Here, There & Everywhere

Actually, most of the last couple of months have not included much "here" time at all - pretty much we've been "there" and "everywhere". :)
In partnership with a Filipino Christian counseling group, Steve traveled to one of the Bugkalot areas to host a training for pastors & wives in how to do member care for those in their churches. It was well-attended, and we are praying that God will use it in big ways.

We also traveled as a couple to the mountain city of Baguio to help with a pre-field training for people from the nations (from Taiwan & India in this case) who are going to the nations to share His message there. Steve taught a couple of days on discipleship, and I taught on the importance of culture & language study for effective cross-cultural ministry. We can't show you pics of the participants due to security concerns where they will be serving, but the picture below is from the practicum time when they learned the words for several different objects (flower, stick, stone, etc), using the language-learning technique we studied.

Steve also got to meet with the seminary president while we were there.

We also traveled to the island of Mindanao for a 2-fold trip. First, we helped to coordinate & teach a "goers conference" for those who feel God is calling them to GO to the nations - kind of a next steps training and talking about what life on the field is like. 

Please pray with us for the 16 "goers" who are praying through what God has for them in the future and learning to step out in faith (picture includes others who helped host the conference). 

From there, we traveled to another area of the island to Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center and met up with some of our Global Empowerment teammates there for some meetings and trainings about coffee plantations & other agricultural techniques and breakthroughs that have been proven helpful on the livelihood side of the work. 

We are so thankful for the many opportunities to be involved in what HE is doing, but we are feeling the wear & tear from so many miles in a short amount of time (you'll see the next posts I share also talk about other travels during this busy time). We appreciate your prayers for strength & perseverance.

No Longer a UUPG!

Some of you are familiar with the term "UPG", which means unreached people group. Well, there is also UUPG, which means they're not only unreached but also unengaged - no one has a plan/strategy for reaching them. Well, this summer the Manide tribe went from UUPG to UPG. The Manide are one of the tribes in Bicol, and our Bugkalot tribal partners were able to engage them. Two couples with their 4 kids have moved in amongst the Manide and are building some simple homes and starting into language study. One of the families had lived there previously (lost access during covid lockdowns), so they just need a refresher on language but now also have teammates to help them in the work. 

This is one of the couples with a couple Manide kids.

Last week, Steve & Claire (plus a visitor) traveled to Bicol to help these 2 couples, as well as 3 other couples who have decided to formalize our partnership and join what's called the GMP program with our org. This program gives them access to resources, including laptops & phones to use in their ministry. The team worked to get these partners onboarding, which meant creating email addresses for them, itunes accounts, dual factor authentication, tech training as well as other onboarding training - quite the job!

Thankful for the part we get to play in shining His light into the darkness in these villages so these precious children have a chance to hear the Truth.

Thank YOU for partnering with us in this! We couldn't be here without you!

Summer Sojourns Pt 2

Claire's family headed their own way at that point, and we continued on with our 3 and my parents. We stayed in a airbnb Italian villa in a tiny village in Tuscany and thoroughly enjoyed exploring Orvieto (a highlight for sure!), Siena & Florence.

 

We even found a field of sunflowers so of course had to take some pics!

I can't even say how thankful we are for this blessed time together. While Italy has always been on my "bucket list", I NEVER would have expected that we'd be able to go, much less with the whole family. He is so very good to us.

After a fun food tour in Florence, we split ways again. My parents headed home, the fearless 3 headed to the Swiss Alps by train to crash with a friend, and Steve & headed trained to Cinque Terre, Italy to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary (ok, so a year late so our 26th because that was when we had meetings in Europe so tagged it on!).

Mikayla, Zach & Ben had a great time together in Switzerland, and I loved seeing their pics!

Steve & I stayed in a the tiny town of Corniglia - it's it adorable?!

We enjoyed the sunset from our tiny balcony (and lots of gelato!)

We also enjoyed the fact that our credit card points paid for our stay! :)  

Our hearts are overflowing with thankfulness for His many blessings! Never would have thought we'd have meetings in Europe, our family would get to join us, and that we would have this amazing opportunity.

Summer Sojourns Pt 1

We ended up with some meetings in Europe that our boys were invited to attend! When we said goodbye at Christmas, we didn't know when we'd see each other again (those are the hardest goodbyes!), so we were so incredibly thankful to see these young men again.

After our meetings, we flew to Rome ($34 tickets!) to meet up with my parents & Claire's parents (Claire's our teammate, & her parents are close friends & ministry partners) because our home church was doing a church launch in Rome with a Filipino congregation. So blessed to be able to be a part of it!

After the church launch, we spent a couple of days touring Rome together and had a wonderful time!

The Coliseum with a friend of Mikayla's

One of the cells where Paul was imprisoned.

The Roman Forum

The Spanish Steps

The Vatican - a highlight was a tour under the vatican in the catacombs, but no pics allowed there.

A train then ferry to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast - gorgeous!

Then a stop at Pompeii on the way back to Rome - exhausting day but wow.

We stayed in an airbnb together (fun but also cheaper :) ) and of course ate a ton of amazing food and enjoyed laughing over so many new experiences together - the 5 of us even rode scooters around Rome together! Can't say enough how thankful we are for this unexpected opportunity!

Summer Update

A lot has happened since we last wrote, but I don't have a lot of pics to share from ministry. The end of June/beginning of July, Steve took a quick trip to attend a board meeting with the tribal leadership from another island (no pics) and we also were blessed to lead a conflict resolution training with the staff at the home where Mikayla works, plus staff from 2 other homes. 

After that, we left SE Asia for a week of meetings and then some vacation time with family. While we were gone, some exciting things happened at the BOOST project. (BOOST is our livelihood/community development training combined with church planting training.) They had their second group graduate, and this time instead of only 3 students, there were 13! Even more exciting, several of them became believers in the course of the semester, and 9 were baptized. So thankful for the way that God is at work with our tribal partners, and can't wait to see how He continues to work in AND through these graduates!

Camping Adventure

Our team just spent the last couple of weeks camping on our property in Bicol. We pulled our whole tribal team together for a cross-cultural church planting strategy training (refresher for the "old" ones since it's been 12 years since they did it before! and then we have a couple of brand new families too). 
It was a wonderful time of connecting and learning together again. My dad joined us for a couple days of the time to teach some classes. And while it was crazy muddy, the camping actually went pretty too. 

Our teammates from Taiwan & another island in the Philippines led a program for the kids. It was such fun to watch these MKs connect for the first time. While they look different from one another and can't communicate well yet, they are actually very much alike as they have all left their home cultures and are being raised in a new culture as their families bring the Good News to those who have never heard.

One of the current projects going on down on the land is clearing space & making a road to where we can *hopefully* build a place where we can all stay on the land (tents are an adventure but not a great long-term solution...camping and teaching all day is a tough combo!). This pic is taken from that clearing - check out that sunset view!
Pls pray with us for wisdom & God's provision as we consider how best to make this a reality.

One of our teammates created this map of the BOOST property after taking a drone shot. So cool to see how everything is developing!

We are so thankful for the many ways God is at work with Tribals Reaching Tribals, and we are especially thankful for all our amazing teammates.