary to high school.

 2.      Children’s ministry

OMP’s main thrust of ministry is the children’s. In Cebu, the ministry outreach is growing, adding two more areas to the list, making it to 14. To date, there are more than a thousand children who benefit from the work of OMP in Cebu. Bible class is regularly on weekends and in Summer OMP holds a Vacation Bible School. Annually, OMP Cebu Ministries holds an annual Children’s Month Celebration every first week of October in line with the United Nations’ celebration for children. OMP Cebu has also trained selected children from the outreaches to undergo the Junior Leaders’ Training, a three-month intensive leadership training for kids, who are expected to assist volunteer teachers, and soon be teachers themselves. In Manila, COME (Children Outreach for Missions and Evangelism) Ministry is being developed after its successful 14-week Saturday Sunday School in 2009. The concept of 'COME' is encouraged and trained to some partner churches of OMP in Luzon area. Its great accomplishment came during the devastation of super typhoon Ketsana (Philippine name: Ondoy).

 3.      Teens’ ministry

The Teens’ Ministry has increased its number after the pioneer children of the outreach areas come into age, and now became the young people. Now, 80% of the outreaches in Cebu have organised their Teen’s Ministry with other teens/youth helping in the programs. The Friday Bible Studies in the OMP Cebu Training Center continues to be a place for them to convene and be blessed. In Manila, OMP works with teens under its partner churches, leading Bible studies and trainings. OMP also partners with youth organisations and groups.

4.       Out-of-the-school youth program: Alternative Learning System

The Alternative Learning System (ALS) program was launched in 2009, a ministry focusing on helping the out-of-school youth (OSY) continue their studies. This is a program of the Philippine Government’s Department of Education, allowing the OSY an opportunity to take an Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) Test held annually. Upon passing the A&E, they will receive a certificate equivalent to a high school diploma. This will give them the option to work or to pursue a college or vocational degree thereafter. OMP Cebu Ministries ALS Centre was visited by the National Bureau of ALS from the National Capital Region, Department of Education to monitor and oversee the whole program. OMP Cebu ALS is a recognised center of the National Bureau.

D.      ADMINISTRATION AND PERSONNEL

1.       Personnel needs

Presently, OMP Manila is in need of people to work with church partnership, missions mobilisers, communications, and office administration. Our staff are multi-taskers due to the growing ministry but less people. We encourage long-term workers to join us with the ministries because the vineyard is big but the workers are few. We have only one staff working with communication, one in personnel, one in church partnership, and none in office administration and reception.

Quotes from friends who worked with OMP:

Christian Andres (Philippines/America). A college professor who worked with OM for one month, helping to mobilise teens for sports ministry and now wishing to mobilise his friends back home for missions:

“They (OM) really work together with the church and even when they leave the mission field they are still involved with the church. I see within OMP that they are there for God and not just for the work. It is good to get out of my comfort zone."

Salome Strache (Germany). A 19 year old who worked with OM Philippnes in 2010 as assistant teacher to staff Aissa Bagotsay Taytay Fishport Daycare Centre.

“The ministry here in the Philippines is a hard work but this is the right place for me to be, God wants me here.”

When asked about adjusting to the culture, Strache said only the language was a little problem, “but that was soon dissolved when God gave me the gift of learning this language really fast,” she said.

“The work requires patience,” Strache admitted but she sees God working in this place “in the beginning I did not see the fruits of the labour but now, after a while you see the women and kids coming to the church and to the woman fellowship,” she said, adding that the growing number of people joining the Sunday service adds encouragement to her work."

Annie Lindblads (Sweden). A 23 year old who worked with OM Philippines Cebu Ministries.

“I have dreamed of the Philippines for some years. And so I was able to go. It has caused me the most was the joy of serving God. In Cebu are you really able to work with so many different things. I love working with young people, and I got to work with their youth. OM Cebu has a lot of different projects in different parts of the city. Which gave pos to both build contacts in one place, but also to see various projects. I loved most Tuesday evenings when we had programs with children and youth who lived not far away from the office. I was there from the beginning and got to see such a big change. In the beginning, we had short programs just because they were so hungry. but in the end it came some of them filled and we began making programs longer and longer. It was during those nights that I personally dared to teach in English. It was a big step for me. It was also a good contact with these young people. so sometimes you could even meet them on other days during the week which was encouraging. I also went back six months later in a few weeks to visit and when I met them as they remembered me and I could see even more development in these meetings with them. Something more seemed to work was the great passion to make Jesus known. It was such a joy to talk about who Jesus is and that He loves all. For me it was all volunteers such "everyday heroes". They spent every weekend at Outreach. You could see that they actually took the Great Commission seriously. Many of them are still in school. The opportunity to work with them and be inspired by them had really shown me Jesus.”

Alica Schneck- Japos (Germany). Someone who found her other half in the Philippines.

“Coming to the Philippines/ Cebu and working with OM has impacted and changed my life more than I ever thought it would.
Going there, not knowing what it would be like in the Philippines and what I would be doing as a ministry and how I could make a diffrence to the people there, I realised that when God calles you, He'll provide and use you more than you think you're capable of.
It was very practical help that I gave. Ministering to kids in different outreaches through Bible stories and creative arts or helping and supporting the local staff in their activities. I was able to bless them by bringing in my gifts and talents, for example to organise games for a childrens celebration or making a dance choreography for a presentation. Highlights in between the day to day life and ministry were things like short term outreaches to small islands near by. Sometimes I felt like I have nothing to give and what I was doing was in vain especially when there wasn't any change visible right away but the Lord thaught me an important lesson when came back 1 year later: Every sunday we went to the mountains to do outreach. Approximatly 8 kids and 7 adults came weekly. We used to gather on a bench around a tree whilst the adults went to a house near by. Coming back a year later to that bench around the tree, I found a church building right there and apprx. 50 people attending the sunday service. Our small outreach had grown to a church.
When I minister for the Lord most High and I give my best, then my work is never in vain, regardless of how I feel during the ministry. Because in my weakness He is strong.
I saw peoples life changed, people coming to Christ, people being blessed by my help and in return the Lord used this mission trip to bless me mightly as well, to change my heart and focus ,not just through the ministry I did but also simply through living in a diffrent country and culture. It was often a lot of fun and excitement, sometimes a challenge and not always easy. The Lord used ALL these things to let me grow and encounter Him in my life.”

 Alison Coss (UK). Served in OM Philippines Cebu ministries.

“I have always had a heart for missions and serving the poor, especially children. I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to a number of different countries for missions – namely South Africa, India and Rwanda. However, none of these touched me quite like my mission trips in the Philippines. The very first time I went to Cebu in July 2006 was on an OCZ (Out of the Comfort Zone) short-term exposure trip for just 10 days. From this time there was something about this place and the people etc that really touched my heart, and I saw a small glimpse of the amazing things God was doing here. I just knew I wanted to be a part of it! However, all good things come to an end, and I returned to UK and back to ‘normal’ life at work, college, church etc. Some might say I had everything I wanted here and, in a material sense I probably did, but I was just no longer satisfied with this life. I spent some time in prayer seeking God as to what His plans were for this season in my life…. To cut a long story short, I decided to go back to Cebu again in June 2007 for an extended period of 6 weeks during my Summer vacation. This was an amazing time in my life, and again the love that I had before for the people and the culture etc just came right back to me and felt so much like ‘home’ and kind of like I had never been away. I guess also I just liked who I was out here … the things I was doing and involved in and with such confidence and assurance was nothing like how I would have handled these situations back home in UK. It was just so clear how God was in complete control and it was Him that was leading me all the time I was here, and I guess I never really felt that in all the things I was involved in back home. So when I left this time after 6 weeks, it was the same feeling as before, except this time I was already beginning to plan and prepare myself mentally BEFORE I left Cebu for my return the following year after my studies had finished! So in September 2008, I was once again back in Cebu… for 4 months this time. Although I would have loved for this time to be longer, sadly it was not practical. I do continue to keep the people of Cebu in my thoughts and prayers – the kids, OM Staff, friends – and so appreciate and enjoy reading the regular newsletter updates. God is really doing great things there and I know He still has so much more to do in the coming years … which could not happen if it weren’t for all the many Staff and Volunteers who have served so sacrificially. So to encourage anyone considering mission in Cebu … go for it! Not only will you bless so many people during your time, but I know that you yourself will also be truly blessed – I know I have been. I guess every time I have been to Cebu, my heart for the people here kept growing stronger… For now though, I am currently living in a small village in Southern Germany, as my husband has a job here. We are attending a new Filipino church, which is amazing and so great to be getting involved with that. However, my heart will still be in Cebu – with the street kids. I believe that one day soon I will have the opportunity to return to Cebu again … I guess the timing, however, is up to God…"

Pastor Diego Lubiton from Jesus Cares for Family Global Ministry in Baguio City, Philippines (Recipient of the COME (Children Outreach for Missions and Evangelism) Ministry training on September 2010):

“Thanks to the Lord for your (OMP staff) lives. The recent training and seminar were successful because of your commitment and heartfelt support. Let’s continue to pray and envision together towards a brighter move of God’s work. Glory to God.”

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