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God’s Call to the Marshall Islands

Since 2013-2014, Abba Father had been closing doors that I had planned for my future. In 2014, three times He closed doors for me to enter Truman Nursing program, knowing the best for me and His mission and purpose for my life here on earth.  As that doors shut, He opened the gates of NPU, the gates in which it was impossible for me to enter on my own because of financial challenges.  But it was in that moment that the LORD challenged me to trust in God; to trust in God's plans, God's providence, God's leading, and God's purpose for my life.  Indeed, this required for me to take a leap of faith. This meant that I had to make my own personal decision of faith to take steps with God into the unknown.  

Personally, I like to take ownership to control my own goals in life and planning; however, this leap of faith meant my ownership and control of my goals and life planning would have to be fully surrendered to the control and ownership of my Lord Jesus in accordance with God’s plans, God’s way, God’s will, and God’s timing.  After all, I’ve confessed that my life isn’t my own but God’s! whatever God’s will I will follow, not because I feel forced to but because I love God so much I desire to please Him, revere Him, honor Him, and bring glory to His holy name.  Struggling with a leap of faith, I asked the Lord many questions including financial providence.  Then the LORD said unto me, “Philmar, do you believe that I can do this?”.  I said, “Yes LORD, I believe you can do this.  For truly nothing is impossible to You.”  Then He said, “I am sending you back to the Marshall Islands to lead my people back to me.  And I am going to provide for you through your government. When you are done with your Nursing school, go back and serve me for 2 years.”  I was shocked! I wrestled with God’s will and command.  Like Jonah, I said to the LORD to send me anywhere else in the world but not home, please just not the Marshall Islands.  I said this because in my heart I despised my own people.  My heart was callous, I had no love for them.  I was ashamed of them.  I was ashamed of my identity as a half Marshallese because of many things I had seen growing up and greatly despised.  Witnessing a lot of immoral things and inappropriate moral values, I often complain to God why I was born there.  

Again, I begged the Lord to send me anywhere else in the world but the Marshall Islands.  But the Lord said to me that it was His will that He birthed me out of the Marshall Islands.  And it is His will that my mother is Marshallese.  And even if I try to deny my identity or run away from my who I am, I cannot because I am who I am and my identity is written in my name, “Philmar” Mar is for the Marshall Islands.  Like Jonah, I was selfish and stingy of the grace of God. I had no hope for God’s people in the Islands. Indeed, I was only thinking about myself and didn’t want to do anything with my people.   But just like God loved the Ninevites, so does God loves His Marshallese people.  He sees them, He hears them, and His heart goes out to them.  God’s love through Christ extends out to the whole world including the Marshall Islands nation.  Truly the Lord is compassionate and loving to all.  And in Him, there is no favoritism. Regardless of the people’s circumstances, the Lord Himself is raising His own shepherd to shepherd His people back to Himself.  Because He loves them and because He has great compassion for them, just like He does for me personally.  Truly God has great plans for His Marshallese people and I truly believe now that the people can only know their purposes, missions, visions, and calling in life individually and as a nation only by knowing Heavenly Father, through a personal relationship with Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with the guidance and leading of Holy Spirit.

In the past, I was self-centered.  But ever since I came to know the heart of my Father well through my relationship with Jesus Christ, I am no longer focusing on myself, but on God’s love, mercy, and grace to the whole world.

As I reflect on my life, I testify that it was not a coincident that the Lord sent me to Chicago in 2006.  It wasn’t a coincident that it is taking me nearly 11 years to finish up my undergrad in Nursing (Graduation date: May 2018).  It wasn’t a coincident that the doors I planned to open myself were shut and God’s divine gates were opened.  The more I remembered God’s grace to my own life in the process of wrestling with His will and calling for me to go back to the Marshall Islands to lead His people back to Him, the more the shame and callouses of my heart towards my people are being peeled away and the more my heart softens and grows in love and compassion.  My heart has been synchronized with the Lord’s heart to love what God loves and hate what He hates.  The more I saw my Abba Father God’s love towards me the more I fall in love with Him.  And this love we both share and exchanged helped me and stirred me to say YES LORD! SEND ME! Use me for Your glory!  

By God’s grace, I officially made the decision to take a leap of faith and accept God’s great commission for me based on Matthew 28:18-20, “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them everything I have commanded you.  And Surely I am with you always, to the very end of age.’”  So on May 17, 2014, I made a vow to my Holy Father and I sealed it through my baptism.  Since God’s plans and ways, Lord Jesus and Holy has been using North Park University as a training ground for me to grow in His love for all mankind, and to grow in His Shepherd's heart to lead people into deeper relationship with Him and into His Kingdom, and to expand His Kingdom by raising true disciples of Jesus.  Glory to God!  Last year, in 2016, the Lord opened a short-term medical mission’s trip opportunity with Canvasback Missions as a prelude to my longer term.  From June 8th to July 10th, the Lord is sending me out to serve my Marshallese people with Canvasback Missions and to scout out the land.  So please pray for me.

Prayer Requests

Personal:
- To keep abiding in Christ.
- To keep growing in the love and heart of God to shepherd His people back to Him and to lead them into personal relationship and intimacy with Christ—to fall in love with Jesus.
- To always remember that God is with me just like He promised (Matthew 28:20).
- To evangelize and raise God loving and God fearing and true disciples of Jesus now and when I return for longer mission’s trip next year, 2018.
- For God’s will and vision to continue to unfold so I can know how to better help His people.
- For the Lord to watch and protect and care for my siblings Mariza, Angelo, and Marphil while I’m away
- Protection from temptations of the evil one and black magics.

Canvasback Missions (Short-Term Mission’s Trip):
- To reflect Christ and glorify God through our mission work at the hospital.
- To love one another, though we’re all complete strangers, yet family in Christ.
- Strength, wisdom, and traveling mercies.
- Protection from the evil one.
- To have Kingdom mindset.
- To glorify God in all we do.

God’s Marshallese People
- To meet Jesus personally, to have an intimate and personal relationship with Him, and to grow as His true disciples and as witnesses of Jesus and as Gospel workers worldwide.
- John 4:39-42 “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him (Jesus) because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’  So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.  And because of his words much more became believers.  They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.’”