Exciting news!!!!!

Exciting news this month! Heart-stopping news!!!!

Remember Kaulayanan? That village waaaaaaayyyyyy up the top of a mountain that we struggled to the top of in February, 2008, with the hopes of making an agreement with the village leaders to send a team in there to live and to preach the Gospel. We already had two families from the Lapoc church who had committed to move up there so that they could reach this area with the Good News about Jesus. But to our disappointment, the door there was slammed firmly in our faces and we felt pretty sad and discouraged as we travelled home late that afternoon and into the evening.

Well God has opened doors there in a different way!!!! God is the one who is continually knocking on people's hearts, continually seeking..... as we have been learning in 2 Corinthians (like in ch 5:19-21) which is the hardest book of the New Testament that we have translated so far. You might be saying, "Quick - tell us in a nutshell what this heart-stopping news is!" Well, it started unfolding a couple of weeks ago when a bunch of school teachers turned up at our place in Lapoc. Not many of the team were home as the ladies were all out teaching scripture in the schools, but they talked to Rodil and said that they had come to ask for scripture teachers to come and teach the Bible in their school in Basak.

In Basak!!!!! Many of the children from Kaulayanan go to school in Basak!!! Our first thought when we heard this news was to praise God that He has opened a way for the Gospel to reach Kaulayanan - through the school children!!!

It is great timing as the scripture teachers in Lapoc have been busy multiplying themselves and training others to be teachers of the Word and just last Saturday they had a special lunch to commemorate a year of hard work and study that these ladies have put in so that they can become proficient at teaching children the Gospel and in helping them to grow in Jesus.

 The team who will be taking the Gospel to the school children at Basak will be made up from ladies in this picture, including some of the 8 newly graduated ladies who are holding their certificates. They start tomorrow - October 2nd - and they need lots of prayer. Please pray for them: for endurance through all the bumps in the road ahead, for them to continually look to the Lord for the patience, focus and zeal that they will need, for both teachers and students in the twenty class-rooms at Basak to be greatly blessed through their ministry.  Pray especially for the new ones that they will quickly overcome any timidity or fear and grow courageous and bold in the Lord.

The Lord helped us greatly through the month of September to achieve our goal of finishing up to and including 2 Corinthians 4! This was in spite of Paul's nasal surgery (septoplasty and turbinoplasty) which resulted in a painful week of recovery.

This month of October, the goal is to finish up to and also including 2 Cor 12:10. Please continue to PRAY, PRAY, PRAY for this!!! We are so delighted and thankful for the progress in spite of the many hard hours of mental, physical and spiritual strain in achieving this.

Some Prayer and Praise Points:

               1. Please pray for the elders and bible teachers in the Dulangan churches as they look to the Lord to show them where to reach out, that doors will open before them for the Gospel.

               2. Please pray for the weekly outreach to Gawgawon which has been tough going for the teams from Tumpagon and Cauyunan.

               3. Praise for the many new believers in our Lord Jesus at the banana plantations and ask for wisdom for those heading up the teaching that they will have wisdom for the next step.

               4. For our family - pray that all three of us will walk in the joy of the Lord, that Jubab will have great wisdom and encouragement and diligence as he starts his HSC subjects this term, that we will have tender hearts all the time to the Lord's leading.

               5. Please pray for Dad as he continues to go through the renal cancer. He is very anaemic and has had blood transfusions, but it seems the problem might be due to side-effects from the chemo. 

A quick memoir from Paul, Deb and Jubab's Desk

Our family is looking pretty happy here because this was taken on our beautiful son's 17th birthday!

Every day we are happy as we give thanks to God and serve Him! 

A great milestone this past week was finishing the book of 1 Corinthians and this week now to be working on 2 Corinthians!! Just finished skyping with the translation team in Lapoc - working on 2 Corinthians 2 which is almost completed. Our favourite verse of that chapter is:  14 Ba salamat hu Magbabayà ha dayun tagpangulu kanyu duun hu kadaogan duun ki Cristo daw tagpaalimbahung pinaagi kanyu hu kahumut hu katun-anan mahitongod Kandin duun hu alan ha dapit. 

Which in one of our English translations (NASB) says: 14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. 

What an incredible privilege to be translating God's Word into Tala-Andig!!!!!!!!!!!  Some days we can hardly believe it that we have been given this joy. 

Today we were also able to help a brother in Lapoc by contacting friends who run a hospital in Cagayan to arrange for him to be taken there for treatment. He has had a suspected stroke and is being taken there right now. Skype, email and cell phones makes our brothers and sisters seem so reachable in spite of the distance. 

This afternoon we have started drafting 2 Cor 4 and Paul has been preparing a message as he is speaking on Sunday. 

Jubab is having a big week: his 17th birthday, finishing up all his exams and assessments for Yr 11 and his basketball finals (his team won and we were some of the loudest parents at the game).

(Breaking news:  About an hour ago, Jubab passed his driving test so he is now a fully-fledged driver!!  Where did our baby go??) 

Happenings in our lives....

Translation News: 

Today we finished 1 Corinthians 15!! Right on track for this week - praise the Lord for allowing us to complete this goal.

For the month of September, the goal is to finish up to and including 2 Corinthians 4.

One of our sisters in Lapoc said about the Word of God this week, "My spirit felt really sad today as we just had my uncle's funeral yesterday, but the Word of God has strengthened me." 

Please pray for Ann-Ann as she keeps our office running in Lapoc.

Medical News:

Over the years we've had numerous trips to Doctor's offices for things like Jubab's sinusitis and ears, Deb's many ops for endometriosis, but other things we have tended to let slide.

So finally after years of snuffling because of not being able to breathe through his nose, Paul is having an operation that will hopefully improve his breathing.

Deb has put up with some unusual aches and pains since 2008 and recently decided to get some serious work done on it so a lot of physio ahead of her and a lot of healing needed on her right shoulder and neck area. 

Our God is faithful and good and He is beside us through all the trials this life will hold.

Philippine Trip:

We have a trip booked for the Philippines coming up in March! We look forward very much to the ministry that the Lord has prepared for us to do in that time and for His will to be accomplished!

One of the things we will be looking to the Lord for wisdom for along with the elders, is the direction that our ministry will take when we move back to the Philippines after the translation of the New Testament is completed.

This will involve discussion about what the elders feel are the needs in all the areas where we are working and new areas where they are looking to take the Gospel into.

Weddings:

There have been two weddings this past week of young people from Lapoc and Tumpagon. These are young people who have grown up as believers in the Lord Jesus, who have waited for the Lord's direction and have married partners who also love the Lord.

One of these weddings was today and this picture is hot off of Face Book. (Yes!!!! We can stay in instant touch with many of our dear ones over in the Cauyunan, Tumpagon and Lapoc areas through Face Book.)

Speaking of weddings, it was our 31st wedding anniversary this month and we look back with great thankfulness on the gift God gave us of each other and the joy it has been to serve Him together for all the years of our marriage.

Dad:

Deb's Dad just had a blood transfusion last weekend as he is very anaemic at present which is affecting his breathing. Please pray for his blood count to come up and for his breathing to be eased. 

Our Kids:

Jen our daughter is nearly 35 which is hard to believe. Jubab (little brother) turns 17 in less than 2 weeks. They don't get to see each other often as they are separated by an ocean, but there is a bond of love between them that is so sweet.

Jen and Udi in Cauyunan with our four grandkids are serving the church, part of the leadership team and the way they are growing and keeping strong in the Lord is a great joy to us.

Jubab, our sweetest son, is in the midst of many changes in his life. He turns 17 in less than 2 weeks, goes for his driver's licence around the same time, has his last exams for Grade 11 next week, is becoming more and more his own man (independent of Dad and Ma - to our consternation but joy), loves his friends and his youth group, loves basketball, is entertaining lots of plans and thoughts about possible roads his life can take after high school.....and  he is experiencing the joy of youth talked about in Ecclesiastes 11:9.

Fantastic Letter From Migpait School!

This year we have really ramped up the number of school that we are teaching the kids scripture in. We are now teaching in 9 schools to well over 4,000 kids and youth. This week we received a letter from the principal and head people at the Migpait school thanking us for teaching their kids from God's Word. 

It is such a tremendous encouragement to receive a letter like this and we really wanted to share it.

Baby Skyler!

Our translation team has some beautiful news:

Ryan and Sarah became proud parents of this gorgeous baby boy two days ago on Saturday, Aug 15th! His name is Skyler Troy and they are thrilled along with both sets of their parents, the whole missionary team in Lapoc and ourselves.

Grandma, (Elsa, who is Ryan's Mum) had the joy of coming over to stay with them this month and delivering her little grandson! This made me miss her even more as Elsa and I have delivered lots of babies together.

  

Bugs arrived today to see his new grandson and will stay a couple of days but Elsa will stay a bit longer to help Sarah get on her feet. Ryan is working full time with us on the translation of the Tala-Andig NT and has grown to be an invaluable part of the team in the past 9 months since they arrived in Lapoc last November, 2014.

Please pray for Ryan and Sarah as they adjust to being new parents and as their days and nights take on the new delightful dimension that their Skyler

will bring to them in his unique and individual way.  

  

For the three of us, it is a very special thrill to see Ryan with his own baby boy. We have been second parents to Ryan for his whole life and to Jubab, Ryan is not just Ryan, but Yoyo.....who looked after him when he was four years old and who has always been a great role model. Sky is going to carry on the tradition between his Dad and Jubab and he's also going to call Jubab "Yoyo" (a decision that Ryan and Jubab made tonight by skype.)

Empowering The Youth!

Does it thrill your heart to see young people on fire for the Lord?  If so then here are some young people to thrill your hearts!! Together with some of the leading women in the church and the missionary team, these young people from the Ricodo church are enthusiastic scripture teachers in their local school.

It has a cost. Sometimes their peers may mock them and say things like, “Oh so you think you are some sort of teacher now?” But they are willing to endure persecution because they love Jesus and want others to know Him. This takes courage and also a desire to ‘live strange’, realizing they are only pilgrims passing through this world.

They are not super youth, they do ‘normal’ things when they get together like play games, have bible studies, eat snacks and they have crushes, but they have youth leaders who are pretty passionate about developing them into young people who know where they fit into the body of Christ and who teach them to use their spiritual gifts for the benefit of others.

Two years ago in Ricodo, the youth group was a struggling and straggly bunch. Through vision, perseverance and lots of training and encouragement, the missionary team in Ricodo have seen the Lord raise up this team of young people who are excited about serving, who are confident to teach because they realize that it is the Holy Spirit who empowers them, and who want to make their lives available to the Lord’s plan for them.

A couple of these young people have graduated from colleges and have degrees but instead of applying for jobs out in the city, they are instead finding greater joy in sharing the good news about Jesus with their friends and with others.

Other news we’ve heard in the past few weeks about empowering others comes from Tumpagon and Cauyunan (approx. 6-7 hours hike from Ricodo) where the older women in the churches are training about 12 of the younger women in ministry.

This team of women leave their babies and toddlers with grandparents or their husbands, set aside their piles of dirty laundry, their farm work and their other responsibilities and about twice a month they are walking 3 or 4 hours to the outlaying churches to visit other women who are lonely, who are in need, who are sick, who need to be taught how to love their families and how to love Jesus.

The young ladies on this team are excited about this opportunity to serve Jesus with the older women and this is growing the churches stronger in unity, in love and in their knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

One of the young ladies in ministry has written her testimony and we are working on translating it for you, as we have found her testimony very challenging and inspiring. We hope to be able to share it with you before too many days.

The Lord is SUFFICIENT!

Trust that you have been finding the Lord “Sufficient” to meet you at your point of need this month of July.

First up – The Lord enabled us to reach our translation goal in July and we finished up to and including 1 Corinthians 12. Praise Him!!!

This month of August our goal is to complete up to and including 1 Corinthians 15. A couple of these chapters are very long. It is getting exciting as we see 1 Corinthians nearing completion. Please continue to pray for us as the Lord brings us to mind as each week is a real challenge and sometimes it is a struggle to reach our goal each week. 

 

 Prayer Points:

• Pray for our internet signal in Lapoc.
• Pray for health of our translation team in Lapoc as some days they have not been able to work with us and this really overloads the rest of the week.
• Also for our health and strength.

Translating has and is a hugely good experience for us as God is teaching us so so much for which we really praise Him.

 

Yesterday we had to go to Brisbane as Deb’s uncle died so we attended the funeral. Her aunt is also in hospital after having some heart attacks. Deb’s Dad is also fighting cancer. We would really appreciate prayer for Deb’s family as we go through these trials/challenges.

Our 32 year old neighbour also died this last month which saddened us greatly – it seems though that she trusted our Lord Jesus just a week before she died so we think we will see her again in glory. Two days before she died and after Deb had witnessed to her in depth, her husband found her reaching out her arms. He thought she needed water so he asked her if she wanted water. She replied – “I am reaching for Jesus”. God refreshed us greatly to know this.

 

We have daily contact with all of the mission stations in the Philippines and it is really encouraging to see what God is doing in the work there. Each month more outreaches are started in new villages and last month the Lapoc ladies began to teach in 2 more primary schools. The Ricodo team is teaching in the large school there in Ricodo and the Cauyunan/Tumpagon leaders are exploring teaching in the schools there.

 

We are planning another trip over in March of next year.