My
Call To The Mission Field
By
Bill Baxley
(Part
2)
I
want to share an incredible story that happened during that first trip. I was preaching at Romy's one little church he had
at that time. He had a broken down Jeep that he was using. I felt so sorry for him trying to go to church, seeing all his
people walking to the church with no transportation. And that one pitiful church wasn't even finished, just raw block work.
But I will never forget that there was a girl there. The mother brought this little girl who was five years old and had never
walked. She brought her to me to pray. She brought her up three times for me to pray for her. I was crying and praying for
this little girl. I said, “Just take her home, Mother, and pray.”
After
I had gotten home form that first trip, I got a letter from Romy two weeks later, and he said, “Brother Baxley, you
can't believe what happened. After you had left and had been gone a couple of weeks, this little girl was in her bed, sleeping
in her home, and you walked through the door of her home and you came over to her bedside. You laid your hand on her head,
and Jesus was standing behind you with His hand on your shoulder, and when you prayed for her, instantly, God healed this
little girl.
She
jumped up and walked into her mother's room and told her what had happened, that I had come through the door and prayed for
her and that Jesus was behind me with His hand on my shoulder. The next Sunday they brought her to church and shared this
story. Somehow, God gave me the privilege of being transported in the Spirit while I was here in America, and God used me
in that way to heal this little girl. What an incredible story! Not only did Philip get transported in the Spirit, but God
allowed me to be transported in the Spirit to the Philippines while I was in America.
After
thirty days in the Philippines and preaching everywhere, I was overwhelmed at seeing the poor and suffering people. It was
so amazing how they loved God. I would go to these churches that were little bamboo huts. Maybe sixty people would be inside
and dozens outside couldn't get in, but they didn't care about a beautiful building. They just wanted to worship and praise
God. Although I was overwhelmed at what I saw, I was so homesick. I decided that I had to go home. I couldn't stay away from
my family any longer, so I left. I didn't know if God was upset with me for leaving after thirty days. Brother Melrose wanted
me to stay longer, but I told him I just couldn't. I was too homesick, but God had begun to put an incredible bond between
Romy and me. It was like David and Jonathan.
I'll
never forget when he took me to the airport. There was a chain link fence there and Romy couldn't get through it. When I was
leaving, tears were streaming down my face and tears were pouring out of his eyes, and he reached through the fence, grabbed
my hands with his fingers, and we prayed together. I got on the plane not knowing if I was to come home or not. I was troubled
in my spirit whether I should have left. I had seen so many incredible things that God was doing and people being saved everywhere
I went. That trip home was so amazing because we had turbulence the whole trip, and my faith was so low, thinking that I would
never get home. It seemed like every time the light would go on to fasten seatbelts, I would think, Lord, I'm going in the
dark. I'm not going to make it home. I just know I'm not going to make it home.
I
got close to San Francisco. There was a young Filipino man dressed in a suit and tie beside me, and he had gone home to the
Philippines to visit his family. I began to share the Gospel with him before we got to the airport. We had just landed, and
we were taxiing down the runway to the airport, and I looked over at him beside me and tears were streaming down his face.
I asked him, “Would you like to accept Jesus as your Savior?” He said, “Yes, I would.” I led him to
the Lord right there on the plane. Then I knew that I was on the right trip home. God let me witness to a young man, and he
sealed it in my heart that it was time to come home. I took his address, and I told I would send him a Bible. I never heard
from him again.
I
got to the airport and my family was waiting there. I actually got down on my knees, and I kissed the ground. I thought, I
will never leave this country again. No one will ever get me away from America again. I had been so homesick and was thrilled
to see my family. When I got home I went back to my job and stared building again. In a few months, I began to be miserable.
I would look over at my fields and see all my beautiful cattle and horses. It was a ranch that wasn't our living. It was just
things that we wanted, like so many people. I was caught up in the prosperity message and all that sort of thing with all
this stuff that we wanted in life. I always wanted a beautiful ranch. I had everything that I wanted in life and three children.
I was happy in that sense, but I would look over at my fields and see all that I had, and then I would be reminded of the
Philippines, and that they had nothing. They didn't even have a way to get to a church. The first thing I did when I got back
home was try to get people to help me buy a vehicle. Finally, one brother gave me $500, and I paid $3,000 for a brand new
Jeep for Romy to have for his church, and that was an incredible blessing to him. It was a great blessing to be back home,
but I was a miserable man.
Regarding
the eight tons of Bibles that we had taken with us to the Philippines, Brother Melrose had found a Bible publishing house
that he could work with, and he had spent a year helping bind Bibles together. It cost him $15,000 by faith to pay for those
Bibles. There were few Bibles being published in the Philippines in 1977, and these Bibles enlightened the Philippines, who
were in total darkness... This was a nation in total darkness. Only a few big evangelists, such as A. A. Allen, would go to
the Philippines and minister in the big cities, but no one was reaching the interior parts of the Philippine Islands.
When
we began to take these Bibles to give away, it was a great opening to the Philippine Islands and to the people. To show you
the integrity of Brother Melrose, if he had wanted to, he could have bribed the officials and gotten the Bibles out of customs
on the first trip, but he spent months trying to get customs to release the Bibles. Every day, five days a week, Brother Melrose
drove the two-hour drive into Manila in the horrible smog. When you would go through Manila one time, your body would be covered
with black soot, and he did that for six solid months, because he refused to bribe the customs official. It took him nineteen
different agencies, but he finally got the Bibles released, and it was tremendous what this did to the Philippine Islands.
Even in the Bible schools in the Philippines, there would be maybe ten to fifteen students using one Bible, so this was a
great breakthrough.
