Sisters reaches out to the Philippines

The little city of Sisters manages to reach out to connect with some of the most remote places in the world. Goodwill representatives from the area have traveled to the far corners of nearly every continent to meet the needs of those who are struggling to survive.

One of those is a team of 12 local folks from Three Sisters Fellowship. The group has just returned from ministering to the physical and spiritual needs of the people who live in the southern area on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

The mission went off without a hitch in spite of the fact that Mindanao is one of the more dangerous places on the face of the earth, with two different fundamentalist Islamic rebel groups trying to overthrow the local government in a bid for independence.

The Sisters missionaries used the city of Davao on the southern coast of Mindanao as a base for the two-week support campaign. Although the mission had been in the thoughts of the church for some time, the planning did not take long.

"We started planning the trip about four months before we left and focused on that area of the world because we support a missionary couple there," said Mike Boswell, pastor of Three Sisters Fellowship.

The primary focus of the physical ministry was in the area of prenatal and postnatal care.

"There is a big need there, and the couple that we support are assisting at Mercy Maternity Center. It is a nondenominational organization that provides free maternity care for the poor and also trains midwives. There is a huge need there, and maternity care is a real problem for the local population," said Reverend Boswell.

Mercy Maternity Center delivers about 100 babies per month, according to Reverend Boswell.

"Part of what makes the organization (Mercy Maternity) possible is that they train midwives, and people come from all over the world to volunteer and in the process can obtain a fully accredited midwife certification. There are people training from the US, Europe and the Philippines," he said.

Beyond the medical needs of the area, practical services that we take for granted are not available there.

"The Outland Adventure Team have the largest ropes course on the island and have the largest zip line in the Philippines. The rope course is used by the public schools in the area of Davao to teach leadership training and team building. The Outland Adventure Team is all Filipino nationals, and one of the other reasons that we went was to teach search and rescue techniques to the team," said Reverend Boswell.

According to Reverend Boswell, three members of the group who traveled to the Philippines are experienced in search and rescue, both as past and current members of search and rescue squads in Central Oregon.

"We spent three days training the team in first aid and search and rescue. We also carried over a lot of equipment with us and left it all behind for their use after we were gone," he said.