First fruits!! Praise God!!
There
is exciting news from one of the newest outreaches called B…….and K……..!!! News
from there is filtering in slowly and with not much detail as this work has been dangerous and no one has been able
to go to these places yet apart from the two bible teachers who were committed
to the ministry who also have relatives in those areas which somewhat protects
them.
We
are blessed though to see some of their faces because a few of these first
fruits from B…..and K…..visited Lapoc on the weekend of January 21st.
There are about 10 new believers in the
Lord Jesus in these places and 3 of these are young men who have already
started training to be Bible teachers! One
married couple are so fervent that they are travelling each week with the Bible
teachers to some of the neighbouring little hamlets to help gather people to
listen to the Word.
This month, Rodnie
(who is heading the ministry there) has been invited by village leaders to
speak publicly in front of the whole community of B……which is a real spiritual
breakthrough. Please pray for him that he will speak with great confidence in
the Lord and with power.
Church
leaders from Lapoc recently wrote to us saying that this is one place God is
showing them where His spirit is at work opening up many new doors. This really
excites us but we are also sad that for now these doors remain quite closed
apart from to a few because of the unrest and danger in these areas.
Behind
the scenes of God’s stage:
Some
of the things God is doing are very obvious and seen by many but there are a
lot of things happening behind the stage that few see. And one of the things we
don’t often see or take notice of is who cleans the seat we sit on when we meet
to worship the Lord or who sweeps the dirt off the floor that our shoes bring
in. This is a quote from one of our dear widowed sisters who sweeps the church
building in Tumpagon: “atiyù sa trabahu ku ba
tagkatuusan ku ha sakop a hu lawa hi Cristo….” She said, “I just have a small job
to do but I continually see that I am part of Christ’s body….” How beautiful! I want my heart to have this
attitude continually as well: to recognize that I am serving within the body of
Christ – for His glory!
This
is a new church building just going up this week in a village called Ligiron
which is about 3 km away from Cauyunan where we first lived and first
proclaimed the Gospel. Quite a few times we visited Ligiron, treated their sick
and tried to make inroads for the Gospel but there was very little response. Now,
over 2 decades later, there is a growing young church in Ligiron and the
believers are helping one another to make this new building for them to meet
in! The roof was bought with money they made from the corn mill. The cost of
the nails was divided up amongst all the churches. The church in Pinatagan
provided the posts, the church in Cauyunan provided all the wood for the
framework, and all the elders and church leaders from all the churches are
working together on the building alongside the believers from Ligiron.
And
as always, there are the ones back-stage, providing food for the workers,
cooking for them, serving tirelessly – rejoicing that they are part of the body
of Christ! The
‘plates’ in this picture make us homesick for Cauyunan. These are our favourite sort of
picnic plate – a banana leaf!
