I was not planning to attend Balikatan this year. In fact, I previously just attended one, in Chicago, and that was because of a reunion of members from Xavierville Bible Church following Balikatan. Also I don’t have dugong IVCF, not having been directly involved in student ministries while I was a missionary in the Philippines. But my life did intersect with many IV people especially at Diliman Bible Church and XBC. I should introduce myself to many who don’t know me. I served in the Philippines with Overseas Missionary Fellowship, formerly the China Inland Mission. Some of you may be familiar with Hudson Taylor, founder of the CIM in 1865 and pioneer missionary to China. He was a real pioneer including taking single women in the groups of missionaries he took to China for ministry, wearing Chinese clothing, etc. I remember arriving at the Manila pier in March 1960 (one of the boat people,) feeling that I was just where I belonged and was very privileged to serve in church planting ministries until 1994. I have taken 5 trips back, some for short term assignments. I guess you can take me out of the Philippines but not the Philippines out of me. Anyway, I am here because my dear friends, Robert and Monina Davids graciously picked me up near Philadelphia and will get me home again. And an added attraction was that I had never been to Boston.

I am so glad I came! What a blessing. I sense a joy, unity, and purpose in Balikatan this year even compared to the one I attended 4 years ago. And I love the emphasis on missions too. And there are so many people here I knew as young grads long ago who are now adults, with growing families who are blessed with Christian parents.

I want to read two short passages. I moved into Senior Housing last year and find that older people can be cranky and discontented. The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:11-12: “…I have learned how to be content with whatever I have, I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little…” This is something I need to continue to learn. There is so much here in the US to entice. When I came home to retire it was easy to think that maybe I deserved more creature comforts, etc. having done without many in past years. But there is a secret to learning contentment, as Paul continues in v. 13, “for I can do everything through Christ Who gives me strength” So I can learn and practice contentment in every season of my life, through Christ’ power and presence.

The second passage is Philippians 2:14-16a: “Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the Word of Life…” My desire now is to live like this, by His grace, especially in my Senior Housing and in relating to my maraming mga apo sa pamangkin who need Jesus in their lives.

Thank you all for blessing me at this Balikatan. And maybe I will get to San Francisco too!

Hello! My name is Daniel Basco. I’m a recent graduate of Wheaton College. And, I will be starting my first year of seminary at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the fall of this year with an emphasis on cross cultural ministry for the purpose of pursuing God’s calling in my life to join Christ and His Kingdom’s expansion among an unreached people group.
I share this with you because I want to tell you why Jesus has so called me to be His witness. Thus the question before us is, “Why missions”.
Some may think that it has something to do with Wheaton College, the “Harvard of Christian Schools.” It’s not. Some may believe that I have a predisposition towards missions because of my Christian upbringing and personal piety. That is not the case.
I want you to understand that when I applied to Wheaton College, the only reason I applied was because going to a Christian school was the only means by which I could convince my parents to let me go to school out of state. However, the truth was that I was running away from Christ. I was living an as-if life, not a because life.
My as-if life was a life that existed as if Christ had truly set me free from the bondage of sin, as if Christ was truly Sovereign King over my heart, soul, mind, and strength. My life did not reflect an existence that lived the abundant, eternal life given me in Jesus Christ because He redeemed me from the just condemnation of my sinful estate, because He is Lord over my whole being.
In particular, I lived with a haunting insecurity, an insecurity of abandonment, and an insatiable want of love and acceptance. Sure Christ had died and risen for my sins, but I still desired others’ acceptance through my scholastic achievements, musical proficiency, and, yes, model Christian behavior.
Christ, however, saw fit to crumble my idols such that I was never quite the best at anything, and every idol I pursued left me more dissatisfied than the previous. Thus, by the time I was headed to college, desiring God was a far cry from the reality of my inner being.
But praise be to Jesus! For in His furious, unrelenting love, He pursued me all the way to Deerfield, IL where Balikatan 2006 was being held the summer before my freshman year at Wheaton. (Quite ironically, the location of Balikatan 2006 was Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where I will attending seminary.) There, a conversation with a dear friend with whom I shared my heart’s rebellious wanderings led to my confession that I was tired of fighting Christ. That night of prayerful confession, I finally surrendered to the Hound of Heaven’s relentless, pursuing grace, mercy, and love.
Yet, that was but the inciting moment of my journey. The Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification continued during and after that retreat as I have been blessedly haunted by a quotation and a segment of Scripture.
Dr. Waybright, that year’s Balikatan speaker, said, “We are more evil than we could ever dare imagine; yet at the same time we are more loved than we could ever hope.” This profound truth helped me see that I am indeed a chief of sinner whom the Father has the audacity to love and reconcile unto Himself through the costly grace of Jesus’ blood.
As a result, I was deeply moved by Paul’s desire to know Christ in His sufferings, death, and resurrection in Philippians 3:1-14. And I have specifically wrestled with verse 12: that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. “…I press on to take hold that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Why? Why me? What is it that Christ sees worth taking hold of in me?
In college, I had the blessing of wrestling with this question in a community God continually uses to stretch, refine, grow, and bless me. At West Alliance Church, I found reflections of Christ’s love in His body. Consequently, by the time I graduated in December of 2009, I told my dad and mom that under the conviction of the Holy Spirit I could not and would not leave my church community because I felt and knew that God had more work yet to do.
As I spent a winter unemployed, my pastor challenged me to meditate upon Luke 3:21-23. Specifically, that it was only after Christ knew His identity as the Son of the Father that Christ began His ministry. Consequently, I desired to know who the me He created me to be truly is. The Father more than obliged and began to reveal to me my identity as His beloved child. The Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see that my identity is contingent upon who He is, not what I do. I do not do in order to be loved by Him. I simply am His beloved precisely because He’s my Father and I’m His son.
Moreover, He opened my eyes to see that even before creation He had spent kairos time, the fullness of a moment, to dream me, to imagine me, to aspire my being. There is no other like me. Praise God! (There’s no other like you. Praise God!) The Triune God, perfectly complete, lacking nothing, squandered a fullness of His eternity into desiring me to be that I may first exist then be reconciled to Himself in Christ! I am “doubly His.” That is the answer to Philippians 3:12!
Christ wasn’t grasping at anything in and of myself. In His very zeal for His own Name’s glory, He is and I am! He created and called me because it is in His very Triune nature to take hold of me, to welcome me into relationship with Himself that He may receive the “greatest glory as I am most satisfied in Him.” At this, I am compelled to worship the LORD who is the great I AM.
And when I think that the Triune God spent a kairos moment to dream, to imagine, to aspire all creation, all mankind, into being; when I think of Jesus’ costly grace that reconciles all those who would receive Him and believe in His name, I am moved in heart, soul, mind and strength to desire that the great I AM be worshiped in my life and through the one life He has given me to steward for His glory. My desire becomes His, that He receive the highest glory and honor due His name from every tribe, nation, and tongue.
Why missions? Because He simply and most profoundly is. Out of the greatness and glory of who He is, I am doubly His. I need not be and yet still I am and still I am called. He is the LORD, deserving of all worship, glory, honor, and praise.
And if any word of encouragement I may give to you it is this. Our lives our not our own. The Triune God created us in His lavishness, made Himself known to us in His mercy, and redeemed us with costly grace. We are doubly His. And we have been given one life to steward for His glory. Therefore, may we live lives that exist because He is LORD over all, deserving of the highest praise. May we live lives that are “for Christ and His Kingdom.” And in who we are in Christ and everything we do that flows from our identity as sons and daughters of the Most High God, may our lives reflect Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be glory. Soli Deo Gloria.

Annabelle Ancheta’s Testimony
2010 Balikatan Conference
July 2-4, 2010
Gordon College, Wenham, MA
Hi, I’m Annabelle Ancheta and I’m Landy’s wife.
The reason I’m here today is to tell you a story about God’s sovereignty, faithfulness and love. You see, about five weeks ago, Landy and I came out of a nine-month ordeal. The story started at the end of August last year. Landy and I were just getting settled in the Greater Toronto Area, after he came back for good from a two-year job assignment in Indonesia. We were adjusting to the demands of our new jobs — well, new position for him, new job for me as I had to change employers in order to join Landy in Toronto. I was stressed as I adjusted to the rigorous demands of a job in an industry that I knew very little about, set up our new home and faced the burdens of preparing for the weddings of our two daughters which were to happen in a January and May 2010 and braced myself for the sadness that I was sure to feel because I will miss my girls and not like being an empty nester. I felt like fish out of water. Then an unwelcome thing happened.
Last November, Landy was diagnosed with having a tumour in his colon. The discovery of this tumour explained the intermittent ”stomach” pains that he had endured for three months previous to this diagnosis. The news was a complete shock to me and the rest of my family as Landy was in very good health until the shocker came. His doctor quickly scheduled surgery to remove the tumour and two feet of his colon. The next thing on our plate was Landy recovering at home from his surgery and us waiting for the biopsy results that would tell us whether or not the tumour was malignant. About a week after the surgery though, I came home one day and found that Landy had developed, in a matter of hours, a huge lump on the side of his neck. Our hearts sank. We had no explanation for this lump. We could not develop a theory for why it was there, especially what its connection was with the colon tumour. Things did not look good at all. Tests on the lump followed and after a few days, Landy endured another surgery. The doctor did not remove the lump but instead removed Landy’s left tonsil to enable the doctor to take a good look at that lump on his neck and to ease his airway.
Two weeks later, the pathology report on the colon tumour was released and we were informed that Landy had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. That’s cancer of the lymphatic system. That diagnosis was the explanation for both the lump on his neck and the colon tumour. Apparently, the colon tumour developed not from the colon but from an infected lymph node that was close to the outside colon wall. This news ironically gave us relief on the immediate because finally, all of Landy’s symptoms can now be explained. It had a name and the name was cancer. A few days after the release of this diagnosis, Landy started the first of six scheduled chemotherapy sessions, to be done in 3 week intervals. So our life for the next few months went like this — we continued to adjust to our new lives in the big city, I worked well enough to make it through my probationary period at work, Landy worked from home, we went through Landy’s chemotherapy sessions and in between those sessions, celebrated both our 50th birthdays and married off our daughters. It was tough, but God was good. I chronicled Landy’s health journey and requested for prayers for Landy via emails to family and friends, many of whom are among you right now. The outpouring of love from brothers and sisters in Christ and other friends and family was overwhelming. I know that for most of the months from November to May, Landy was regularly prayed for in different churches and prayer groups across a number of countries as our friends passed on my emails to their other friends in other parts of the world.
Throughout our ordeal, especially when I was gripped with fear and anxiety, God moved me to be thankful to Him. He gave me the faith that I needed to trust him and obey his command to give Him thanks in everything (Thessalonians 5:18). And those things that I was thankful for were plenty. I was thankful for:
1. Medical science
2. Health care in Canada
3. Well-trained and compassionate health care professionals
4. The way that God orchestrated events such that through the cancellations of many people’s appointments, Landy kept on jumping the different queues for different kinds of tests required prior to his colon surgery
5. Our employers who assured us of their support during Landy’s treatment period
6. Landy’s being allowed by his employer to work from home
7. The constant flow of email messages, cards, phone calls, visits, and letters from family and friends to express their love and support
8. The prayers of so many people
9. The fiancés of our daughters and their families who helped us hold up our children from the time we heard the unwelcome news until it the treatment was over
10. The wonderful weddings of our daughters and our new sons-in-law
11. Landy himself, who was a cheerful patient and who inspired me, our children, and so many.others with his faith in God and peacefulness with his situation
12. Landy’s response to chemotherapy treatment.
Last May 25th, after a battery of tests to check the effectiveness of the chemotherapy treatments, we were told that Landy had excellent response to chemotherapy and did not need radiation. His cancer was declared to be in remission. While he was getting chemotherapy infusions, except for the loss of his hair and the tiredness that he felt each time around Day 4 to Day 10 after each chemo treatment, he experienced few bad side effects. He never lost his appetite and many times, on good days before his next chemo treatment, he would even go out and jog with our dog. He was amazing.
All praise items were wrapped into the two biggest things that I was thankful for — Landy’s healing and my experiencing the realness of God’s words. In the last 9 months, I really learned that:
1. God is sovereign. Nothing happens outside of His direction and permission as said in Psalms 135:6 which says, “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.”
2. God provides exactly what we need at the right time. I needed peace, endurance and comfort and He gave those to me. He supplied and is supplying all my needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus as He promised in Philippians 4:19.
3. The love of Christian brothers and sisters is priceless. I am very grateful for the obedience of so many who practiced for our sake Romans 12: 10 which says, “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honour giving preference to one another.
4. Our greatest source of comfort is God’s word. Many times, as I read the Bible during my devotion times, prayed and read verses that friends shared with me, I would be in awe because it seemed like the words I was reading were written specifically for me and our family’s situation.
5. Finally, I learned that the best way to honour God is to obey His word as he said in John14:15, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.”

God has told us, His children, that in our lives, the rains will come. I don’t know what our experience in the last nine months was in terms of the intensity of the rain but this I know: I experienced the outpouring of God’s love for me and Landy in those months and am experiencing that even today. Because of that, I am sure now, more than ever, that when rain comes again, be it a minor spitting or a full out deluge, the right thing to do is to fix my eyes on the Lord because He loves me, He has a plan and His plan is perfect. I think God had me and my family in mind when He wrote 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 which say, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” The truth though is that He had all of His children in mind when He wrote these words.
As I said earlier, Landy’s cancer is currently in remission. He will be monitored closely in the next two years and lightly in the three years after that. I humbly request that you pray for him as the next few years are going to be critical for him. I also ask you, my brothers and sisters, to always remember that we serve a great God who loves us with such depth that He gave His Son as a perfect ransom so that we can be saved from the consequences of our sin, has a perfect will for us, cares for our every hurt and hears our every cry. He is our home and the perfect refuge for our souls. Thanks for listening.