To protect the ladies, our light rail transit provides a special car on the front of the train in which they can ride.  This sign serves as notification, normally along with a guard to enforce the rule.

So many good things happening–thank you Lord!!  Home tonight around 10 p.m. from a youth group meeting at a local church.  Exciting to see the passion of our PBJ (Philippine Basketball for Jesus) team (Adrian, Mark and Winnie) as they lead the group in some Christian rap/hip hop and teaching them how to share Christ with their friends and family using simple gospel bracelets.  Have had the privilege of being the facilitator over the last two weeks for the PBJ team as they attended a Jonathan training workshop on church multiplication movements and worked on a master plan for reaching the over 200,000 people in the five communities in which they are presently working.  God is at work!!

Started the day out visiting with Pastor Fred who lives in Welfareville and leads our BL (Bukang Liwayway) team in Welfareville and two other urban poor communities.  With perhaps 50,000 families packed into some 50 blocks, the BL team is seeing a church multiplication movement at work, using a holistic approach (scholarship, kids and health programs as well as livelihood projects) in the community and seeing rapid growth of house churches.  As Fred showed me around the community over a period of a few hours, we visited with present and past Bible study members and stopping to pray with folks a number of times.  I hope some of my pictures will turn out ok and I can post them tomorrow.

‘Abdul’s’ answer to the question “what would you like to be doing this time next year” wasn’t typical of most teenagers. But in other ways, the youth group retreat looked and sounded just like one in America would. The students text message even when they are sitting right next to each other. They stayed up long past 2:00 a.m. chatting and laughing. And, even in the midst of a pouring rain, they didn’t lose their enthusiasm.

But this was not a typical youth retreat.

Playing an ice breaker game, the teenagers responded to such questions as “where would you most like to visit in the world and why?”, or “what do you want to do when you graduate?”. ‘Abdul’, though, was not typical, because he has a life threatening disease. And he was a Muslim. This youth retreat was part of a summer vacation outreach to Muslim youth in a Southern Philippine city often rocked by conflicts and threats.

During my trip there last month, I was able to see first hand the fruits of some of our friends’ years of painstaking friendship building. Located on a side of a mountain in a jungle, the camp was beautiful and exotic, through primitive by US standards. Our supper was a bit unusual too: the students grilled large whole fish, and chicken hot dogs, and cooked rice in a pot over charcoal…and we ate with our fingers, which is polite.

Some slept on large duyans-two youths in a bamboo hammock meant for one. I slept on a very thin reed mat on the cement floor, wrapped in a native malong, or tube of thin batik cloth. Breakfast the next morning was leftover fish and hotdogs, eggplant, tomato and onion sauté, leftover rice, boiled eggs and bananas. Also not typical food fare of American teenagers.

But what was typical was the concern the teenagers felt for their futures in an uncertain world, where many come from poor, dysfunctional families living in marginalized communities.

Pray for these relationships among the Philippines most unreached people groups.

Some pictures of our recent trip to Mindanao.

Manila to Davao by plane May 28.

Bowling with Dolfi and Manobo students.  Duck pin bowling

Making sure we keep score correctly! 

How many can get in the truck?

Walking with Katy

Trying to find someone’s house

In a meeting not too long ago, we discussed what kind of workers we need in our field here.  You need to understand that the church in the Philippines has had rapid growth over the past 25+ years and our role is working alongside our Filipino brothers and sisters.

What do we need in workers

God fearing

Obedient

Returnees

Team player

Relational

Teachable/learner

Communication skills

Bible knowledge and skills

Professional skills

Secular business experience

Big brother to people/alongside/encourage

Facilitate others doing the job

Hospitable

Heart to serve

What we don’t need in workers

pioneers/one man show

Not a driven person/s.o .who ticks off their to do list

Not someone needing immediate measurable results

Here is the second financial value our organization holds:

Finances and Our Relationships with Each Other (We are a FELLOWSHIP)

We exercise personal and corporate responsibility for reviewing and communicating financial provision and needs.

We manage the resources entrusted to us in the context of a community that cares for each other, sharing voluntarily as well as through a number of sharing mechanisms.

We view individual and corporate surpluses as providing opportunities for sharing within the Fellowship and where appropriate beyond.

Found this interesting quote from Hudson Taylor when reading his devotional comments on Song of Solomon, “Who that can will go? Who that cannot go at present will help others to go?”

I saw this picture from one of our colleagues newsletter. Joan and her husband Brian teach at Faith Academy Davao.  Here is Joan’s kindergarten class.

Stories to follow!

A friend of mine gave me this quote relating financial support of mission works and spiritual progress.

“From personal experience I do not hesitate to say that our most living congregations are those which have received the least financial aid; and the converse is also true.”

From a letter in 1902 by Walker of Tinnevelly to the church of England on the subject of the “Spiritual Life in the Indian Church” on page 144 in Ascent to the Tribes by Isobel Kuhn 1956 Moody.