New Testament Principles in action in the Philippines

by Bruce Rice as told to Barbara Tucker

It has been said that God has no grandchildren, only children. Our relationship with the Heavenly Father is direct. He births us into his family and we look to him and no one else for salvation and Christian growth.

At the same time we also have a heritage, a line backward in history of faithful Christians from whom we can draw strength, like the cloud of witnesses who watch us run the race. American Baptist missions started in the first decade of the 19th century when Adoniram Judson left New England for the Far Eastern kingdom of Burma (today’s Myanmar). Many Christians have been stirred by the stories of early missionaries of the modern period, such as Judson. The excellent book, To the Golden Shore, by Courtney Anderson, is one of the best missionary biographies ever written, and it alone has been used like a gentle touch on the shoulder to turn ears to God’s call to missions.

It was while reading a biography of Adoniram Judson that Bruce Rice, BIMI missionary to the Philippines, felt the Holy Spirit calling him to foreign missions and leading him specifically to the small but populous, receptive but politically unstable, nation of the Philippines.

Bruce, a native of Guntersville, AL, had attended a secular college for a while before he and his fiancée, Jeanne, transferred to Oklahoma Baptist College and Institute in 1978. Jeanne had recently been led to the Lord by Bruce, who himself had come to Christ in 1973 at a citywide revival crusade. They were married in December of 1978, graduated in 1980 (Bruce) and 1981 (Jeanne), and worked for a few years on the staff of Windsor Hills Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Oklahoma Baptist College and Institute are ministries of the Windsor Hills Baptist Church.

It was in 1982 that a one-sitting reading of Judson’s biography got Bruce’s attention about his call to missions. In less than two years the Rices were on deputation and in three years they had landed in Cagayan de Oro City. The date was February 13, 1986, and as Bruce states, “We had come with three long-range goals in mind — starting a church, then a Bible school to train workers, and finally working with the Bible school graduates to start more churches. But our immediate concern was just finding a taxi driver who could speak English and get us from the airport to a hotel downtown and then finding a house to rent.”

The Rices’ arrival in the Philippines was much like Adoniram and Nancy Judson’s arrival in Rangoon many years before. They knew no one in the town, and the political situation was shaky. In the early 1800s, a tyrannical and capricious king ruled Burma; in the 1980s the controversial Ferdinand Marcos held the leadership of the Philippines. Although he had long been a friend of U.S. foreign policy, many of his own people believed him to be a dictator who was draining the treasury dry for his own benefit. Within three weeks of the Rices’ arrival, Ferdinand Marcos fled the country and turmoil followed.

In one respect the Rices had a great advantage. No one spoke English in Rangoon in 1813, but many Filipinos understood English even if they did not speak it or speak it well. However, Bruce and Jeanne knew it was absolutely essential that they learn Cebuano. After a few months with a private language tutor, they believed a formal classroom setting would yield better results, and they rented an apartment in Butuan City where the New Tribes Mission organization ran a language school. (Butuan City is a three-and-one-half-hour drive from Cagayan de Oro City.) From October 1986 to August 1987 they shuttled back and forth between the two Filipino cities, learning Cebuano Monday through Friday in Butuan City and continuing to establish and build up their Bible study group on the weekends in Cagayan de Oro City.

Jeanne and Bruce have been in Cagayan de Oro City now 15 years. They can look back on times of spiritual frustration, emotional depression, personal loneliness, and cultural misunderstandings. At times they knew they were facing demonic interference. There have been times when they didn’t know what would happen on the political scene in the Philippines, and they were unsure of how to take the next step in church planting in a new culture.

Looking back, they choose to rejoice in the times of great joy and success during those 15 years. Melissa Ann was born on March 23, 1989. Reed Alan entered the world on September 20, 1994. Emily Ruth was born on December 9, 1998. It was a great joy when their two older children professed faith in Christ. The daily challenges and breakthroughs of raising and home schooling the children also gave its share of joy and success. These family joys are accompanied by the joy they feel every time a Filipino comes into the family of God.

A significant moment of great joy in the ministry came in April of 1987 when the Bible study meeting in their home for over a year was organized into Lapasan Baptist Church with 25 charter members. The beginning of the church was followed the next year by the opening of Lapasan Baptist College. Lapasan Baptist College provides a four-year course of study for men and women. Students know there is one overriding goal at Lapasan Baptist College: to be trained to do church planting work. The classroom experiences are complemented with every kind of hands-on ministry experience from AWANA to Bible studies in jails, public schools, and military installations.

Another time of great joy was also a time of risk and change. In July of 2000, Bruce officially resigned as missionary pastor of Lapasan Baptist Church, believing the church was strong enough to be under the pastorship of a trained national and also believing God has a new phase of work for him and Jeanne. The joy of knowing that the three goals he had when he landed in the Philippines had been realized was mixed with the sadness of ending his pastoral relationship with the church he had served over 13 years. He was happy to see the church call Dimver Andales, a Lapasan Baptist College graduate, to be their pastor. Dimver came to Christ through the ministry of Lapasan Baptist Church while he was still a high school student.

Currently, Bruce is involved in supervisory and support roles with the work of Lapasan Baptist Church, Lapasan Baptist College, and the mission churches. He is overseeing the first phase of a much-needed building project that includes a multipurpose building for offices, classrooms, and dormitories. He directs the Bible College and is seeking to improve the curriculum. He is also helping eight mission pastors in training and strengthening their churches.

Two avenues of ministries lie before the Rices. Over a year ago they purchased nine acres of property two hours from Cagayan de Oro City. They plan to build a youth camp in this mountain region. Development begins this year. Bruce is also surveying other cities in Mindanao, the region of the Philippines in which they have been working, to determine where they will begin pioneering again. With a population of over 20 million, Mindanao offers many sites for missionary work.

It is also a great joy to the Rices that 80 students have graduated from Lapasan Baptist College and some of these graduates have been used to start eight other mission churches, which are currently in different stages of development. But at the same time Bruce is conscious of lands beyond the Philippines. The church he began and recently resigned from has a firm missions program, supporting the eight mission churches and 17 Filipino missionaries who serve in other Southeast Asia nations, the South Pacific, Africa, and Haiti.

One of these countries has been introduced to the people of the United States through news reports of the last two years. East Timor is a nation that has captured Bruce’s attention with its spiritual hunger. In 2000 he and a missionary friend were able to take a survey trip to East Timor to investigate the needs, the political situation, and the opportunities to place Baptist missionaries there. What he saw in East Timor broke his heart as he wrote in a recent prayer letter, “The books of Jeremiah and Lamentations are much more alive to me than ever before.”

Over the last 300 years, East Timor had been a Dutch colony, then a Portuguese colony, then, since 1975’s pullout by the Portuguese, a part of Indonesia. The people of East Timor have fiercely desired independence for 25 years, but the country was absorbed as a province of Indonesia in 1976 until the summer of 1999. In August, pressure from the United States and the international community led to a referendum on independence, which more than 80% of the East Timorese desired and chose on the ballot.

With this vote, the Indonesian military began a policy of burning and looting to ensure the failure of the new country. But the destruction of buildings was secondary to the killing and capture of thousands of people. A looted, pillaged nation set in one half of a mountainous island was what Bruce and his companion saw during his visit, but of course he saw much more. He saw people ready to work hard to rebuild their nation.

One of the East Timorese Bruce has met is Pedro Bautista. Pedro has been living in Darwin, Australia, with his wife and young son. Pedro traveled to East Timor to check on family members. There he found his house burned to the ground as well as his possessions within the home. Much worse, he could find only two cousins, and Pedro didn’t know if the rest of his family had been killed, were living in refugee camps, or were hiding in the mountains. But his words through his tears were memorable: “We have lost everything, but it does not matter because now we are free.” Their newfound political freedom is priceless to the East Timorese.

After listening to Pedro and other East Timorese and after viewing the destruction himself, Bruce says, “It is hard to imagine that the spiritual condition of the people is even worse than their material situation.” The almost one million people of East Timor have no real, stable gospel witness, although a printing ministry designed to saturate the rural areas with tracts and Scriptures is beginning.

Ultimately, Bruce and Jeanne are joyful because their ministry has come full circle. One of the Bible College graduates is committed to going to East Timor to plant churches. Ferdie Flores, already a seasoned church planter and pastor of Linamon Baptist Church, in a town two hours from Cagayan de Oro City, has resigned his church. Seeing Ferdie move toward a ministry in missions is particularly gratifying to Bruce and Jeanne because Ferdie was one of their first converts when they arrived in the Philippines. After Ferdie came to the Lord in 1987, he faced severe opposition from his family in Mindanao. They had planned for him to have a successful career as an engineer in the Middle East and support the education of his five sisters.

Ferdie remained faithful and attended Lapasan Baptist College. By the time he had graduated, both of his parents and all of his sisters had become Christians and were baptized into the fellowship of Lapasan Baptist Church. Ferdie’s deputation period is over and the Flores family arrived in East Timor in April 21, 2001. With his wife and two young daughters, he is presently living in the capital city of Dili, with a population of approximately 200,000. They are learning the Tetun language, and will eventually begin a work in one of the smaller villages outside Dili. Pray for them in this potentially dangerous and certainly frightening field.

Bruce wrote in a recent missionary letter after reporting on his resignation from Lapasan Baptist Church: “On July 30, my last Sunday as pastor, we had 899 persons in attendance on Sunday morning with four people saved, ten baptisms, and three transfers of membership. When I think back to when Jeanne and I first arrived in 1986 and then look at what God has done in this place in spite of us, it is just simply amazing. May Jesus Christ be praised!”

Adoniram Judson took a step of faith and preached the gospel in a country most people of his time didn’t know existed. Years later, Bruce Rice read Adoniram Judson’s biography and followed the Lord to the Philippines. There he would eventually meet and mentor a young man who would hear the same call to a land equally unknown to most people as Burma was in 1812.

We can only wait to see whom Ferdie Flores will touch in East Timor and where the mission call might take those new Christians. It is true that God has no grandchildren, but He has a long line of older brothers and sisters who pass on a testimony of His promises and faithfulness to the next generation.

Update on this ministry

Sunday, March 14, 2010

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

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