Mario, Flor and baby Hezekiah......!

Introducing Mario and Flor Talo and baby Hezekiah! The Dulangan Higaunon churches are sending out yet another missionary family!!!

The elders of the Tumpagon and Cauyunan churches are supervising their preparation and also getting ready to start building their house in Balintad which is the area they are being sent to. The church plant in Balintad was founded by Udi, our son-in-law along with his fellow-workers, Roel and Nelmar, but they are passing the work on to Mario and Flor as they want a family to be assigned full-time to this area to bring the church on to maturity as well as to start church plants in the surrounding areas.

They are a gifted and steady young couple, equipped for the job they are being sent to and we believe that we will see much fruit from their lives. Please uphold them in prayer!

In the past couple of weeks, five of our churches have been affected by a peace and order situation which is causing a lot of difficulty. Mothers and fathers have been unable to do their normal work on their farms as it is unsafe so the food-supply has been cut off or made very scarce. This past week we were able to send 20 sacks (1,000Kg or 2,200LBS) of rice up to that area which has helped and there was quite a bit of fun involved in divvying the rice out as you can see from these photos below! Please pray for the churches in these areas as they exercise caution together with faith in our Lord’s protection for them during these uncertain and trying times.

The last bit of news before we close is that we are just about 2 months away now from having the Talaandig New Testament ready to take up to the printer!!! The last revisions and checking have been going awesome and we just ask that you KEEP PRAYING PLEASE for this!!

We are so thankful for each of you – our God-given team members and co-workers in the work of the Gospel!

Rainbows and freedom......

Love this picture!

In the Talaandig and Higaonon beliefs here, you weren't allowed to point to a rainbow or your finger would rot. You hid the kids in your house in terror whenever a rainbow appeared.

What freedom in Christ to know it is His gift - this is one of our new bible teachers pointing with lots of fingers to the rainbow who is now in total freedom!

How Satan tries to defile the rainbow in different ways in different countries!

Man ai Video

First meeting in Man-ai.....!

Wonderful news and wonderful answer to prayer!!!! 

God did amazing things last Saturday in Man-ai!!

People started arriving as early as 7 am, and by the designated starting time of 9 am, the church building was pretty packed! There were over 100 new adults who came to hear the Word and many, many youth also and many children who all sat down the front and were so excited! All up there were about 250-300 present.

It was a thrill to watch their awe as they saw the Word of God up on the power point in their own language and listened to Paul speaking in their own mother tongue! It was also a thrill watching the two young missionary families serve and care for all these people who they had been visiting and building friendships with since they first moved to Man-ai in August.

Seeing the finished product of the last 5 months of building was a real thrill for us! The church meeting hall is upstairs and the downstairs is the two apartments for our new missionary families so that they can take advantage of the rain water off the roof that is collected in the tank.
There is more news and a video Lord willing to follow soon….but please keep praying for Man-ai and for Jerrum and Aybi and also Nonon and Jie-jie, the missionaries there. Every Saturday at 9 am, they will be teaching Gospel lessons to the people of Man-ai. Pray for a great harvest there for the Lord!

                    Thank you for your prayers!!

Some of the past month in pictures......

A computer seminar was held in Lapoc which was a great help for the administrators in our churches to acquire new skills which will stream-line their work!

Johnny is at a hospital along with about 6 other children needing corrective surgery like his. Please pray for him and for wisdom for us as we help.

And the ladies in the churches continue to do acts of kindness and hospitality…..!! Cooking and helping and feeding lots of people.

These things, other things and lots of translation work have filled our month!

So humbling and amazing......

We serve God who is the one who alone possesses immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no human being has seen nor is able to see, to whom be honor and eternal power. 

(1 Timothy 6:16) 

This is so humbling and amazing – that we of all people can be His servants.

Three big things happened last month:

 #1 My grandpa finally went home to be with the Lord at age 96. I miss him a lot. He was a good, good loving Grandpa, and he was the first one in our family that we know who went to be a missionary in a foreign land.

#2 We were extremely tired and needed a break.

#3 It was our 34th wedding anniversary and God gave us the opportunity to take a break for 2 weeks and go away with some dear friends. We got back really refreshed and thankful for that time and for 34 years of marriage.

Back ‘home’ means here in Upper Carmen, Cagayan, not far away from the old city dump site, very hot days, lots of homeless dogs and cats up and down the streets, 4:30 am starts to the day in the office working on the translation, buying our vegetables at the local market and eating literally bundles of green swamp spinach and sweet potato greens every week…..getting freshly harvested rice sent out to us by motorbike from Tumpagon….daily text messages, skype calls, phone calls…..from brothers and sisters all over the mountains, scattered from one end of the work to the other.

Some calls are very sweet like: “Amay and Inay (Dad and Mum), we’re praying for your loss of your grandpa, crying with you….our hearts hurt along with yours. We love you very much…..” or ….. “Inay, are you asleep yet? What has your day been like?” or “Amay, Inay….a motorbike is coming out today, we’re sending you some rice…..” And sometimes the messages are devastating like: “Amay, Inay….please pray for Monica, she just gave birth and the baby has a heart problem…..” or challenging like: “Amay, Inay…we’re making big inroads in building relationships in this village, please pray as we prepare to start teaching the Word here…..” We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this role God has given us with oh such a big, big family – HIS FAMILY – who He has entrusted to us as shepherds to His lambs.

Oh and we get to have some really fun times and laughs together. Like taking Nonon and his wife out to eat a meal of shrimp and crabs and the fun we had of getting in with bibs, eating with our hands and making a big mess. Nonon is part of the new missionary team to Man-ai and he is very homesick which can be sooooo hard to bear. Please pray for him.

The revision of Mark, Luke and Acts is going great: Mark is finished, up to Luke 12 now….. we are on target to get the NT to the printers in March/April next year. PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!

Paul and Deb's August Update

This month started off with a real ‘bang’ in Lapoc with over 70 pastors and ministry leaders from every corner of our work coming together for teaching and fellowship. The photo above was taken at one of the meal times and we were singing a rousing Happy Birthday to Wing-Wing and Richard whose birthdays coincided with this conference!

Paul thoroughly enjoyed sharing the Word: one topic was why we have different verses in scripture enclosed in brackets with a footnote that says, ‘Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include these verses,’ and about the Textus Receptus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Another beautiful topic that he taught on from 1 Cor 8 was about stumbling our brother.

Man-ai is filling us with anticipation! This is our newest mission field and the Tumpagon and Tinaytayan churches are very excited to be jointly sending out the first missionary team to this area!! Paul and Ronnie have been overseeing all the building and I must say that this building project has really exhausted Paul, but it is coming to an end Lord willing within a couple more weeks. The two new missionary couples have been coming to our place weekly along with their pastors, and we have been doing missionary orientation with them. It’s been funny, interesting and helpful as we’ve tried to put our 30 years of mistakes and experiences and lessons into a nutshell to help these two young couples as they head for this new field. They are excited, apprehensive, are aware of their fragility and brokenness but know that they can be faithful ministers IN Christ!!!

Jubab just arrived back from Japan yesterday and is being debriefed at the OMF headquarters and will head back for his last semester at Bible College at the end of the week!!! He had an amazing time!!

We are blessed beyond by your prayers and partnership!