Goodbyes....plus patient and ministry updates

We never like to say goodbyes but they are a frequent part of missionary life.

A few weeks ago we said goodbye to Josh and Belinda and their children, Daisy, Ally and Neo.....tears and hugs and that last wave and then they were in their vehicle and driving off down the road.

This is a photo taken during our farewell team dinner with them. They have been a close part of our lives and partners in the work since Sept 9, 2006 when they joined the team here. And even when they were way past their furlough time, they kept working away here with us while we all prayed and waited for the paperwork for Neo to be finalized.

(By the way, since you might not have seen a photo for awhile of our whole Lapoc missionary team: the couple on the left of the photo are Ben and Leonie, then it is Jubab, Paul and I with Neo in between us, next to me is Annie with her hubby Rodel sitting at the front of her. Next to Paul is Josh. Then it is Bugs and Elsa, Belinda standing behind Elsa, and then Wing and Hazel. Hazel is hugging Gwen their oldest daughter, and at the bottom of the photo are their other two children Cled and Jella. Daisy and Ally on the bottom right and Chingx2 in the stripped hat next to her Dad with her brother Nel beside her.)

Back to our farewells, the long-awaited day finally arrived in the second half of May - Neo’s passport was ready!!!! So in a few short weeks Josh and Belinda were able to finalize plans, finish Daisy and Ally’s school year, pack up their house, say many, many goodbyes, pack their suitcases and head for their passport country - looking forward to hugs and much awaited times with family and friends.  We hope and pray that they have a very refreshing year and ask for prayer for them as they adjust to what is now somewhat a foreign culture to them even though it looks familiar.

Please pray for safety for them as they travel, and for spiritual refreshment and renewing in their lives.

PS – Aling has colon cancer – Please keep praying probably will undergo chemo.

The elderly lady will have cataract surgery (Lord Willing) tomorrow – July 22

The little girl is also scheduled to have her eye removed tomorrow – we will try to get an artificial one for her.

The man with huge growth on his back will be operated on (Lord Willing) on Aug. 9

Bible study with the primary school teachers continues tonight and is going fantastic.

The new outreach in Lantod is also going incredibly well – please pray.

A hard day in town....please pray!

Dear Co-workers in Christ,

Debbie, Jubab and I came to Cagayan De Oro City on Saturday after attending our NTM missionary conference in Malaybalay. We had a bunch of things on our agenda.

We wanted buy food to supply us for the next 2 months on the Saturday, then catch up with some friends in CDO on the Sunday and then on Monday (yesterday) our driver Wingwing was to go to Cauyunan and get all of the elders from our first work for them to have an elders  meeting with me in CDO and Debbie while I met with the elders was to care for some patients who Wingwing was also bringing out of Lapoc due to them needing special medical care out here.

We ended up having an emergency ---- Rony who is my dear friend from Lapoc and one of our first converts came out with his wife as she had a mass in her abdomen that we wanted to have looked at. We ended up having to have immediate and urgent surgery and they removed a 6 inch length of her small intestine due to it being engulfed in a large mass/cyst/abscess???. Please pray for them. We first took them to the government hospital and there were patients literally littering the whole area and no room or ward vacant for them to be admitted into for surgery, so we took them to the next hospital and it was the same so in the end we admitted them into one of the best hospitals in town and had the surgery performed last night at about 8PM. Must be just what God had planned for them – He is so gooood!!!! Rony has been my right and left hand J ever since we arrived in Lapoc, we watched him experience the tragic death of his 14 year old son due to an asthma attack and he hurt and hurt and hurt but never even missed going to his outreaches where he has led many to the Lord. He has helped me with designing and heading up most of our construction as well and we work very closely together.

Please pray for Rony’s wife’s recovery – her name is Aling. I will be going to see them once I get this e-mail sent.

We will be caring for the other patients today now – to give you a bit of an idea of our days patients:

1.      We have a little 11 year old girl that has an ulcerated eye. We have to have it removed.

2.      We have an elderly lady from our new outreach of Lantod who we are having cataract surgery on.

3.      We have a middle aged man who has a gigantic cyst on his back that we need to have operated on.

4.      We have a lady who was shot up some years ago and pus is still coming out of her wounds. Her condition has just come to our attention. She will need LONG time care for which we have rented a room out here for her to stay in. We also employ another lady out here who assists us with these patients and others which are quite common when we cannot be here due to us being home translating.

5.      A lady with a skin disease.

6.      And a poor little boy who has a spinal fluid leak causing swelling between his eyebrows. Not sure what they will do with him yet.

So in addition to Aling there are all these patients that we would appreciate prayer for.

We are going to try and go home on Thursday and have “Naring”  (our employee out here) finish off caring for these patients. We just need to get them all set up for all their surgeries and then she can handle the rest.

Meanwhile yesterday until about 4PM I was in our elders meeting. It was a good time and it is exciting for me to see the work going on in the area where we first worked for 12 years. There are 8 churches there now. Will write a few things down about some of the highlights. Please pray for these people as well as they serve and grow.

1.      We are setting up a new mission station in Kalamalamaham – it was the very first village that I surveyed as a young missionary back in 1987 but they rejected us and would not allow us to live with them as they believed that we wanted to sacrifice their children to the evil spirits. Almost 25 years later they want to hear the Word of God so we are currently constructing 2 houses there and will soon send 2 missionary families to reach the area. The men are already there.

2.      They had a baptism in Kapisahan which is a brand new outreach – there are 15 believers there now. What great joy!!!!

3.      We have to rebuild the medical centre in Cauyunan as we constructed it from wood some 20 years ago and it has been eaten by termites. Hopefully this year.

4.      A big youth conference is being planned.

5.      Many of the kids of our initial believers in the Cauyunan area are being trained as Bible teachers and going out to other areas.

Lets pray that we can set the place on fire for the Lord through the power of the Glorious Holy Spirit.

New Groups!

God never sleeps!!  God never stops working!!  God keeps bringing more people to hear His Word!! Please pray for the new groups who are listening: ·        In Anlagan there are 20 new people listening. ·        In San Aquino there are 25 new people listening. ·        In Lapoc there are 47 new people listening. In Lantod a new group starts today!  Please pray with us: There is a battle going on for these people’s souls! Already we have lost some. It is too late for one of the ladies who just started listening to the Word here in Lapoc. She passed into a Christ-less eternity a week later. Pray for the Word to continue to go out with power!!! Pray for the new school year here and for the women scripture teachers as they start again this Tuesday, taking the Word to the school children!