Tribal Bible College Update

Thank you to those of you who have already been involved in either praying and giving towards the Tribal Bible College project. Here's a post to give you more info if you're not sure what we're talking about. There's even a video in that post that you won't want to miss! Last month, we were able to camp on the land and use a drone to take some aerial pics (see this post). 

This is the land for the Tribal Bible College! You can see the bridge on to the property bottom center, then a few tents and the tenant house. Our hope is to build the classroom building and bathrooms this summer (if the funds come in time). That will be located in the center left portion of the picture. Then the students and teachers would just stay in tents for the time being. The church planter and livelihood skills training facility will probably be in the top center of the pic, but that will come later. We need to get the Bible College up and running because we already have students attending classes at our temp facility!

Praying together with our team on the new land.

Semester 2 of the Bible College started last month. We're currently hosting them at our training center, but it is too small of a property to be a long-term solution.

Thank you for praying with us for this massive undertaking! If you'd like to be a part of what God is doing with the Tribal Bible College, you can give here. 

God's Heart for the Nations

Over the last couple months, Steve has been spending time in several different tribal areas, mobilizing their churches to be catch a better vision of God's heart for the nations. As part of this, he has done a 1-week seminar on this topic in 4 different areas that included leaders and students from 40 churches, with close to 200 people participating. It has been an exhausting stretch of time, with Steve traveling about 75% of the time, but it has been incredibly exciting to see these tribal churches re-ignite their passion to be more involved in the Great Commission and to see what role God would have them play - both as individuals and as churches. Pray with us that many more tribal partners will be sent out as a result of these seminars!

Trip to Bicol

While Steve has been able to go down to Bicol to visit our teams quite a bit this past year, Ben and I haven't gone because of constantly changing lockdowns and restrictions for minors traveling. Well, we finally were able to make a trip down to visit our tribal teams in Bicol. We even got to camp on the new land that has just been purchased for the Tribal Bible College!

It's an absolutely beautiful piece of property. So thankful and dreaming big dreams of what God will do here in this place.

It's a hike to the top of the property, but what a view!

Another family traveled with us, and they helped us take some aerial pics of the land using their drone (pics to come in another post). While we were there, we also visited one of the villages where we used to go all the time as a family when the kids were little. It was the last time Ben will be down there for a while.

We didn't embarrass them by re-enacting the picture (zoom in to see it), but it was fun to get a pic of these two again.

After camping on the land, visiting a village and spending time with our tribal partners, we took a couple days to wakeboard, visit the hot springs, and of course the beach! So thankful for friends to share both ministry and vacation days!

Ben

Our baby turned 18! I can't believe we are almost empty-nesters. Ben will graduate in May and head back to the States. We appreciate your prayers as he (and we!) prepare for this transition. 

On the day he turned 18, two friends joined us for a steak dinner at home, and french silk pie was his request.

Then the following weekend, he had some more friends over for baked potato bar, games, cake & ice cream. We have been so blessed by this group of friends!

We also had some senior photos taken recently. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Steve & I both teared up as we looked through the pictures of Ben in his rugby jersey - the one from his sophomore year, because that's the last time he was able to play. It has been so hard to see all he's lost through these pandemic lockdowns - two full years of sports and other activities. So hard to understand. But we are so thankful for this guy and the maturity and grace he has shown through it all. We know God is preparing him for big things in the future.

Thanks for joining us in praying for Ben as he graduates soon and heads back to the States. We will sure miss him here!