Training Follow up - and fun times!

On Sept 21, we had a follow up session for the church planting training we did a few weeks back (scroll down to see that post), and we had a good-sized group that turned out for the day. They had a great time discussing how they are applying what they learned as well as hashing through some potential solutions for the difficulties they have faced. It was a sweet time in the Word, and we were encouraged by what God is doing in and through these dear people.

We have also been having a wonderful time with Steve's parents. Here are some pics from our time at the hot springs. It is an awesome place at the foot of a volcano with a cold mountain stream running right next to several warm pools.

We also got to attend a traveling dolphin show in a nearby town with them and our friends the Allens who live a few hours away. We discovered one advantage to standing out in a crowd of Filipinos - our kids got selected as volunteers several times! Mikayla was thrilled, but Ben chickened out before getting "kissed" by the dolphin, and there was no way that Zach was going to get in a boat and be pulled around by dolphins. So Kayla got to do it all! She had an absolute ball with it.

Wake Boarding Fun

We always take Mondays off to spend time as a family after a busy weekend of ministry opps. Today we went up to that cable wake boarding place that we have previously told you about. Here are a few pics of our time together there:

Ben didn't actually wake board in the water, but he sure looked cute standing on it in his new swim trunks from Grandma.

All 3 of the kids had a blast in the pool with Grandpa.
Ben loved the "standing on water" trick.

Mikayla looked too cute with her new wake board. She was SOOOO excited to try it out, and she did GREAT! I am trying to upload some video of her in action - let me know how it works!

Zach also got brave today and tried knee boarding on his own. Here is a video of him going double with his daddy. He had a blast too, and he wants to try wake boarding next time we go.

Hope you enjoyed these pics of our fun day together. Let me know if you were able to watch the videos or not - I may do this a little more with other things too if it works well.

They're Here!

If you are looking for the pics of our Church Planter Training or of the Virtual Journey to visit some Agta villages, you will just need to scrol down past the last few posts to get to them.

Steve's parents, John and Sandi, just arrived for a visit! They will be here for 2 months, with a short interlude in the middle to visit Thailand and Malaysia. We are all very excited to have them here in our home. It had been 1 year and 10 months since we had seen them!

While they arrived safely and so did all their luggage, John had a little mishap at the airport in St. Louis and sprained his ankle! While it was painful to travel with, it did help them get preferential treatment including wheelchair service, free porters, and bulk head seats the whole way! They did see a doctor in Manila during their layover there, and it is just a sprain so he should be up and around soon. While they spent the day in Manila, we spent the day trying to track down some crutches (not easy out here in rural Philippines), and we FINALLY found some. Here is a pic of the kids with their grandparents. I know that Sandi will hate this pic, but it was the only one them and the kids that turned out, and there will be lots more pics to make up for this one. I think she was making that face in reaction to the funny face I made to get the kids to smile. Wasn't watching her expression - just the kids'. Guess my funny face scared her a little. :) Anyway, you can see how happy everyone is to be together.

They brought 4 bags full of goodies from friends and family in the States - thanks to everyone who sent something!!! What an encouragement. We actually haven't opened all of it yet - it will be better to spread it out over a couple days, and we are just enjoying being with them right now. But we did open up a few things...

We have a wakeboarding place near us, but they don't have kids' wake boards for rent, and Mikayla has been dying to try it out. Here is her face when she realized what it was - pretty excited! Papa and Grandma Jackson sent some little cars the boys absolutely love and haven't put down since they opened them up.
Mikayla got a set of Boxcar Children books that she was thrilled with - she is an avid reader, and that series is one of her favs.
Since the books were fun but not really something she could play with while the boys played with their new cars, Grandma also pulled out some Polly Pocket things from Larry and G. Mikayla laid them all out first, then she and Grandma headed up to play with them in the Polly sized doll house Mikayla has. Fun stuff! :)
We are so excited to have Steve's parents here with us for a while. We plan to put them to work while they are here - at leaset after John's leg heals up!

Just before they came, Green Valley Baptist Church sent a package for the kids from their VBS kids this summer. Here is a pic of the kids with their fun new books, water torpedoes, underwear (the boys think they will be run REAL fast with the Superman ones), bike helmets, and computer game. Thanks for being such a blessing to us and our kids!!!

1st Church Planter Training

Well, we just finished up a 3-day training in our home. Ther were 21 people in attendance! While the number dwindled on the last day as people had other ministry responsibilities, it was an absolutely amazing time, and God did some incredible things.

Our theme verse for the week was 2 Timothy 2:2,

"And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."

We had a banner made of this verse in Tagalog, and here is a picture of some of those who attended in front of the banner.

While we did some of the sessions inside our home, it was actually cooler out in the garage where there was a breeze, so many of the sessions were done outside.

We used our ping pong table as a chalkboard, and Steve taught all the sessions. Notice his rolled up shorts leg - he had a boil on his knee that was incredibly painful, but God gave him the strength to push through.

All the sessions were done completely in Tagalog, the national language here in the Philippines. Since there are so many different languages spoken down here in Bicol (every area, often every town, has its own language!), many of the attendees spoke different languages. Thankfully, everyone is also fluent in Tagalog. It was only by God's strength that Steve was able to lecture all day for 3 days entirely in Tagalog, and He gave him wisdom beyond himself to deal with some difficult issues that came up as they studied the Word.

The men all voiced how thrilled they were to finally attend a seminar in Tagalog. Normally, people come in from the outside and conduct seminars in English so virtually all of these pastors had attended many seminars. But they were quick to say that they didn't learn anything at the other ones they attended because they couldn't follow what was going on. They were so excited to be able to study the Word in Tagalog.

Those who attended were all pastors or pastors' wives who have a passion for church planting amongst the Agta. Many of them have been doing it for several years already, but they have been having problems and asked for some help in knowing how to address them. We started at the beginning with them and studied how "church" was done in Acts and the rest of the New Testament. We looked at the strategies the Apostles used and how they taught. The men were thrilled beyonds words to be able to study these things for themselves and discovered things that they had never noticed, things that will impact how they proceed from here.

We were shocked - though we shouldn't have been! - at how receptive they were to what we studied, and each of them drew up a plan of how they are going to implement what God taught them during this time. Each and every one of them said that they have a few faithful men and women in their churches whom they will begin to train how to plant more churches. But each of them also said that they plan to go back to their churches and start over at the beginning, in Genesis, and build a foundation on which they can stand. We spent a lot of time studying the Gospel, and what you actually have to do to be saved - just believe that Christ died for your sins in place of you - nothing more! They want to start again at the beginning and help them to understand more clearly God's plan of salvation as they study through His Word.In addition to large group sessions, there were some things done in small groups. A lot of valuable discussion time happened during these times.
As it turned out, not everyone stayed overnight at our house each night. The ones who lived nearby came back and forth everyday (despite the fact that things started at 6 am and went until 7:30 pm). We hadn't planned to start so early, but the ones staying in our home were up at 3 am!!! So we had prayer and discussion time starting at around 5. Here is a picture of one of the early morning times before breakfast.
It amazed us how God opened these mens' hearts to His Word and challenged them to evaluate the way they have been doing things. He truly did some incredible things during these 3 days - the real test will come in time as we see how they implement what they learned.
During our time together, we also broke bread together as they did in the New Testament.
It was a sweet time of fellowship and remembering why we do what we do.
Some of you may be wondering what on earth the kids did through all this. Well, to avoid distracting the group (Filipinos LOVE to watch our kids play since they are such a novelty), they had to stay inside the school room or bed room for 3 days and be quiet. Sounds like torture I know, but we went ahead and did school, and we did lots of crafts and board games and other fun activities. They also got to watch a couple movies and play some computer games, so they were happy. The only rough day was the day we had a brownout all day and just SWEATED inside. They were real troopers though through the whole thing and were excited about the way they could help with the training - by not distracting the people.
They did come out and join us for meals, and they would play hard outside during the break times. The Filipinos loved watching them interact.
2 of the pastors wives volunteered to cook for the group, and they did a great job. For one lunch, they served a salad made of cucumbers and pineapple. I would never have thought of combining those 2, but it was delicious, and the kids loved it.

The hardest part of the training was having that many people in our home, especially since their culture is so different from ours (ex: 3 am wake up call). The hardest thing for me though was the germs aspect. It is estimated that 3/4 of the poor in the Philippines have tuberculosis, and a much higher percentage have lice. And that is not mentioning all of the other possibilities. It is one thing to go visit them in their homes and then just come home and clean up well. But to have them staying in our home...let's just say we will be doing a whole lot of sanitizing in the next few days! It is one thing to know that I am being exposed to these things, it is so much harder to know that my kids are being exposed as well. More than a few tears were shed over this very thing. But we are confident that God has called us to this place, and we will simply trust Him to take care of us - AND our kids - while we are here. Yes, the risks are different than they are in the States, but He is just as capable to protect us here as He is in the States.
We developed some real friendships with these men and women this week and look forward to being able to continue working with them in the months ahead. They wanted Steve to come in and teach seminars in their areas, but Steve challenged them that THEY need to be the ones to teach now that they have been taught. He will be thrilled to come help them however he can with the training, but they need to be the ones to teach others what they have now been taught (like our theme verse said). They saw the truth in that and were excited by it. The group that came the farthest (about an hour away) were the ones that stayed in our home and with whom we developed the deepest relationship. We decided to give them a ride home on the last day to save them the jeepney fare and so we could see where they live to make it easier to follow up with them. So we all piled in the truck (in the cab AND bed!) and drove out to visit their little village on the beach.
Well, I think that about covers it. The training went better than we ever could have hoped. In the weeks to come, we will be following up with each of these men and women as they strive to follow where He leads. We also plan to do a follow-up training session on Sept 21. Please continue to pray for each of them as they put into action what God has taught them. We took pictures of those who made an action plan, and we will share these pics and their plans with you in the weeks to come so you can be praying for them specifically.

If any of you feel led to do so, I would love to see each of these church planters "adopted" by a family in the States who will pray specifically and faithfully for God to work in and through them in mighty ways in the weeks and months to come. It takes our breath away to think of how God could use this handful of men and women to reach the Agta here in Bicol. If you would like to adopt one of these dear servants, please let me know, and I will send you their name, picture and plan of action. They would be so encouraged to know that they are being prayed for by name.

Thanks once again for your faithful prayers and words of encouragement this past week! God answered all our prayers and worked in a mighty way here. Steve summed it up last night by saying, "I am incredibly exhausted but also incredibly stoked!" Thanks for being a part of what God is doing here amongst the Agta!