By Tim Holbrook, Jul 1, 2010

“If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord you God . . . I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you” (Ex. 15:26 NIV).

The screech of brakes cut the warm afternoon stillness as the loaded jeepney slid to a gravelly stop at Talipapa. A sleepy dog raised his head, looked at the jeep, and then lay back down. A puff of blue smoke drifted upward as the driver gunned the engine and then shut it off. He slid out of his seat, ambled over to a saw-horse-and-plywood restaurant, and sat down on a wooden bench to wait for his rice and fish. The passengers on the hot metal jeepney roof stood up, stretched, climbed down and made their way over to the cool shade of the vegetable market while they waited for the driver to eat his lunch.
The passengers sitting inside the jeepney slouched in their seats as a bevy of women made their way over to them to sell snacks of sweet rice, soft drinks, peanuts and balut, fermented eggs containing fetal chicks.

Lunito dropped lightly down from the jeepney roof and made his way over to the shade. He wished the driver had waiting a bit longer before stopping for lunch. His stop at Pandarukan was just a few miles further.

Thirst drove Lunito to look around the rickety sheds for a water faucet. Spying an old, broken pipe sticking out of the ground, Lunito opened the valve, bent over, and drank his fill.
Fifteen minutes later, as he swung himself back onto the jeepney roof, Lunito felt a twinge in his stomach. Hmm, he thought. I must have eaten something that doesn’t agree with me. A few miles down the road, he dropped off of the jeepney, waved goodbye to the driver, and walked into Pandarukan.

Nine hours later, Lunito was in grave trouble. He was vomiting almost continuously and had terrible diarrhea. He was dying. The villagers had seen it all happen many times before. Lunito had the dreaded cholera. They tried to get Lunito to drink some water, but as fast as he drank, the fluid came back out faster.

Seventh-day Adventist elders hurried from hut to hut collecting money to pay for Lunito’s fare to the Mamburao hospital. Without an IV infusion, he would certainly die. But, alas, there was not enough money in the village to get Lunito to the hospital.

Having done all they could physically do for Lunito, the elders and Adventist church members gathered around him and began praying to God for his healing. Hour after hour crept by. The crickets continued their chirping, and the river behind his hut continued its burble, but Lunito’s heartbeats gradually slowed until he faded into unconsciousness. His eyes rolled back into his skull. Every bone in his body seemed to be poking through his shrunken taut skin.

Finally, tired and discouraged, the members and elders shuffled back to their huts. They knew there would be a funeral the next morning.
As the sun peeped over the green mountains and illuminated the Pandarukan valley, the elders sadly trudged to Lunito’s house. As they rounded the bend in the trail, they suddenly stopped and stared. There on his hut’s stairs sat Lunito! He grinned and waved them over as his stuffed a banana into his mouth. “What’s wrong?” he asked between bites. “You look like you’re seeing a ghost!”

“Ah, well, maybe we are,” stammered the elders. “Last night when we left, you were dying. Now you alive and well! What happened?”

“The last thing I remember was all of you kneeling around me and praying,” replied Lunito. “Then I woke up and felt awfully hungry. So I got my machete and walked to my mountain farm and cut off a stalk of bananas. God sure answered your prayers!”

The elders dropped to their knees and offered God thanks for His incredible saving miracle. Within minutes, word flashed through the village that the church’s prayers had been answered.
God is still at work in the Alangan church. Word has spread all over the mountains of central Mindoro that the Adventist God heals.

A few months ago, a skinny man dressed only in a loin cloth, and his wife dressed in a flour sack, carried a small four-year-old boy into Pandarukan. The boy had severe fever and was barely breathing, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. “We’ve heard that God listens to you,” pleaded the parents. “Please pray for our son. The witchdoctors have tried all of their medicines but, he continues to get worse. Talk with your God and ask Him to heal him.”

Taking the child into their arms, the church elders knelt in a circle and prayed for his healing.

The next day, the child was the same. Again, the elders prayed over him. The second day passed, and still no improvement. As the sun rose in the sky on the third day, the elders again knelt and prayed for the boy. The following day, the child showed much improvement. Slowly, day after day, the fever gradually left until he was able to eat and drink again. But the fever left him unable to speak. The elders prayed again, and by the end of two months, the boy was able to speak and laugh and yell just like any other child.

As the little family made their way back along the dirt trails through the mountain valleys, they told everyone they met how the God in Pandarukan village had healed their son.
Not long ago, a middle-aged husband carried his sick wife into Pandarukan. He told how they had spent four months following a powerful witchdoctor’s orders for her healing. He had sacrificed all of his pigs. He had given the doctor all of his money. He had killed all of his chickens in ritual after ritual, all to no avail.
Next, he had borrowed money from his family and friends and had carried his wife down to the lowlands where a powerful Filipino spirit doctor lived. For a month, this spirit doctor had worked on his wife with no results. Finally, his money gone, the husband was carrying his wife home to die when he heard about a powerful God in Pandarukan.

The elders and church members gathered around the young wife and prayed for her healing. Immediately she began to improve. At the end of seven days, she was completely well, and she and her husband packed up their few possessions to begin the long walk back to their home. With tears in their eyes, they thanked the church members and elders for their prayers. “Thank you so very much for your prayers,” they said. “Truly you know the God who heals.”
That message has covered the mountains where the Alangan live. As a result, the Alangan Seventh-day Adventist Church is experiencing rapid growth.

When we left the Philippines in 2001, there were four churches planted by us and other missionaries and student missionaries in Pandarukan, Mayba, Buwao, and Sipoyo/Bayabasan. Within a few years, Pakpak, Drandranan, and Siapo were added. Within the last two years, new churches sprang up in Danginan, Tibag, Calamansian and Landing. These latest ones were developed and nurtured by second-generation church leaders! Some of these new churches have only a dozen or so members, but each member is eager to learn and witness to others about his remarkable God.

Presently, these churches span the territory between the Amnay and the Patrick rivers—the heart of Alangan territory. With thankful hearts, we are witnessing the reproducing of churches and church leadership among the Alangan. Where will it end? We hope it won’t! Even if every Alangan man, woman, and child becomes a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, we long for the saving knowledge of God to continue on to the other tribes on Mindoro until the entire island knows that “there is a God who heals.”