The Gospel Arrived In Baungon!!!!

Yesterday we were able to witness and take part in an amazing day! God wants the people of Baungon and He saved about 40-50 of them yesterday!

It started with a young man called Yongyong, (bottom right in this picture) who got saved in Tumpagon. He was so thrilled with his new relationship with the Lord Jesus, and he started thinking about his grandparents and uncles and aunties and relatives a long way off, who had never heard about Jesus and knew nothing about salvation.

So, he spoke to Udi (our son-in-law) and offered to guide them to the place and help them establish contacts, if they would be willing to go and to preach the Word. And Udi of course went because he has such a heart to reach the lost, and he took a few other teachers and evangelists with him from Tumpagon and Cauyunan. So, the outreach into Baungon began on August 23, 2019. They have literally poured hours and days of their time travelling to this remote place, enduring hardships, and have been in dangers…….and they ended up being asked to teach in three different villages.

Yesterday was the culmination of almost six months of preparing hearts with foundational teaching for the day of salvation and for the first time yesterday, they heard what Christ went through on the cross to pay for their sin. Udi and the others with him asked Paul if he would preach yesterday and it was with great joy that we were able to witness firsthand about 50 people accept salvation!

One of the men saved was Datu Efren. He is one of the head chiefs of the area. He was sobbing as he heard what Christ had done for him and at the end of Paul’s message, you can see him here hugging Paul and still wiping tears. Many were crying as they heard for the first time how Jesus had cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabacthani,” and that he was forsaken on account of our sins while he hung on the cross.

Afterwards, there was a huge rejoicing together as all of us from the Cauyunan, Tumpagon and Lapoc churches (I counted more than 60 of us who had come to help and to encourage on this great day) burst into singing, praising God for His salvation, while we shook hands and hugged our newest brothers and sisters in the Lord.  This went on for quite some time and we were just amazed at what God has done through the work Udi, Alan, Mico, Ryan, Victor, Jo-Jo and others who were willing to take the Gospel to Baungon. 

Another amazing part of the day that we must share is that Lola, one of the ladies who was saved yesterday, is 102 years old! She can still hear and see, now after more than a century of life, she has finally been able to receive salvation!!  Yesterday I watched her leaning near the people who were singing and praising Jesus and she was tapping her feet and tapping her cane and loving it!

Another story that we must tell you is about this smiling lady next to Lola, who ran up to me and hugged me when we first arrived and said, “Do you remember me?”  I answered, “Where did we meet before?” And she said, “I used to live near Cauyunan and my 9-month-old baby boy got really sick and after a few days, he was almost dead, and I ran with him all the way to your place. When I got there, you took one look at him and you grabbed him from me and ran into your house and I wondered if I would ever see him again alive. And you treated him and cared for him and he lived! And now he is 28 years old and has three children of his own and our whole family has trusted Jesus!”

These beautiful children belonging to Datu Efren wanted to sing a praise song! They listened so intently to the whole message of the Gospel. I was sitting behind them and watched them listening carefully as Paul was teaching about the cross and about Jesus’ suffering to pay for our sins. These two precious young lives are amongst those who we believe were saved yesterday and now have eternal life!

 Words don’t do justice to the amazing happenings of yesterday. We hope to send a video soon which will give you a much better picture of what it was like when the Gospel arrived in Baungon!

Our Dear Team.......

Just a quick update to let you know the good news that in spite of expected delays due to the coronavirus and the current difficulty of getting materials for bible covers from China, the Philippine Bible Society phoned us last week to let us know that they are still aiming for the end of next month as the completion date for the Talaandig New Testaments!!

Including shipping time, that still puts the Celebration of the Talaandig New Testament, sometime in the month of April or early May and we continue to aim for this by faith! God’s timing is perfect!

We are making great progress with the new evangelism material we’re developing and are currently working on lessons 8 and 9 along with visual aids and illustrations. On Feb 29 we are holding the first seminar on these materials for a group of pastors, missionaries and others who are interested, which will be in English, and then on Mar 9, the same seminar except in Talaandig.

Our plan is to continue holding monthly seminars in both languages and the materials can then be taken out and taught in each of the regions to other groups of pastors, evangelists and anyone wanting to teach about salvation to their neighbours and families. Please pray that this will be a great tool for the pastors and evangelists in all the regions here and that they will be pleased with how we have put together this material that they have been asking us to do for a good many years now. It just had to take a back burner until we finished the translation!

God’s work continues mightily! Last week, eight new believers from Malandog and Kiwalan were baptized in the ocean, including this 80-year-old man who is Wing-Wing, our co-worker’s Dad!!!

Praise God for His power, goodness and awesome faithfulness!!! We rejoice each day that we can be a small part of the team who is spreading the Gospel in this part of Mindanao and seeing Him do great things!! Thank you for your constant support and prayers and for your part in reaching those who are still unreached. Please PRAY, PRAY and PRAY for the last steps of the printing of the Talaandig New Testament!!! 

Translation Team Celebration

Our Hearts Are Bursting With Joy.....!

Our hearts are bursting with joy as we’ve just had an amazing church conference over the weekend in the region of Lapoc! This was a regional conference, so most of the 1008 people attending were believers from the Lapoc region, although there was a delegation of about 50 of the new believers from the Man-ai region which thrilled all of us so much! God has greatly blessed the work there which has only been going for just over one year!! We had great messages from the Word from 5 different speakers and beautiful times of praise and worship.

It was one of the best conferences we’ve had so far in Lapoc, organized totally by the leadership of the Lapoc church with no input from us. They built a unique, outdoor baptismal which we saw for the first time when we arrived for the conference, so this time we held the baptisms at the church and didn’t need to make the big trek to the river. The mothers with small children and the older people were especially thankful for this!

There were 77 baptisms, and it was a thrill to see many young people who have grown up in the churches in the Lapoc Region, eagerly seeking baptism and desiring to follow the Lord! There is a real spiritual fire burning amongst the youth in all the regions!

We got to catch up with dear friends and family in the Lord, have precious times of fellowship over meals, laughter and some tears but mostly just heaps of JOY!

Reflections......!

Monday morning here and I thought I would write an update and share some about the regions we are doing missions in now – Deb and I are super excited by all we are seeing the Lord doing 😊.

Man-ai

Yesterday (Sunday) we headed up to Man-ai. You may remember that our mission team there consisting of 2 families – Nonon and Jiejie Capitan and Jerrum and Abigail Obsioma moved into Man-ai in August 2018. Funny as I was thinking back and remember how Abigail slept between Debbie and I for quite some time back when she was just a baby and we were treating her for TB. Today she is a young woman, married with one little girl and a missionary in this budding region of Man-ai.

            Any time you move into a new region and invest with finances and effort in buildings and then send out young families, you can’t help but have some trepidation in your heart wondering what God is going to do in there, whether the team will make it or if the endeavor will fail etc.

            Well we set off yesterday morning with 24 pieces of fried chicken, 2 whole roast chickens, 12 apples and a bunch of mangos to gift to the Man-ai team and help with lunch. On arrival we saw that they had prepared a pot of frogs (which were delicious – no wonder the French love them 😊) – a big pot of vegies and pots of steaming rice. We feasted together on this great meal and then feasted with them spiritually into the late afternoon as we encouraged them and spurred them on with many things that God has taught Deb and I over our missionary lives. This is so beautiful for Deb and me as we get older that we can have a part in the oversight of all these young mission teams that God has budded out of our lives and work – how privileged we feel.

            Bottom line is that we had a hugely good time and we are so encouraged – 14 months of work and they are now teaching around 80 people each week in 3 different villages – and most of these 80 are now saved. Deb and I can do nothing more than say – “Thank you Lord!!! You do the work according to your desire, and we give you thanks that we can come along and watch and have a part too.”

           

Keep praying for the work in Man-ai – Our enemy is very busy and does not rest. But our Lord is greater.

Baungon and Libona

            These are 2 new regions which are vast that we have been working in for about 3 months now. These people came looking for us and wanted us to come and teach them. They had heard that we knew how a person can be saved and have a relationship with God and they wanted to know too.

My association with Baungon began way back in 1989. Debbie was suffering pretty bad from Endometriosis and had surgery for one thing or another 11 times during our first 16 years on the field. By the way, we learnt that you can still serve the Lord on the mission field even with a condition like this. Back in those days our mission leadership were discussing whether we should be sent home or not due to sickness – Deb and my thought was that we could be sick   just as good here in the Philippines as we could in Australia – anyway, God enabled and we stayed and God used us in spite of sickness. Deb has now been healed from her endometriosis for many years.

            Anyway, after Deb’s first surgery in Manila back in 1989 which was a total failure but cost us a fortune, we sold our motorbike and some other assets to pay for our medical expenses as we had very little support and a large debt for the operation. We also had a chainsaw that had been basically ‘stolen’ from us and taken to the region of Baungon. So, I borrowed a motorbike from my friend Trevor and went in search of it as I needed to sell it so we could pay our medical bills.

            We had lost the oil cap for the chainsaw and were using an old corn cob to seal the hole, so the chainsaw was pretty easy to identify. As I got close, the road conditions were extreme, and I lost control of the bike and began careering down a hill into the bush and when I finally came to a stop the chainsaw was right there in front of the bike. I took hold of my chainsaw and a guy came out of a house and grabbed the other end. A struggle ensued and I ended up with a chainsaw but surrounded by a bunch of guys who were not too friendly. The chief came along within minutes and the end of the story is that they did not harm me, and I also got the chainsaw back after the problem was sorted out. Well this is the area of Baungon that we are now teaching in some 30 years later.

            My beautiful son in law along with a team from the Cauyunan region are teaching several different groups there for several days each week and they are still in the evangelistic stage of teaching. Deb and I have not gone up there yet since the team started teaching but the people up there speak of us and one day soon they will understand fully the truth of what Jesus said when he said – “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except though me”.

           

Balintad Region

            Headed up by Flor and Mario Talo. There are around 50+ believers in this area now. Flor and Mario have not been there a year yet but are working faithfully and God is blessing their efforts. Amazing that Flor’s father held a M16 machine gun to my chest some 30+ years ago as we prepared to move into Cauyunan. That was back when Deb and I were still basically kids. We felt we were bullet proof back then with some silliness in the whole mix – but God had a plan.

            We are in the process of computerizing this region – getting them a computer and printer as we have done in several of the regions now. The more we can use technology the better.

Ricodo Region

            This region is going great also. We were at their regional conference a few weeks back and Deb and I slept the night there and it was a balm to our hearts to soak in the fellowship and see what God has and is doing. There are many men and women in this region who are teaching many people throughout their region. Such an army that God is raising up.

            While there at the conference, a plastic chair collapsed under me and a piece of plastic stabbed me in the rear end. Ouch!!! It was pretty bad for a while, but I have basically recovered now.

We had a beautiful baptism there on the last day of the conference and then travelled back home the long way as it had been raining and there were several landslides on the quicker route home.

 Cauyunan Region  

            This is the region that Deb and I cut our teeth on and we continue to be greatly amazed at how God is using our brothers and sisters there. Everything happening today has grown out of this one small, initial church. God has hugely multiplied them and continues His might work there to this day.

Lapoc Region

            There are many churches in this region and one of their great works is their outreach into the primary schools where they teach many 1000’s of kids each week.

            Please continue to pray for all these regions as the Lord brings them to your minds; the work is hard with many stresses and dangers. We need help with these through your prayers and also we need tons of wisdom from above. We know God answers prayer.

Paul and Deb

            We continue to fit in where God allows us to. The New Testament should be off the printing press real soon as typesetting and 2-3 layers of proof reading have taken time but are done now.

            Deb and I are also currently working on revising the translation of our Old Testament portions as it was some of the first translation that we did – many, many years ago – and God has grown us so much in translation ability since then so we want to revise all of this translation.

            Also, we are continuing to revise all of our evangelistic materials and are currently on the 5^th lesson. This project is going to take a year or so but when we finish Lord willing, we should have this material up on the web in 3 different languages in different formats for people to access. We feel that the technology of the day will help us reach so, so many more people than before, so we want to keep ahead of the wave and make all of this accessible.

            It has been a super time for us since we have been back and later in December we will go home for Christmas and then be back in mid-January for another round. The good thing is that we can work on materials and translation from anywhere in the world which frees us to spend some time with our families each year, although most of our time will be invested in the ministry over here.

Health wise – Deb is almost fully recovered from her shoulder surgery. My leg is a bit dodgy but gets me where I need to go, and we are happy and encouraged. 😊

This is a looong update as I got to reminiscing a lot while I was writing; so much to be thankful for and recognize our Lord’s hand in!

Ricodo Church Conference and Baungon Mission......!

The church conference in Ricodo was wonderful – we had an amazing time of ministry and fellowship! The church leadership had done a superb job of planning and preparing.

One of the highlights was 22 new believers being baptized!!

The river was flooded, and the current was swift, so it was quite funny at times watching the struggle it was to hang onto the people being baptized! 5 of the bible teachers did the baptizing.

Over the past year, the Ricodo church has had about 50 baptisms.

BAUNGON

During the evening service, the speaker stopped and announced that the evangelists who had been teaching that day in the new outreach to the Baungon area had just arrived. He asked them to come up to the front and these 7 very humble servants of God went up. The whole building erupted into great applause!!! All the churches are so thrilled that the Gospel is going out to Baungon and they are doing all they can to help!

No one likes to be on a remote road and to see Men step out of the forest like they are about to ambush you but this is what happened to udi and his fellow-evangelists as they travelled to Baungon. They stopped, expecting the worse, and the ‘Ambushers' said, “we know who you are, you are the ones preaching the way of salvation in higaunon. No one has ever come here sharing that message in our own language. we want you to come and teach us in our village too!!!

Pray with us about whether Baungon is the next place where God would have us open up a new work and send a missionary team to live full-time! And an update on the couple we asked for prayer for: God had the victory!!

New leaders of the Ricodo church were prayed for along with their families.

We arrived safely.....!

We had a safe arrival back in Mindanao – thank you for praying!

Jen and Udi and kids came out from Cauyunan to spend a couple of days with us and to celebrate Jen’s 39^th birthday  – hard to believe that it is 26 years since Jen came to our family as our permanent foster daughter! We had a wonderful couple of days with them and are very excited about a new outreach that Udi is heading up in another new region - Baongon region. We had some great hours talking about the amazing things God is doing in that area and about how the churches in Cauyunan and Tumpagon are rallying together and helping with some of the costs of this outreach. It is a tough trip to even make it in there and we are so thankful for Udi and his team who are excited and eager to preach the Gospel and who are giving up two days of their week to go there every Thursday and Friday.

Of note a key shaman (witch doctor) there along with many other people have given themselves to following God’s word and they even made a fire and burnt their amulets and other things they used in their worship of the evil spirits. God is so powerful!!! Our son in law is not the most gifted teacher but his heart is fantastic and he serves in an amazing way and God has used him along with his fellow servants to plant quite a few churches. I guess the truth is – if we allow God to use us, He will.

This weekend we are travelling to a big church conference in one of our regions and we would love your prayers for this time, there are a lot of people travelling from afar to get there, a lot of preparation for catering, there are speakers (including Paul) preparing to share the Word and there are new believers excited about getting baptized during this time.

Today we launched into our new project of writing new Evangelism Materials. Our alarm didn’t go off at 4:30 as I had miss-set it, but thankfully we were woken up at 4:40 am by our little beloved doggy Ducky, so we didn’t miss it by too much. The water from the tap was just a trickle this morning as water pressure here can be a problem, but we are old hands at catching trickles of water in a bucket and bathing in a few dipper-fulls. Getting a cup of coffee took a bit of effort as the grinder was not functioning properly because our coffee beans got too old and hard while we were away. 😊 That was worse than the bird bath shower as we love our coffee in the morning. All the little hiccups of daily life, hey!

Please keep praying for us. Church planting and missions always involves struggles and pressures, attacks from within and attacks from without. Already in just one week we have been experiencing heart-aches and stresses along with the joys and the progress. One couple who labour with us in the Gospel were just here this morning going through some severe testings, overwhelmed almost to the point of wanting to surrender and leave the work that God has entrusted to them. Our hours of counseling them, comforting them and reminding them of God’s love and promises may help them and if we could only just take their hearts and turn their focus back on Jesus and on His work, how we would love to do that, but it needs an act of their own wills and their own personal surrendering to the Lord. So we entrust them to Him and pray, and if you could pray too that would be such a help.

So please pray for this couple who are struggling, for the church conference this weekend, for the baptisms and for our work on the new Evangelism Materials.

But the BIG PICTURE is our amazing and wonderful God who has us and each one of His precious children in His hands and no one and nothing can snatch us away from Him! How awesome is that?!!!!!!