General Ministry Update

Yesterday (Oct 28) marked 15 years since our little family landed in the Philippines. So crazy how time has flown! Thankful for the privilege of serving here.

One exciting update comes from our partners in the coffee plantation. The new harvest is looking good, we recently got a certification of specialty grade arabica coffee, a upscale restaurant will promote Bugkalot coffee at an upcoming event, and we were featured in a local magazine as one of the best coffees here in the Philippines. Exciting times!

Pictures of our online ministry are not nearly as exciting as when we are crossing log bridges and hiking through rivers (and it's not as much fun either!), but online ministry is where we are right now; and we are thankful for the ways God is at work during this time, even if it's not as exciting to live or document.

This week, Steve is facilitating a training for 15 Filipinos who feel called to GO internationally. Some of them have already been matched with a team in a neighboring country, and some of them are waiting for God's leading for where to go. The training is 6 days, 730-530 everyday, so it has been a tiring week. Steve has taught several classes (they even had me teach one on language learning), and he is doing the tech/slide shows for the rest of it so has to be engaged the entire time. Such an exciting opportunity though!

We also have had some encouraging reports from our tribal partners in Bicol. The Bible studies are continuing, and they recently even had a baptism. 

A typhoon came through last week and caused some damage, but not as scary as the highly venomous snake they killed during the clean up! Another typhoon is coming this weekend, so prayers appreciated for protection.

Thank you for partnering with us through prayer and standing behind us financially as well. We couldn't be here without you having our backs!

Breaking Free!

The end of September we were FINALLY able to move into our new house. We were so thankful to have movers come help with this because Steve can't be in our old house for more than 20 mins without noticing a significant effect on his breathing.

We are settled in our new place now and loving it. I will try to put together some pics to post soon.

The big news since I last wrote (besides our move) is that some restrictions have started easing up. We still can't travel to our ministry locations (but Steve is hoping to try again soon), but we were able to get away as a family for a couple days in both September and October to a nearby camp. Technically kids under 21 still aren't allowed out of the house (there has been some movement towards changing this age to 15 or 18, problem is that it is up to each local government unit - basically like a big subdivision - to make their own rulings, and they all want to show how strict they are). 

But we found a place that allowed kids to come. So Ben still can't really be out in public (though some places are starting to relax a little on enforcing that), but we were able to go to these places to get away. I can't show you pics of the place or faces of the people we were with (because interpretation of the laws about this is a hot-button issue and don't want to get anyone in trouble), but here are a few pics. Steve and I both had work we had to do still (that's the hard part now that everything is online...it follows you), but it was wonderful to get away for a little while, and it was a blessing to see Ben get to be out of the house and interacting with others (at the one place there were even some friends his age to interact with!).

So thankful that things are starting to loosen up a little. The hard part is since every little area can make their own rules, it ends up being like each place being its own country with its own immigration and society laws. Impossible to keep up with them all, and each one wants to show how strict they are. So even when the whole country's laws are loosening up, many of the local areas are not. It's frustrating to say the least. But at least we are seeing some movement on loosening things up at the country level (though still on lockdown, just not as strict, through Dec 1 at least), and we are hoping the local areas begin to follow suit. 

And here is the sign from the back of a truck we saw...had us all laughing! :)