Evangelism in Tagbak - Pray!

On, Saturday, as you can see from the pictures above, our family had a beautiful day in Tagbak with the Lord’s people there and also with the village leaders and others in the community that attended the new church opening.

Paul spoke and encouraged the many unbelievers present to make time for God’s Word because they do not know the hour or the day when the Lord will require their souls from them. An evangelistic bible study is starting this Saturday at 9:00 am. Pray that many will come to hear God’s Word.

Annie, who is the wife of the village head, hugged Deb and told her how happy she was that her husband and married sons have committed to come to church to hear the Gospel. She has prayed for a long time that her whole family would come to the Lord.

Jubab and the other young people from our Lapoc church, sang several songs that brought tears to the eyes of some of the unbelievers present. A sign maybe that God is speaking to their hearts.

Our whole time there was beautiful and we look forward to the unfolding of God’s plan for the people of Tagbak. One thing that has become evident is that God is speaking to the children in the school and to the young people. One young guy has been teaching his friends and has led about 10 of them he told us, to trust in the Lord Jesus!

God’s work is amazing and we are so honoured to be a part of His work in this corner of His field!!

Update on Talid-Talid!

September last year, angels celebrated in heaven over a small group of people in Talid-Talid who trusted the Lord Jesus as their Saviour! The church here in Lapoc also rejoiced at this news of the fruit of their labours. During that month, our family, along with others, went to Talid-Talid to meet these new brothers and sisters. When we arrived, we found the believers waiting for us at Jerwin and Erica’s house where they held their meetings each week. We worshipped the Lord with them, shared a meal together and had a pretty awesome day of seeing what God had been doing in this remote and ‘wild-west’ type of frontier.  Just one time of experiencing the difficult terrain and the dangers that our fellow-servants of the Lord travelled through every week to take the Gospel to Talid-Talid really gave us a huge new appreciation for their courage and endurance.

Paul was invited to share a message of encouragement from the Word during our day with them and his message included a challenge to the new believers about the many who still haven’t heard the Good News. When Paul asked them who would be willing to go and tell others the message of salvation, Tisyu – the man in this picture - was one of 3 men who stood up and said, “I will go.”  Jerwin was another who also said that he would go.

Not long afterwards, the young church in Talid-Talid was scattered when Jerwin was killed, another believing family’s house was burnt down and much persecution followed. The believers fled to various places for refuge and for months, we had not heard word of them apart from scanty bits of news about Jerwin’s wife and family.

But praise the Lord for great news He brought to us this week through some believers who had been away for months working as sugar-cane cutters. During their travels they came to a village far away from Talid-Talid and there they met Tisyu and guess what he is doing? He is preaching the Gospel!

We don’t know how many people he is teaching, we don’t know how many have been saved through his preaching, but we are thrilled to hear that in spite of losing his home, his livelihood and being driven away from his village through persecution, he is sharing Christ, he is telling others the message of salvation.…the Lord has preserved him and given him this ministry!

This place where Tisyu was seen preaching, is a place Paul went to a few years ago when he was surveying an area on the other side of a huge mountain range that forms a boundary for the Tala-Andig people group. He went there to see how many unreached villages are in that area and he even stayed overnight in someone’s house in that very village. We thank the Lord that today, some of the people in that place are hearing the Gospel through this dear brother!

Please pray for Tisyu as God speaks through him in this new place where he is, and please pray for the many more unreached that still need to hear the Gospel in this huge valley that we live in and on the other side of the mountain ranges that surround us.

Update from Lapoc!

This is the most recent photo of our family taken out in town as we were just about to take a very big step as parents, which was to send Jubab off on a big trip without us!

Jubab had been invited by some friends of ours to attend a Youth Camp with them in a place called Baguio which is a 7 – 8 hour bus ride to the north of Manila. Jubab had an absolutely wonderful week, he loved the worship and the teaching he heard from the Word, he made many new friends, he enjoyed the games and the activities…….and he came back home overflowing with a renewed love for Jesus who he is now calling his Perfect Friend. We managed to survive the week without our son, but were more than thrilled to have him safely back home!

 

Arriving back home in Lapoc, we had one afternoon to get ourselves organized before the arrival the next morning of 21 church leaders (including two of the wives) for this month’s workshop/seminar. They arrived at 7 am and the next two days were spent in hours of teaching and studying together.

 Back Row from left: Isling and her husband Gabril, Danoy, Roldan, Rodnie, Marlon U., Duy-Duy.

Second Row from left: Samson, Dan-dan, Ratunil, Tò-Tò, Ronnie and Max (standing, wearing black)

Front Row from left: Dodong (red jacket), Gagang, Marjon, Marlon and Mark and Rostom in very front. (Two of them missed the picture taking.)

Just an update on the places where these servants of the Gospel (and many others are teaching):  The believers in Talid-Talid who were scattered after Jerwin was killed and others of their lives were threatened are still scattered but Jerwin's family are all doing well. Another small band of believers in Gahiton were also scattered after a murder that happened in their village. In Lantod, there was a falling away because of fear – firstly because of persecutions and also because three of their group died one after the other and the people outside the church were blaming these deaths on the believers leaving their old ways. Slowly though, these ones who fell away are returning and the group is growing strong again.

Special things to note for prayer and for praise are the churches in Endulang, Tikalaan and Migpait – they were just small groups of believers but now they are seeing a sudden interest in the Word happening amongst their neighbours and others in these villages and as a result they are busy holding quite a few new bible studies and they are seeing people being added to the faith!

Another special note for prayer and praise is that in the past few months, two brand new outreaches have been started in the villages of San Mateo and in Dunggian (a part of Man-ay where the church here in Lapoc and the church in Cauyunan would love to set up a joint missionary post and send some full-time missionary families.) We do not have exact news yet of what is happening in Dunggian but we just know that each week, the Word is being taught there by Ruel, James and Inocean.

Other news is that in Mauswagon, where the men live who stoned us, there are still about 5 people listening to the Word - Rimi and his wife and Rimi’s father-in-law and some of the children. The other 3 men and their families eventually dropped off saying things like, “We need to work today…….we are going to harvest etc.” (cares of this world.) But we praise God for the truth that they were taught and we know that His Word does not return void. And we are also thrilled that Rimi and his wife and her father and the children appear to have trusted Christ and are new believers! The Lord has revealed that they are the family who He was seeking out using the rock smashed our windscreen. 

Some of you may be wondering about the village of Kaulayanan that a bunch of us hiked to some years ago. The Gospel has still not reached there. Some of the people from this place have relatives who are believers but there has been no invitation from them to go and teach in their village. We still hope that the doors there will open one day.

School.......and Miracles!

It seems a bit strange doesn’t it to speak of school and miracles in the same breath, but this is how God packages up the events in our daily lives – a continual fusion of the marvelous and the ordinary!

During this past week, the following events have happened:

  *  A bolt of lightning passed between Ronnie and Rudil as they were out on outreach. It came in through the window and passed between them and within a foot of them both as they stood talking together in the almost competed church building at Tagbak. It then hit the floor and sent a shower of mud and cement up onto the ceiling along with an instantaneous boom of thunder that shook the whole building. The whole incident passed within seconds and harmed not a hair on their heads.

   *Paul’s 51st birthday came and went along with a quick trip to town, a list of jobs ticked off of our ‘town list’ and a relaxed evening spent with Ben, Leonie and Grace to celebrate the birthday!

        *Jubab had a shorter school week due to the trip out to town. (We are very, very thankful for Ben and Leonie and for their 3rd year now of serving here along with us! Their part in the overall work here is just HUGE as they free us up from the hours it takes each day to teach school.)

               * We had to send a patient to hospital in an emergency trip a few evenings ago. The weight of responsibility is often heavy on us to help families who don’t have the means to go to hospital or the knowledge of what to do when they get there.

   *A neighbour was killed down the hill from where we live, close enough for us to hear the struggle and the tumult that followed......both the murderer and the murdered were neighbours.

  * We visited the family of the bereaved and walked the very narrow line of neutrality. In this place, it is important that we do not take sides.  

        *A beloved brother in the Lord has suddenly slipped from carrying the Word to carrying a gun and we fear for him. He greatly needs our prayers. Our enemy is like a roaring lion who continually prowls around the flock.

        *The church continues to grow – even this very week, there is a new family group who have believed and been added to the believers.

        *The church leaders are increasing in strength and wisdom – evidenced this very week as they go through some very difficult times. The lightning bolt happened on a day when the elders had just gone through a severe trial and to us it was just like God shaking the house that the apostles were in after they went through a severe trial in Acts 4. It was just like God was saying --- “Well done guys. Keep trusting me and pushing on and we will get to the finishing line together”. Normally if lightning passes so close to you … you die.

   *The Gospel has reached Dungguan, a new frontier which is an area we have been praying would open up to the Gospel!!

For us, as a little band of missionaries whose daily lives are caught up in this amazing blend of the commonplace and the miraculous, we have learnt to accept both from God’s hand. The commonplace has become like the backdrop to the continual stream of mighty works that God keeps showing us and doing on behalf of His people here.

“I will ponder all Your work and meditate on Your mighty deeds....”

 Psalm 78:12