The need for the Gospel in the Philippines

God has shown me some things very clearly in trips to the Philippines. There are incredible doors open here at this time. The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few. Some will say that the Philippines is one of the most evangelized countries in the world and it is now a missionary sending nation. This may be in some areas or based on certain measurements like how many missionaries from evangelical circles have been sent there compared to other countries but the reality of it is not that obvious. The country is 81% Roman Catholic, 5% Muslim and much of the rest are either indiginous beliefs, Iglesia ni Kristo 2.3% and other cults. As you might expect, spending time there is what helps a person understand how great the need really is. There are more than 91 million people in this country with a high birth rate. Those people are spread over 880 of the 7,107 islands. Without going into detail in this document, there are three primary groupings of people in these islands – the Tribal peoples (Northern Luzon – Mountainous), the Filipinos (the bulk of the population – dominantly Catholic) and the Moro peoples (Muslim – southernmost islands). There are between 8 and 12 major tribes in the north but within that there are perhaps hundreds of divisions by different dialects, beliefs and differences from past conflicts that are maintained from generation to generation. I have included a map of just the Northern Philippines that shows the various language families just on Luzon to give an idea of the diversity of peoples. It is taken from http://www.ethnologue.com/. Even among the highest population groups where most missionaries would be found (Tagalogs in the Manila region and the Cebuanos in the Visayan island group) there are millions and millions who are not evangelized let alone an effective means of discipling those who are. The open doors are endless in schools, jails, prisons, hut to hut evangelism, street ministry and so much more. We are eager to be involved in these areas while not losing focus of training believers to go tell others in the mountain regions and to the uttermost.