Spring Ministry

Ok, so we had spring break, here's some spring ministry. Steve didn't take many pictures on his recent trips, so there's not a lot of those to share, but I'll let the couple pictures he does have serve as place holders anyway.

1st, he traveled down to Bicol to do a training seminar and consultant visit with our Bugkalot tribal partners down there. This picture is of the iconic Mayon Volcano, taken from the airport before he flew home. The trip went well, and it is exciting how God continues to work with the tribals in Bicol. Please be praying with us for our partners there as they seek wisdom for how to address some strategy challenges.

From that trip, he went straight to the island of Mindoro to attend a leadership seminar, where all the pastors of Mangyan tribal churches had gathered. The Mangyan tribe are the ones we just started the first consultation with in March (link here). 

 Steve was so blessed through his time with these leaders.

 We were especially encouraged to hear them decide to work together to financially support new partners who they plan to send out. They were discussing how much it would cost per church per week to support the ones they want to send, and one older man got up after lengthy discussion and said, "Why are we even discussing this? Even if just the men in this room commit to doing this, without our churches doing their part, it is doable. It is something we need to do." 

 Steve's next trip took him up north to the Bugkalot tribal church's annual believer's conference. 1200 believers were gathered for this precious time...but the picture below is all that he took. :) Despite the lack of pictures, it was a wonderful time, and Steve was encouraged with some structural changes that have been made to hopefully make them more effective as a sending entity.

Spring Break

Surprisingly, the boys' spring break coincided with Mikayla's, just on different continents and slightly different climates. :) Our boys enjoyed some time wakeboarding and sailing with friends.

Meanwhile, Mikayla traveled to New England with my parents to tour Boston, Cape Cod and up the Maine coast. It was a little colder for them than for us!

 Thankful for time off, the friends our boys have, and for the great support network Mikayla has in the States.

Mish Mash

Ok, little bit of everything in this post.

First, here's a gorgeous shot (and a rare smog-free day) of the city of Manila, taken from the kids' school, Faith Academy.

Many of you know that I have struggled with issues with my wrist for years now, and it has started really bothering me again. I took a quick trip to Singapore to see my doctor there, and she wanted me to try 6 weeks of various levels of immobilization. I had 2 weeks of this fun brace...but at least it was only 2 weeks! Sleeping was pretty rough. I'm finished now with the 6 weeks of limited/no activity, and unfortunately it didn't work, so I am looking at surgery in July.

 Steve had several trips during the time my wrist was immobilized, so the boys pitched in extra with the cooking and housework.

 The boys were part of organizing a fun event called "Glow Touch". They gathered a BUNCH of glow sticks and then had a couple games of touch rugby in the dark with about 30 of their friends and classmates.

 

The event was a hit, and Zach got a little bonus when he asked a friend to go to the Jr/Sr banquet with him. She said yes. :)

 Zach also got to participate in an out-of-season soccer game. Every year, we get invited to play one of our key rivals during their season, and it is a fun time for the team to reunite and get in one last game for the year. Zach did a great job, and he helped his team secure a hard-fought win.

It was a very physical game, and a funny quote from the game was when a guy (bigger than Zach) shoved him pretty hard, but Zach held his ground. The guy told Zach, "You can't do that! You can't shove me!" Zach replied, "I didn't shove you. I just didn't fall over when you shoved me." The guy blustered, "Well, you can't do that!" Umm... :) Proud of our young man.

 Ben and Zach also recently participated in the annual school musical. Zach was behind the scenes as the crew chief, keeping the stage crew in line. Ben did a great job acting and dancing. I loved his expressions, even when he wasn't in the spotlight.

 Can you find Ben in this one? 

 So very thankful for the many activities that our kids have the privilege to participate in at their school here.

Hanonoo Consultation

Most of you know that our passion is to empower tribal churches to send out some of their very own to reach unreached tribal groups - tribals reaching tribals. Our "pilot project" with this concept was mobilizing and equipping the Bugkalot tribe to reach the Agta tribe. We started that process in 2010 (with a consultation like this one), and over the last couple years, we have been gradually seeing the fruit of our efforts to work ourselves out of a job. Our Bugkalot partners are equipped to effectively reach the Agta as well as to train other Bugkalot tribals who are sent out to join their teams. It's not that they are doing everything perfectly (who of us are??), but they are asking the right questions and working strategically. We still serve as consultants for them, but they need us less and less; which means that we have time to consider replicating the paradigm.

On the island of Mindoro, there is a collection of 6 tribal groups that is known as the Mangyan tribe. We have worked with this tribe on occasion, and Steve has spoken at several of their conferences and trainings. 

The Mangyan have been sending out their own people to unreached groups for many years now, but they have noticed some issues and are open to some input on how to send more effectively. One of the 6 tribes is called the Hanonoo, and they are the ones who stepped forward to be the 1st ones to have a Consultation done. 

A Consultation is a meeting with the tribe to see what their strengths and weaknesses are. The idea is to determine what they have to offer and to identify the gaps that need to be filled in order for them to send effectively. 

Ideally, the team who does the Consultation has experts in various different areas. On this team, we had some businessmen, someone with experience in linguistic services, some who have served in this tribe and know them well, several missiological strategists, as well as some who have had experience in helping tribals reach other tribals (two have experience in the Amazon).

We traveled by car several hours, then by ferry several more, then another 4 hours by car to reach the Hanonoo village where the Consultation was to be held. 

The people were incredibly hospitable and put us up in a great little place that included some oinky neighbors. :)

Since we would be there several nights and needed to sleep as well as possible, we invested in some new inflatable sleeping mats. They were a blessing for sure!

The people took excellent care of us, and the we had a wonderful time getting to know these dear brothers and sisters.

The first step in the Consultation is to have them draw a map of their area, including the location of the towns, mountains, rivers, ocean, clinics, churches, and many other things. This map is used throughout the Consultation.

Then we spend MANY long hours asking questions about every aspect of life. From church health to medical access to economy to literacy...and everything in between. Again, the purpose is to determine where they are, in order to determine what they need in order to send out people to reach unreached tribes effectively.

In addition to the formal sessions (which went from 7:30am-9:30pm or later!), there was lots of informal time during breaks to dig a little deeper.

After several long days of questions and discussion, our team spent one full day reviewing the answers, tabulating the results, and determining our recommendations.

That evening, we met with the leaders to share our recommendations. That meeting went until after 10pm. 

Now, keep in mind that this is an established church that is functioning well on its own. We have no desire - nor right - to go in and tell them what to do. We can only make recommendations (at their request); then it is up to them what they do with them. Several expressed interest in asking our help with implementing some of the recommendations, but we encouraged them to meet as a group without us and make those decisions.

Please pray with us as the Hanonoo process all that we talked about and make decisions about how they will be involved in spreading the Gospel, not only within their own tribe, but also to unreached tribes on other islands. Additionally, pray with us that the other 5 Mangyan tribes will also schedule Consultations like this one. We see amazing potential for these tribes to be even more effective at reaching other groups, but we know that it is something only God can do.  

Steve will travel back there the 1st week of April to meet with the leaders. 

Thank you for praying with us!

Beach Moments

While Mikayla was home, we took the ferry across to a nearby island to spend a couple days at the beach. My sister and her family were able to come with us, so that made it even more special, especially since it's the same beach resort that our family has been going to since my sister and I were just kids; now we are bringing our kids!

My happy place...

There were some other friends there at the same time, so we got together for some rugby on the beach.

One of our favorite things to do at the beach is to walk waaaay down to the far end to eat at a great little Italian restaurant. In the pic below, the restaurant is located on the beach at the far right of the picture...so we definitely work up an appetite!

There are parts of the walk that require some good climbing skills...

or a willingness to just get wet. 

 One night at the restaurant, my sister and Zach had a left-handed arm wrestling match. My sister is left handed and crazy strong, so she gave Zach a run for his money...but he saved his honor in the end. :) 

 These 3 had fun just enjoying being together again. 

 It was also fun to get some pictures in some of the same places where we got them when the kids were tiny. We didn't have the original at the time so couldn't exactly recreate it, but it's the same kids in the same little hut... 

 We made some precious memories at the beach and are so thankful for His abundant blessing in our lives.