Tribal Bible College Update

I was just down at the land a couple weeks ago, and it is amazing to see the progress since we broke ground in May. The water source had been piped up to the campus, the classroom building was nearly finished, and the housing for the teachers and dorms for the students had been started. They are even further along now (one pic at the bottom), and I'll send more pics after our trip down there in a couple weeks.

 

The hired Agta tribal workers are working alongside our Bugkalot & Mangyan tribal partners, and they are doing a great job. The ladies are working on keeping the guys fed, and they meet for devotions (each of the 3 tribal groups take turns leading) at the start and end of each work day.

Everyone has been living in temporary housing while they are working on construction. The Mangyan teachers have been staying in these shelters with their families (2 of them were just able to move into their new homes this week! Pics to follow next time). The workers and our Bugkalot partners have been staying in these during the week, then going home to their families over the weekend.

The 3 tribal groups, and occasionally a few Americans :) , have been working shoulder to shoulder to get the job done, and it has been a joy to watch it all come together. 

This week, Steve is down there again, and they are holding the first seminar in the new classroom building! It is a joint time for the Agta church leaders and our Bugkalot & Mangyan tribal partners as they work through Ephesians and talk about discipleship.

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So the big news is that we have had 16 students pre-register for this next semester that starts the end of August. Note these are NEW students who will do the introductory semester; it doesn't include the 18 who have been a part of previous semesters (these will sit this introductory course out but will be invited back in January). This is very exciting, but it is way more than we were expecting with this initial phase so, unless we have more budget come in, we will need to cap the number of students and turn some away until we have the budget to build another dorm building. Additionally, the cost of materials increased since the start of the project (war in Europe & gas prices affect everything, even construction materials in the Philippines), so we are over budget. Because of this, we will also need to wait to run electricity to the dorms or teacher apartments. So if you've considered getting involved but were waiting for the right time, partner with us now to establish the Tribal Bible College. We would love to build another student dorm so that we don't need to turn students away AND be able to run electricity for lights to study at night. 
Thanks for your continued prayers for this project! Exciting days, but very busy for sure. Another team is arriving from the States next week to help; we are so thankful for all members of our team, from many different people groups, as we work together to empower tribals to reach tribals in the Philippines.

Vision Trip

In June, we were privileged to host a young couple (my dad came with them). They feel called to serve overseas, and they are seeking where God will lead them. They were here for about 2 weeks. We first went up to visit the Bugkalot mountains and the coffee plantation.

Then we headed down to Bicol to meet up with Steve. We spent a couple days in Agta villages, and God used their testimonies in a mighty way. Then we spent a couple of days on the new land where we are building the Tribal Bible College. 

This young man was attacked by a wild monkey, and the bites severed a tendon in his foot. The doctor is saying it will be a year before he can walk on it again. Pls join us in praying for healing!

We were so blessed by our time with this couple, and we unreservedly offered them a spot to come join the team full-time, if God should lead them this way. We can see where God could use them in a mighty way here, and it was amazing to see how well they connected with our tribal partners. Please pray with us for them as they seek God's will in this...we of course want them to go where He is calling them, but selfishly, we are praying it's here because we desperately need help.

 

On the other side of the pond

I can't believe all 3 of our "kids" are now on the other side of the world from us. While it is so hard to be so far away, we are so proud of them, and we are thankful they were able to get together right when Ben first arrived, then again over the July 4th weekend at my parents' house in Missouri.

Mikayla & Zach are working together at the camp where Mikayla has been on staff for a couple years now. It is a ministry that serves a variety of kids, but their focus in kids who are in residential care because they don't qualify for foster care due to discipline/anger/etc issues. The camp uses adventure therapy to help the kids work through these issues so they can hopefully be placed in foster care. One week during the summer they also get to work with another group of special kids - ones on the autism spectrum. It's a great ministry, and we're so thankful that they are able to serve there together this summer!

Ben is doing great this summer. He's living with my parents, and he is working for a landscaping company. He is enjoying the work (thought he is definitely wiped out at the end of the days!), and he is also enjoying his new (to him) truck that was a gift from a pastor who has been following our updates since we met him when Ben was 3 years old! Ben got his license as soon as he got back to the States, and he is doing well this summer.

Something that really blessed my momma heart was a text I got from a close friend in the States. She also has a graduate, and since I can't be there to help Ben get set up for college, she wanted to take him when she took her daughter to buy stuff for dorm rooms. Such an incredible blessing to have friends and partners in States who stand behind us in such tangible ways!

Our Graduate

 The 1st week of June, we put our baby on a plane back to the States, and we officially became empty nesters. Wow, what a journey. 

While we grieve the many opportunities that Ben missed out on by having 2 years of his high school career be online and under lockdown, we are so thankful for the things he was able to do in the last couple months of his senior year as things opened up a little here in the Philippines. He was able to play some intramural volleyball, practice & compete on a men's rugby team in town (they even won the tournament, & he got MVP!), have a senior banquet/prom, celebrate the first in-person graduation ceremony at his school since 2019, take a beach trip with his friends, and visit an orphanage on another island.

We were so proud of how Ben handled the many challenges of a covid lockdown highschool experience (the Philippines was the very last country in the world to prevent in-person classes, and even when they went back to school, only a tiny percentage of students here were actually allowed to be in-person!). It was a long, lonely time, but he showed incredible strength, and God worked in him in mighty ways through this difficult time. 

While we know Ben is a pretty awesome guy, academics are not his strength, so we weren't expecting him to win any big awards at graduation. However, we were so surprised when he won the top award (we had never known it to go someone who wasn't top tier academics). It's the "Senior Boy" award given to the top senior guy who most fully embodies the kind of student that Faith Academy wants to produce. We were so crazy proud of Ben when they called his name!

God has big plans for this guy, and, while we miss him like crazy, we can't wait to see what God is going to do through him in the years to come.