Red Bluff pastor leads United Methodists mission team to the Philippines

On Monday, Rev. Paul Cabotaje of Red Bluff First United Methodist Church will lead a team of United Methodists from all over California to the Philippines to bring medical and dental care to the poorest of the poor.
Six years ago Cabotaje and his wife Virgie founded the medical/dental Philippine Mission. Easing one person’s suffering through missionary work created two dedicated and tireless missionaries. For the seventh year in a row, Rev. Paul and Virgie are planning the mission which will allow missionaries of all ages and races to be in service to God. Easing one person’s suffering has changed the lives of over 10,000 patients in six years.
It gave life to 10-year-old Juzmeen Pascual, who had open-heart surgery thanks to the 2005 mission.
It saved four-month old Baby Alvin from mental retardation by enabling doctors at Solano to install a shunt to relieve the pressure on his hydrocephalic brain.
It gave three children life-changing surgeries to correct facial deformities.
Working in the slums of Manila where people live in hand-made shanties built over open sewers, where they sleep on mats on the ground and cook over charcoal, where running water, electricity, and toilets are non-existent in their homes, is more than a culture shock to first-time missionaries. They suddenly find themselves immersed in true poverty, because such living conditions in combination with the over-whelming needs of the people trapped in those conditions fills missionaries with a sense of helplessness. They begin to wonder why they are there and what differences they can possible make.
Rev. “Joy” Cera, retired pastor of the Good Samaritan United Methodist Church near Manila, answered their wonderings when he told a group of missionaries, “If you ease one person’s suffering, if you make one person’s life better, if you bring one soul to Jesus, then your mission is a success.”
In 2006, the medical/dental mission served 5,000 patients of the poorest of the poor in the Philippines. Their hope for this year is to serve at least 3,000. They are going to an ethnic village, the Aeta community, that has been displaced by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
“These poor people have become mendicants and go to the different towns with their malnourished babies and must resort to begging to get by. These people’s hopes are being rekindled by seeing missionaries coming from the U.S., bringing food, medical doctors, nurses and medicines to them,” wrote Reverend Cabotaje.
The team which will include California-Nevada Annual Conference Bishop Beverley Shamana will return March 5.
For more information, contact Rev. Paul Cabotaje at Red Bluff First United Methodist Church 527-5754 or at home 529-3337.