Mercy Mission

Isaiah 58:10 If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall be as the noonday.

The aftershocks continued to shake Ranau. I felt the tremors several times yesterday and jolted out of my lethargy (see Straitstimes report here). I needed a 2-day break to recover from the exertions of the weekend but the aftershocks continued to put one on its toes. The spirit of slumber is lifted and we are as alert as ever for more aftershocks. The evening 5.30pm tremor shook my house (manse) and I saw it swerved from one side to another as I was outside cleaning my car. The force of earthquake is something to behold though it was only 4.3 Richter. The earth shook and moved at the sound of Your voice, O Lord.

Last night I led prayers after sharing from Haggai 2:1-9 how the Lord would shake the heavens and earth, the sea and land and He will shake the nations that they will bring gold and silver to beautify His house to make it glorious. Tonight I shall be preaching from Colossians 3 though I may depart from the Colossians series to address pressing concerns. On Friday will be the mid-point of the year, our 6th monthly combined cell groups meeting. Six months? It seems I had been here in Ranau only for 6 weeks!

This morning with another fellow pastor and a church friend we went to another SIB church at the outskirt of Ranau district in the Perancangan District. It was a village I visited 19 years ago and we were on a mercy trip. For several days the villagers were out of water and one visitor to our Sunday service informed us of that. Not wanting to act too quickly, I waited for about 36 hours as I heard news that others were sending help. But when I called the contact person last night, she told me that the pastor's house was in need of water and we duly delivered 11 boxes of drinking water with a 5-litre mineral bottle to the pastor's house for the needs of his family