Global Empowerment Team Trip

A couple weeks ago, our Global Empowerment team traveled to Bicol to visit the work and our tribal partners there. Besides our team, one of our new colleagues joined us to see what God is doing with Tribals Reaching Tribals.

We had a wonderful time reconnecting with our tribal teammates, hearing from them what God is doing, and seeing a few of the places where they are serving. 

We also spent quite a bit of time touring the property where the Tribal Bible College is located as well as the Bicol Out of School Training, where students study livelihood skills as well as church planting. We also had several meetings to discuss how best to coordinate the different projects that are operating on the same piece of property.

Lastly, we visited the town of Legaspi for some final meetings, and Mt. Mayon volcano showed up and showed off for sure. We even got to go back in the evening and see it erupting! It's been spewing lava for 5 months now, and we were able to view it from about 10 km away from the crater. Absolutely spectacular, and wow the sound of the gases and boulders tumbling...unnerving for sure.

Tribal Bible College

The Tribal Bible College in Bicol is going well, and it was encouraging to get to see the students studying, living in community with their teachers, and developing the land to be able to support themselves. Come for a visit and see for yourself what God is doing!

Ministry Travels

While Steve has continued to struggle to control his asthma (appreciate your prayers!) and has had to cancel several trips as a result, he has been able to do some traveling in the last couple months. As we've talked about before, while tribals reaching tribals is still our primary focus, God has blessed us with several new opportunities in mobilization and training. One of these is as a consultant for One Sending Body as they send Filipinos internationally. Another is as the representative for SE Asia to the Globalization Advisory Council as our organization works to partner with more and more countries as they send workers into the harvest. Steve took at trip to a neighboring country for training for this.

 He was also asked to accompany someone from our organization to a seminary up in the mountains to connect them with the president there. The first attempt was cancelled due to the volcano eruption; the second attempt was cancelled due to travel restrictions for the pandemic (before the lockdown). However, for the second attempt, it was scheduled over the seminary graduation, so Steve was supposed to speak at baccalaureate, and our friend at commencement. Even though the purpose for the trip had changed, Steve couldn't leave them hanging at the last minute without speakers for the two big events...so he went and spoke at both. It was a great time of developing relationships and networking as well as a blessing to see how God is at work there.

 Another trip was to a southern island in the Philippines to speak at a convention of tribal churches there. He was able to cast vision for how they as tribals can be used by God to reach other tribals and help them start thinking through what that might look like. He only took this one picture on the trip, so doesn't look very exciting, but it was an exciting trip. :) We also took at trip to yet another island for a retreat time with our colleagues. However, I can't post pics of that time, so you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

Another trip was to the Mangyan on an island just south of us. Some of our Bugkalot partners went with Steve to meet with the Mangyan tribal church leaders to further discuss a partnership between the two tribal groups to reach the Agta in Bicol. It was cool to see the map they had developed to show the areas that need the Good News and their desire for how a partnership could make this happen more effectively. Sadly, the lockdown has meant that the next meeting with this group to develop some concrete plans has been cancelled for now. We will trust God to move this forward in His time.

 Excited to report that the Mangyan officially decided to partner with the Bugkalot to reach the tribals in Bicol. Taking tribals reaching tribals to the next level!

 Another trip Steve took was with the Global Empowerment team here in the Philippines up into the Bugkalot mountains to meet with the church leaders in conjunction with key ones they have sent out. The idea was to evaluate how "sending" has been going and develop a plan for the best way to move forward together. It was a productive time, and they all felt good about the next steps. Unfortunately, two different important meetings to move this forward had to be cancelled for the lockdown, so we are now in a holding pattern. A big prayer request is about the support for the Bugkalot who have been sent. A foundation had been partnering with them to help them send their missionaries, but more recently a church in Manila had indicated their desire to partner with them. An important meeting between that church's board and the Bugkalot church leaders was cancelled, and the church cannot proceed without that meeting...which can't happen until the lockdown is lifted. They have enough support through the end of May, but April and May are the summer months here, so if there won't be support for them for next year, they need to know whether to move their school-age kids back home over summer or not (cannot transfer school mid-year here). Anyway, many things affected by the lockdown; prayers definitely appreciated as we trust His timing and plans when so many of ours are being uprooted.  

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!

Storying Trainings

My computer doesn't recognize "storying" as an actual word, but it is one that we use around here quite often.  We teach chronologically through the Word, using stories as we go to teach specific truths about God and how He interacts with mankind; this is called storying.  After telling the story, the group discusses together what the story means and how to apply it.  Our tribal partners have found this to be a very effective way of teaching, and they requested that we do some seminars for the churches that sent them out and train them to teach using storying.  There were two purposes for their request.  First, they think that it would be good for any future partners that are sent out to already be familiar with this method and know the Bible stories; that way, they won't have to learn the stories at the same time as they are studying the language of the place where they are sent.  Second, they felt like it would be helpful for their church leaders as they teach in church, small groups, Sunday School, etc.  They sent this request to their churches, and the churches welcomed us with open arms.  We were excited about this because it is our hearts' desire to fully equip the Bugkalot churches to train the ones that they will send out in the future, in such a way that they don't have to rely on any outsiders or outside group (us included!) to train those whom they send out.  This seminar was one of the first steps in our passing this training to the Bugkalot churches.

Steve spent most of the month of September in the Bugkalot mountains, doing this storying seminar in 8 different churches spread over a wide geographic area.  Each seminar lasted a day and a half, and they were well-attended.  Even more importantly, everyone interacted well with the training, working hard to learn the stories in their groups and to apply the principles for how to use these stories to teach the Word effectively.  It was a very encouraging time for Steve (though exhausting!), and he was blessed by the deep discussions that came out as they worked through the stories together.  Because it is our passion to fully equip the Bugkalot to train the ones they will send out, independent of outsiders, Steve worked closely with one of the Bugkalot leaders and trained him how to do this storying training.  Felipe traveled with Steve to all of the different seminars.  Initially, Steve led the seminar while Felipe observed.  But Steve gradually passed more and more responsibilities to Felipe until, by the final seminar, Felipe was leading the whole thing while Steve observed!