Family Time

We are so blessed to have our boys here this summer (and Mikayla has tickets booked to come back the end of July, so we'll all be together a couple of days before they take off!). And we are loving getting to know Katye (we hadn't met her in person before this - she's jumping right in!). 

Because everyone's flights arrived as scheduled (thank you, Lord!), we had 1 day with just us before the crazy schedule started. We enjoyed some wakeboarding, hot spring soaking, and getting caught up. Then after a week of ministry, we got to enjoy a day off together with friends in Manila as well. We are so thankful for the moments that He is blessing us with this summer!

Ag & CD Training & Survey team

May was a busy month! In addition to the training, visitor, & new teammates (see previous posts for those), our teammates the McCoys headed to a different island for some "Ag" (Agricultural) & "CD" (Community Development) training. In addition to their family of 5, two ladies went with them to help with kids during the class times, and two other ladies from the Bugkalot tribe also attended as they are hoping to use these principles in ministry. 

While they were down there, our summer teams arrived! We will have two teams this summer who will join us in the work. 5 ladies make up the Nehemiah Team that will be working at the BOOST training site (one of them is Claire's sister!); then we have 3 who will be helping with a variety of things, including a lot of survey work in tribal groups across the Philippines. Two of the ones on the survey team are our sons, Zach & Ben, and then Katye, Ben's girlfriend is also here and will be helping with survey as well as assisting Claire in supervising the NT team. So thankful for all these young men and women who are willing to make sacrifices to serve Him this summer!

Here are some pics from Ben & Katye's first survey trip. Thanks to those of you who have partnered with Ben through prayer and giving to make this possible!

Training Time - and new teammates!

Last month, we had some new tribal teammates move to Bicol to join our team. Two couples (each with 2 kiddos) and a single guy are the new additions, and we spent a couple of days doing on-boarding training with these new teammates (also pictured are some of our teammates who helped with the training).

Our team is growing! We're so thankful for each and every one of these precious teammates!

After our time with the new crew, we gathered with everyone for a time of training. The kids had a blast in their own program, and the adults had group sessions, small group study time, and games too!

Another Grad & A New Visitor

In May we were blessed to attend another graduation at the Tribal Bible College. There were a few students who completed the initial foundations course and 8 who completed the "Diploma1" out of 7 total. Such a blessing to hear them recite Scripture, sing special numbers, and share testimonies of what God has done in their hearts this past semester. Thankful for our tribal partners who make so many sacrifices to teach and disciple these students.

We also had a visitor, our organization's main leader for Asia. He was such a blessing to our team as he shared on spiritual warfare & spent time visiting with and praying for our team. 

Mt Mayon was showing off when Claire & I made an airport run - so beautiful!

1st Agta Believers' Conference

Look what God has done! When we think back to the first years of ministry with the Agta tribes, it is staggering to think of what God has done in this place. The Agta churches all gathered for the first time, and we were so blessed and encouraged by the unity and growth we've seen in them through this. 

This was the poster created by our tribal team, representing the different entities involved. A cool thing from our perspective? The foreigners, the "white people" - us - we aren't included in the poster. We LOVE how they've caught the vision of Tribals Reaching Tribals. God is working through them in mighty ways to reach other tribes and the rest of their own tribes. We are secure in the role we know God has called us to in coming alongside and equipping them to walk this journey, and we are so blessed by how well they truly OWN vision. 
Also, you can see the theme for the conference: Pagpapalawak ng Kaharian ng Dios Sa Bicol (expanding the kingdom of God in Bicol - the area where the Agta tribes live). So exciting to see unity building around this vision.

Here's a video
(creds & tnx to Claire & her sister Annie for putting it together!) about the conference so you can peak in the window a little. 

We don't have access to a place big enough to hold everyone - it ended up being around 375 people total - so the churches worked together to erect a bamboo structure with a tarp, specifically for this conference. One of the nights there was POURING rain, and we sent out urgent requests because we were afraid it would collapse under the weight, but we were so thankful it held.

Quite the job to cook for everyone! These were the cook tents.

Several generous donations & partners made this conference possible, and one of them especially wanted them to be able to play together (we agree; such great bonding/unifying time to play together!). We were able to put gravel down & erect a back board (they LOVE basketball in the Philippines!), as well as volleyball net - both of which we will be able to keep using!

Here's one of the Agta leaders sharing a challenge from the Word with everyone. There's a story from conference that I want to share with you:
A little culture info will make this story more poignant. First, traditionally, the Agta do not have any kind of group meetings. The largest socio-economic group is the nuclear family. So they never gathered as clans or villages for meetings, their kids didn’t go to school, and they didn’t go to any group religious events; all of these are what has made the idea of gathering for a believer’s conference so radical. Additionally, Agta don’t express physical affection or even emotion; the only people they would reach out to touch would be nuclear family. They are also incredibly shy, avoiding interacting with others whenever possible, and leading others is seen as a cultural sin – Agta should never try to lead others to do anything, so leading a conference seems crazy.

Without further ado:
On the opening night of the conference, the chairman of the fledgling Bicol Tribal Church Association (BTCA) got up to welcome everyone. As he faced the crowd of his tribesmen gathered together (unheard of!), he said he was just so overwhelmed with the idea of addressing them as a leader that he just froze. At that moment, the Agta man standing next to him, the vice chairman of BTCA, reached out and took his hand. The chairman said at that moment, he was emboldened as he was reminded that he is not alone in this; the Agta tribes are in this together to glorify God’s name and spread His kingdom across Bicol (the theme for the conference). God has done – and is doing – and amazing thing with the Agta tribes in Bicol!

Because our normal camping area was re-purposed for conference & on-going construction, they made some new camping areas for our team. One night of heavy rain showed that the new sites weren't draining super well...but quite the commercial for these tents as the people inside stayed mostly dry - this is even after the rain had stopped and water level receded!

Sometimes "our" volcano pops out on a clear day - beautiful!

I hope you are encouraged and blessed by this glimpse of conference! Praise God for all HE has done!

Bugkalot 70th Anniversary Conference

Steve and our teammate, Brandon, were blessed to be able to attend part of the big anniversary celebration of when the Gospel first came to the Bugkalot tribe. There were about 2,000 in attendance at the believers' conference, and they represented 37 churches. It has been so encouraging to our hearts to see what God has done through the years with the Bugkalot - from fierce headhunters to sending out their own cross cultural workers - and even what he's done in more recent years. When we first started mobilizing them in 2010 to send out from their churches to reach the nations, there were 16 small tribal churches. As they've caught the vision of being a part of God's work beyond their own boundaries, not only have they sent out dozens to reach other tribal groups, the church has also been revived; the number of churches has more than doubled, and all the individual churches have also grown. Giving has increased exponentially, and many of the churches are now supporting their pastors in addition to giving to those they've sent out and other programs, like their own Bible School. It is always such a blessing to be reminded what GOD can do. To HIM be all the glory!

They always do a parade of churches to come in to the celebratory session. Steve was able to take some drone shots of it. This one is in the meeting area, and this one is of the parade still coming to enter the meeting area. 

The leaders wore their cultural costumes to celebrate and shared a moving testimony of what God has done over the years.

I was not able to attend this conference (or several of the other ones I posted about) because I finally pulled the trigger on knee surgery. They went in arthroscopically and discovered two tears/holes in the cartilage. One was 1/2 cm and the other 1.5 cm behind the knee cap. Since one was in the weight bearing area and the other in the bending area, I had two weeks where I couldn't put any weight OR bend it all. That was tough for sure. After that, I was gradually able to do a little more but still meant I was very limited with any real mobility for 6 weeks. Recovery has been very slow, but the doctor is encouraged with my progress & my prognosis is good. I'm hitting the PT hard now, so appreciate prayers for continued healing. This next wk will be the first time in 2 months that I head into our tribal areas, and I'm honest a little nervous about how I'll handle camping, the rough terrain, and keeping up with PT there; prayers greatly appreciated!