Mangyan Update

As I mentioned in the post below, Steve has been hard at work, following up with both the Bugkalot & Mangyan as they reevaluate how they're sending and see how it can be tweaked to be more effective. He also got to attend the believers conference for 1 of the 6 Mangyan tribal groups, and he was so blessed to be a part of this group who is worshipping God together and has a passion to reach other groups with the Goon News. The pictures inside the venue didn't come out very well because of lighting, but this is the overflow area!

Bugkalot Update

After the 8 steps training (see posts from Feb), Steve traveled to follow up with both the Mangyan & Bugkalot leadership boards to see how they want to move forward and what changes (if any) they want to make with sending. They have decided that they would like to pursue a more structured sending program, and we will be helping them walk through that in the months to come. We are excited as we think this will help them send even more effectively.

Steve's on his way back today from the annual believers conference up in Bugkalot. Several of our Mangyan partners attended some of it to strengthen that partnership, and quite a few of the ones they have sent down to Bicol came up for it, as well as quite a few of the Agta church leaders. It was a great time of seeing all these tribal groups partner together for the sake of reaching other tribal groups.

One of the things the Bugkalot leaders had asked Steve to present at this conference was the idea of small groups and how discipleship can happen in that context. They tried small groups for the first time, and we are praying it will be something that God uses to strengthen their churches in the future.

 
Our new teammates continue to do well, and Claire just passed her first language evaluation, which means she can now transition to part-time language study, and we can start putting her to work! That's the earliest we've had anyone take that first eval, and Brandon & Macey are also taking their first one this coming week. So thankful for them!
Brandon took his first "immersion trip" and attended the conference that Steve has been at this past week. It was a crazy hot week for camping (record-setting temps!), but it sounds like it was still a great opportunity to be immersed in the language and learn.

Bicol Update

A recent development on the land in Bicol is these fish tanks to demonstrate aquaponics. It will allow the students to learn these techniques and hopefully also provide some income for the schools to help them be more self-sustaining. Pray for these dear partners as they work to learn the technologies & implement them well.

I love this pic! As we enter the land where the Tribal Bible College & Boost project are located, this beautiful sign of His promise spanning across it. We are so thankful for His many blessings & promises as we continue to partner with tribals to reach tribals.

 

Family & Team Update

 So I don't have a ton of pics for this one, but just a quick update. We were blessed to have my parents visit the Philippines last month. We failed to take many pics, but I love this one of Mikayla with them. We had a great time catching up, and they were able to join for a team retreat for a couple of days that went really well.

And I don't have any current pics of the "kids" but wanted to let you know how you can be praying for them this summer. Mikayla will have a busy couple of months as the girls in their home are off school, so that makes the home a busy place. Zach graduates college next week, and he'll be helping with the training for the group going to Fiji (where he served last summer), then he'll head back to Missouri to work while he continues with the application process for a 2 year position with IMB. Ben will be leading a 6-wk summer team to a different country in SE Asia, where they will travel to very remote areas to survey & gage gospel access. We so appreciate your prayers for our crew as they continue to serve where God has called each of them and seek Him for future direction.

They're here!

You prayed; God answered. Our teammates have arrived in the Philippines and are hard at work learning Tagalog. It has been such a blessing to get to know them better and spend some time discussing what life and ministry in the Philippines looks like. And we're loving having little kids around again. :)

Please join us in praying for them as they work hard to study the Tagalog language and build relationships with Filipinos. Please also pray that God would allow them to plug into effective ministries while they are in language study. 

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!