By Brittany Ramirez
The church we have been attending in Baguio is called Baguio Chinese Baptist Church. The congregation is made up of predominately second, third and even fourth generation Chinese Filipinos whose families immigrated from China many years ago. While the services are now mostly in English with some Tagalog Filipino mixed in, that was not always the case.
The church just celebrated its 75th anniversary, and we were able to join the celebration and learn so much about the church’s history. We learned about a group of American missionaries who evacuated China during World War II. These missionaries resettled and continued their calling, ministering alongside the mandarin-speaking Chinese community in Baguio, Philippines. This group of missionaries, Chinese refugees and local leaders started what became Baguio Chinese Baptist Church.
During the anniversary service they shared about one missionary named Ms. Fern Harrington who was a prisoner of war in the Philippines, held by the Japanese during World War II. I started reading an article in the Baptist Press about her that had an excerpt from a letter she wrote to the Foreign Mission Board shortly after her release from prison in 1945. She wrote,
“Let me say first of all that I have never held you responsible for what happened as a result of our coming to the Philippines, nor have I ever even in moments of deepest despair once doubted the fact that God led me to China…. I find that the unpleasantness of our experience is fast fading from our memory as we become more and more aware of how every need was adequately met through God’s loving care.”
She goes on to say…
“We have learned much which I hope will make us more useful on the mission field … to make use of every opportunity for Christian witnessing even though your life doesn’t seem to be following the course you’d planned.”
I read this and felt like I could have written that letter myself. I thought about how similar her call to ministry and journey was to my own. Having felt called to China for the past 19 years, the sudden change in ministry location was not an easy adjustment for me.
I thought about our calling and ministry focus among the Chinese community here in the Philippines. I considered Paul’s words in Philippians 1, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.” When we evacuated China in the early days of the pandemic and then could not return to our home and ministry there, I am not sure I had the confidence of Paul.
But Paul shows us that faithfulness to the ministry of the Gospel is not the only thing that sustains him. It is in his relationship with his partners in Philippi that he is also sustained.
And we have seen that our calling and ministry was sustained because of the faithfulness and confidence of our CBF community and partners. This “sharing in the gospel” is what shapes our missiology and ministry in the Philippines too. Paul shares with the people of Philippi his hopes that their “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that they may be able to discern what is best.” We continue to ask ourselves what can we learn from those we have come to serve alongside in the Philippines?
As we are discovering more about our ministry context in the Philippines, we have discovered we have a lot to learn. Not only a new language and different culture, but the history and understanding of the dynamics between the Filipinos and the historically Chinese-Filipino community, as well as the dynamics and approach to ministry among the new wave of overseas Chinese immigrants coming to the Philippines.
We ask for your prayers as we discern what is best. What are their needs? Whether that be a church service in Mandarin Chinese language, or English classes to help them adjust to life here in the Philippines. How can we best share the grace of God with this community? What a joy it is to be a part of the Global church. May we all take part in this “sharing in the gospel” together as partners in the ministry of God in the communities God has placed us.
To learn more about the Ramirezes or how to connect with them go to www.cbf.net/ramirez