Our van filled with luggage and people, we bowed our heads and asked God to watch over us as we traveled in His service to the Philippines. Little did we know then how much He had already done for us.

After a tense and challenging drive in heavy, lake-effect snow to Midway Airport, we headed for the airline counter. The clerk took our names, and then appeared temporarily perplexed. He said, "You're lucky I could fix things for you!" We learned that because of the overnight snowstorm, someone had canceled our tickets to Detroit and beyond, and re-booked us for the following day.

So how did God fix this for us? An early morning flight from Midway to Detroit was delayed three hours and had not yet left, due to the same snowstorm. There was room in the first class compartment for all of us. Our hearts quickly filled with grateful praise to the Lord. Furthermore, there was now little chance the clerk would give us any problems about our heavy bags filled with medications, supplies, clothing and toys. Thank you, Jesus!

And that's not all. Because our original seats were assigned to other customers, the ones we were stuck with for the next flight were way back in the plane. I took up the cause of the six folks traveling from Detroit to Manila, at the counter where a line had formed. I learned our flight was heavily overbooked, and that we could have better seats on a parallel flight leaving a few minutes earlier, going via Tokyo instead of Nagoya. We received a $200 coupon toward future travel with the airline. In addition, some of us were assigned to first class again on the Tokyo to Manila portion of the flight. God is so good!

In Manila, we made it through customs without problems. Praise God! After connecting with dear friends from the Pagudpud mission, we traveled 14 hours by bus and battled it out with exhaustion and jet lag. Guess who won?

In Pagudpud, we served in daily medical clinics in the town and surrounding villages. We saw a 50-year-old emaciated women with metastatic colon, two elderly patients with large salivary gland cancers, a wheelchair-bound elderly lady with severe anemia from chronic bleeding fibroids of her uterus, a toddler with severe malnutrition, a child with large scald burns and a young women with genetically absent extremities to name just a few. They all were so happy we made the effort to come see them, to offer help and hope.

We left about $20,000 worth of medications and supplies, innumerable clothing items, many toys and $6,000 to help remodel and reconstruct a dilapidated church. In return, we were blessed with many new friendships. We also enjoyed three excellent meals a day with lots of fresh and delicious mangoes, and visited local attractions: Friendship Falls, Stinky Falls (a river cascading over tree roots, making beautiful stalactites and stalagmites) and Saud Beach, ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Thank you for your prayers and your financial contributions, which are the essential foundations for this type of ministry.

Norbert Schwer, M.D., is a member of the Stevensville (Michigan) Seventh-day Adventist Church.