English Radio Program

06 October 2008

THE SYCIP PLANTATION

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm 1:1-3

If you tend to think that God has gone back into His heaven and closed the door, leaving us vulnerable to the devastation of nature, listen to the true account of Dr. Joanie Sycip and her husband, Moises, who is the general manager and part owner of the most productive plantation in the Philippines. From all over Asia, agriculture experts come to find out why the Sycip plantation produces 250 bags of rice per hectare when the national average is but 60.

The story really began in the spring of 1992, when Dr. Joanie, who is a pediatrician by profession, ran for office and was not elected. “I always thought I was a Christian,” she says, adding that she often went to church and was a good person, but deep depression followed her one-time attempt to run for public office. Following days and nights of sleeplessness, she called a friend, another doctor who had been trained at Yale, and said, “If you don't come, I will go crazy.”

Instead of giving her friend a tranquilizer, she said simply, “You need to come to Jesus.” And that's exactly what she and her husband did. Other landowners in the area thought that she had abandoned her religion and had really gone off the deep end. Not so! In the hour of need, she found God, and Jesus Christ became a real person. Moises and Joanie began praying together, and the some 500 workers on the plantation began to talk about the changes they saw in the lives of the Sycips.

Hanging on the wall of the Sycip home in Negros Oriental is a large picture of a tornado, something very unusual for the area, ready to wreak devastation on the plantation. In its path were 24 commercial chicken houses, valued at a million pesos each. Also threatened were the livestock, the fish pens, and the rice fields. On that morning, June 28, 1992, the Sycips prayed, “God, please spare our lands.”

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the typhoon half-way between the clouds and the earth—something which hundreds of people witnessed—and the broken funnel quickly dissipated leaving no major damage whatsoever.

That's only the beginning of the story. The Sycips began voluntary Bible studies for their workers on company time. A prayer mountain was established where people could go and find quiet time with the Lord.

Rains fell on the Sycip lands and by-passed the fields of neighbors who now said, “You seem to be the favorite of God.”

One morning in November, 1995, as he was praying, Moises seemed to hear God's voice saying, “Deepen the canals and put up the dikes.” He told the supervisors what he wanted done at the completion of the harvest, and they asked, “Why? We are not in the typhoon belt!” But the work was done just the same.

Shortly after that, a typhoon—unusual for that area—struck the area. One neighbor lost 60 tons of fish, but the Sycip's lands were spared any significant loss.

Dr. Joanie says, “That's when people stopped laughing and started listening.” I've only begun to relate some of the remarkable answers to prayer they have received, but I'll tell you one more thing. At the beginning of each work day, the laborers on the Sycip plantation stand at attention as the national anthem is sung, followed by the reading of a Psalm and a prayer.

Each Saturday morning at sunrise, a handful of supervisors from the plantation make their way up the prayer mountain and there they ask God's help for their families, their workers, and their country.

They have discovered that what David wrote is still true: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly… whatever he does shall prosper” (Psalm 1:1,3, NKJV ).

Resource reading : Psalm 1.