A little bit of this & a little bit of that

The last couple of months have been quite the smorgasborg of ministry activities. Steve has been the guest speaker at several different churches & conferences, and we've also led various orientations for new personnel as they have arrived (we have 3 different orientations that we lead). 

We also got to visit the island of Palawan to visit this precious family. They used to live in Manila, and I (Jen) supervised them as they studied Tagalog. Now they've moved to the island where they'll be serving, and we had the privilege of visiting them and having strategy conversations as well as just enjoying them and their sweet kids. 

Then, the daughter of one of our tribal partners got married, and Mikayla was asked to be the maid of honor, so we traveled up to the wedding together. It was a fun time of road tripping together but also of re-connecting with old friends. 

Steve is down in Bicol this week, checking on various things there, as well as attending another wedding, this one the son of the first Agta who we baptized back in 2008. One of the things Steve is checking on is the progress with the new fish tanks that will hopefully provide livelihood for the Tribal Bible College as well as training for the Agta for something they can do wherever they live.

8 Steps Consultation

We were recently blessed to be able to gather a group of tribal leaders from the Bugkalot churches with the tribal leaders from the Mangyan churches. There were 16 Bugkalot who came down from the mountains, so that meant 20 of us in 2 SUVs for a couple hours travel to the port!

It was a wonderful time of evaluating what they are currently doing as they send out laborers into the harvest, and then discussing things they could change to be even more effective as they send. 

It was such a blessing to watch these men and women of God analyze the Scriptures and seek to put what they learned into practice in how they send.

We also worshipped together and played some fun games to connect the two groups and keep people awake for 4 loooong days of seminars from 7am-9pm. 

We are so thankful for these tribal partners in the work of reaching the remaining tribes of the Philippines.

Merry Christmas!

We were so blessed to have Zach & Ben visit for Christmas this year. While Mikayla still had ministry responsibilities, she was able to break away to enjoy some family time too.

On Christmas Day, we also got to host a party for Mikayla's girls, and we had a wonderful time.

After Christmas, we spent a couple of days with the cousins, wakeboarding, as well as a couple of days at a summer camp with friends. And the boys got to visit their old beagle!
Such a sweet time together. 

Visitors!

 For many covid years, we weren't able to have visitors or teams come visit, and we were so thankful to welcome dear friends from our home church for a sweet time of ministry and fellowship. And a huge bonus was that our boys were able to come too! We picked them all up at the airport and headed straight for Bicol for some time of ministry together at the Tribal Bible College.

We put on a Christmas party for our tribal partners, so we spent time wrapping presents and - in keeping with tradition - of course finding a giant toad to wrap up in one of the gag gifts!

3 presents each x 26 people means 72 presents!

We also spent some time worshipping together (and were requested to sing a special number), and we also got to visit several tribal areas and share testimonies. What a sweet time!

Next we were blessed to get to enjoy some refreshing time with them wakeboarding and then at the beach. 

So Incredibly thankful for these dear friends!

Ready or Not, Here They Come!

We are so excited to welcome our new teammates this month! Claire (in black & white) will arrive next week, and the McCoy family will arrive at the end of the month. On Friday this week, we'll head down to make sure their houses are all set up and ready to go. Please pray with us for smooth travels & transition for each of them as they move from the States and settle into full time language study.

Yikes!

I don't have a lot of new pics from Tribal Bible College or the BOOST center, but I do have this eye-catching one that they sent a couple of weeks ago. :)
We're headed down there next week, so I should have some additional pics next time, but thought I'd just leave this fun one with you for now!

 

The "Kids"

Yeah, I know they're not really kids anymore, but people still ask about our kids, so here are a couple recent pics. Mikayla is doing well as she serves in an after-care home here for girls rescued out of trafficking. Here is a pic from her recent update, and it features Ben's beagle, Alba, who is loving all the attention at their home.

We also had a blast last week when Mikayla was able to join a soccer tournament for the day; it had been a while since we'd been able to watch our kids play sports, so we had a lot of fun with it. Even though they had never played together (some hadn't even met before that day!), and it had been a looong time since some of them had played, they did very well and even took 2nd in the tournament!

I haven't gotten many pics from Zach recently, but he went back to Missouri for Thanksgiving, and my mom sent me this one as he was the official French Silk Pie chef.

Over Thanksgiving, Ben went on a mission trip to Guatemala. They were able to help with some construction, VBS type ministries as well as an ESL ministry where Ben got to tell Bible stories. They also got to roast marshmallows over volcanic rocks on their day off :)

The most exciting news about the kids is that the boys will be here in just a couple of days, and we will get to spend Christmas together here! So excited to see them again!