Broke Ground!

Last month, my dad was finally able to come again after borders being closed for 2 years. We went down to the new Bible College land. We hiked the perimeter (quite a trek!) to get a good feel of the whole area and discuss possibilities. Ultimately, we decided to go with the initial plan we had developed for where to put the various aspects of the project (Bible college, livelihood/church planting training, etc).

While my dad was still here, we gathered a BIG group - about 90 people! - to discuss the plans and establish some groundwork for the project. This group included our Bugkalot tribal partners, the Mangyan tribal Bible teachers, as well as Agta tribal leaders from the Bicol Tribal Church Association. We spent time walking the area where the Tribal Bible College will be, figuring out the location for the classroom building, teacher & student houses, and the cooking/dining area. 

In the pic below, I'm standing where some of the teacher cabins will be as well as the girls' cabins. The group is standing where the classroom building will go, and then the kitchen area is just below it, with more teachers and the guys' cabins below that.

After walking the area, we spent time discussing how the construction plan will work (trying to share the work opportunities between as many Agta villages as we can) and who would be in charge of what.

And of course, we ate lunch together!

This is Steve talking with our Mangyan tribal partner, Isaias, who will be the president of the Tribal Bible College. 

This house is one of the newly-finished cabins for some of our Bugkalot tribal partners who moved to the edge of the land to begin outreaches to nearby Agta villages. This house will be the same kind of cabins that we build for the Bible college teachers and students.

Another exciting thing that happened this week was two land development experts from one of our organization's ministries on another island came to help us think through the other aspect of the use for the land - the livelihood skills and church planting training. We worked with them to scout out where we could build for that training campus, and we talked through the various aspects of what that program could look like.

All in all, a VERY profitable week for sure!

****

Then last week, Steve went back down to Bicol, and a couple of days ago, we BROKE GROUND for the Tribal Bible College! More pics and stories to come in the next posts, but just wanted to let you know so that you can rejoice with us and praise God for all He has done and is doing!

Our Graduate

It's hard to believe that our bunso ("youngest" in Tagalog) is graduating. We're about to be empty nesters...and, no, I don't want to talk about it. :)

Ben has been through so many disappointments in his final 2 years of high school with the incessant pandemic lockdowns (he had TWO FULL YEARS of no in-person classes, sports or other activities!), but we are so proud of how he has handled everything, and we know that God has big plans for this guy.

CONGRATULATIONS, Ben! We love you more than you know.

Annual Believers' Conference

We were blessed to be able to join the Bugkalot Tribal Church for their annual conference. There were more than 1000 adults in attendance!

Steve was one of the speakers so had to go for meetings before and after, but my dad was visiting and wanted to go for a day, so I drove him up there, and we had a great time visiting with everyone. It was good to see my  dad catch up with old friends; it had been a long time since he saw them.

My dad was asked to say a few words before we left to head back to Manila so he could catch his flight.

Ok, you can probably see this pic better if you click on it, but it's pretty cool. Those banners each have the name of one of the Bugkalot churches on it; the different colors are for the 3 different "chapters" (associations) of churches. When we first started mobilizing the Bugkalot to send out some of their very own to partner with us to reach the Agta, there were 16 churches. Now there are 32, plus additional outreaches on their way to becoming churches. It has been amazing how God has worked in their hearts; as they've caught a vision for how He wants to use them to reach the Agta, He has also reignited their passion to reach those who live closer to their boundaries. 

Here's a video of the banners. To GOD be the glory!

Beach Memories

Last month, we took a quick trip to the beach for one final visit at our favorite family vacation spot before Ben graduates. 

Lying in a hammock on this beach, reading & watching Ben and his friends play spikeball, is one of my favorite things to do.

It was a great couple of days, and it was so good to see Ben having fun with friends, while also making some final family beach memories.

And of course, the sunsets were as amazing as always! I love this infinity pool.

Thank you, Lord, for this blessing!

Tribal Bible College Update

Thank you to those of you who have already been involved in either praying and giving towards the Tribal Bible College project. Here's a post to give you more info if you're not sure what we're talking about. There's even a video in that post that you won't want to miss! Last month, we were able to camp on the land and use a drone to take some aerial pics (see this post). 

This is the land for the Tribal Bible College! You can see the bridge on to the property bottom center, then a few tents and the tenant house. Our hope is to build the classroom building and bathrooms this summer (if the funds come in time). That will be located in the center left portion of the picture. Then the students and teachers would just stay in tents for the time being. The church planter and livelihood skills training facility will probably be in the top center of the pic, but that will come later. We need to get the Bible College up and running because we already have students attending classes at our temp facility!

Praying together with our team on the new land.

Semester 2 of the Bible College started last month. We're currently hosting them at our training center, but it is too small of a property to be a long-term solution.

Thank you for praying with us for this massive undertaking! If you'd like to be a part of what God is doing with the Tribal Bible College, you can give here. 

God's Heart for the Nations

Over the last couple months, Steve has been spending time in several different tribal areas, mobilizing their churches to be catch a better vision of God's heart for the nations. As part of this, he has done a 1-week seminar on this topic in 4 different areas that included leaders and students from 40 churches, with close to 200 people participating. It has been an exhausting stretch of time, with Steve traveling about 75% of the time, but it has been incredibly exciting to see these tribal churches re-ignite their passion to be more involved in the Great Commission and to see what role God would have them play - both as individuals and as churches. Pray with us that many more tribal partners will be sent out as a result of these seminars!

Trip to Bicol

While Steve has been able to go down to Bicol to visit our teams quite a bit this past year, Ben and I haven't gone because of constantly changing lockdowns and restrictions for minors traveling. Well, we finally were able to make a trip down to visit our tribal teams in Bicol. We even got to camp on the new land that has just been purchased for the Tribal Bible College!

It's an absolutely beautiful piece of property. So thankful and dreaming big dreams of what God will do here in this place.

It's a hike to the top of the property, but what a view!

Another family traveled with us, and they helped us take some aerial pics of the land using their drone (pics to come in another post). While we were there, we also visited one of the villages where we used to go all the time as a family when the kids were little. It was the last time Ben will be down there for a while.

We didn't embarrass them by re-enacting the picture (zoom in to see it), but it was fun to get a pic of these two again.

After camping on the land, visiting a village and spending time with our tribal partners, we took a couple days to wakeboard, visit the hot springs, and of course the beach! So thankful for friends to share both ministry and vacation days!