193 Baptised!!

Incredible things are happening in Lapoc!

GOD is amazing us and exciting us and filling us with wonder at all HE is doing!

 

This is some of what has happened in the past two weeks:

*We ordained another elder - Gabril – in the church here in Lapoc.
*We baptised 193 new believers! 
*Six hundred plus gathered for a believers conference from many different villages. We saw people serving each other – the cooks for the conference cooked for two days and nights with no sleep.
*We saw the oldest believer here in Lapoc, Maas, get baptized by her previous enemy. 
*We had a prayer time with hundreds of believers sitting outside the church in groups of five.

Everything that happened just amazed us and is the evidence of God working here in this place in ways we can only wonder at. 

Special Prayer Points for this week:

·       Barb (Jubab’s teacher) is in Hong Kong at the moment seeing a Doctor. Please pray fervently for her health and safe return here to Lapoc.

·       Preparations for the Translation Consultant check of the book of Luke starting April 13.

Much Love from Paul, Deb and Jubab

Arriving in Lapoc!!!

This is an account of our first few hours back home here in Lapoc – this actually happened on Feb. 1st so it is over a month ago but we didn’t want to inundate you with updates so we are spacing the news out!

Arriving in Lapoc.......

So.......as dusk was approaching our laden down 4WD weaved its way up the dusty track (that is dust you can see in this picture, not fog!).

On board was Mrs. B and Mrs. Pems and all of our belongings as well as groceries and supplies enough to last a couple of months.

As we pulled up near the top of the road leading into the driveway to our house, we saw crowds of people waving and cheering.

You probably know what happened then – our eyes began to fill with tears and we had this great sense of being back amongst loved ones.


Feet back on Lapoc ground......

We hardly had time to put our feet on the ground and we were surrounded by our friends and family in the Lord Jesus!!

Paul almost disappeared in hugs and handshakes – a lot of the children had grown so much in the 15 months we were away that we could hardly recognize them!

Jubab’s dog Sparky was jumping all over us! People were crying – so were we!

Jubab disappeared amongst his friends.


Babies......

While we’ve been gone, there were new babies born to our friends who we’d never seen!

Their chubby little arms and soft cuddles were something I had been looking forward to!

And in the midst of all the reunion and excitement and hugs and tears......

........there was another surprise for us!


A party.....

Our neighbours and friends had been cooking and preparing all afternoon for a surprise party for us when we arrived!

There were special songs - in this photo, the women scripture teachers were singing to us! After this the Bible Teachers sang a song as well and then there was a short message and welcome address to us from our co-worker Rodil.

And then the ladies served a beautiful meal to everyone who had gathered and the time of fellowship and laughing and cuddling babies went on well into the evening.

We had lots of help after the party with the unpacking and that went late into the night and we finally got to bed absolutely exhausted but soooooooo happy to be back with our precious friends and brothers and sisters in the Lord here in Lapoc.

So that was our first evening back home here in Lapoc, and since that evening many more exciting things have happened and are happening as God continues to walk with us on this missionary journey here in this place. The things our God is doing are more amazing then words and emails can do justice to.

Love Paul, Deb and Jubab XXXXXXX

Introducing you to our new coworkers

Our Heaven Sent 'Mrs B'!

Let me introduce you to ‘Mrs. B’ as she is affectionately known to us! She comes from Victoria, Australia, and she bravely left her home and her family last month to come and teach Jubab Gr. 6 this year! She misses her grandchildren and family dreadfully and yet she is willing to live in a very remote village in the ‘middle of nowhere’ to help us. Heaven sent her to us and we are so, so THANKFUL for her!

Not only do we have ‘Mrs. B’ here but also ‘Mrs. Pems’ her sister! Two beautiful ladies who have added a bunch of fun and wisdom and spice to our life here in Lapoc. (They keep cooking us yummy things!)

And not only is Mrs. B teaching Jubab but she is also teaching our co-workers’ children, Daisy and Ally, as well! Which is such a huge help to our whole team and which has added a lot more ‘life’ to the classroom!! Jubab is just rapt to have classmates – especially (may I add) such lovely ones! 

Mrs. B is a school teacher with LOTS of experience and is just wonderful in the classroom with our kids, and her sister Mrs. Pems came over for a few months to help Mrs. B adjust to life in Lapoc. But already Mrs. Pems has filled a big gap - doing everything from helping our kids in the classroom with reading to helping out with medical issues (she is an expert midwife), and also cooking wonderful meals! She is even going to teach some midwifery classes to help us train some of the women here in midwifery (with a bit of help from us translating.)

And while they are teaching our kids, this is what Belinda and I are doing: Belinda can help her husband Josh in developing Tala-Andig Bible lessons and also in her ministry of discipleship of the women.
And I can be in my office full-time working on the translation of the New Testament which is the main focus of Paul’s and my ministry at this time.

Here I am working on finishing off the Tala-Andig translation of Luke.

Belinda teaching a computer class, so that someday our Tala-Andig friends
can help us with every aspect of the ministry here!

By the way, Mrs. B and Mrs. Pems’ names are Barb Bjerking and Heather Pemberton! 

Their ministry here illustrates the team-work that is necessary for missions to be a reality and a success, and your part on this team contributes greatly also to the work of the Gospel in this place so can we please tell you again how much we PRAISE GOD FOR YOU!!!

Lots of Love
Paul, Deb and Jubab

Time with Family!

On the 27th and 28th of Jan, we had a family reunion with our family,
Udi and Jen and our grandkids, and also Bubuy and Wila, Jubab’s birth Dad and Mum and his brothers. We had a wonderful time catching up and swimming in the ocean and having fun meals together including a pig cooked on a spit.

Our daughter Jen has come of age. She has a new glow about her and a new desire to walk with and to serve the Lord. She is involved now in leading women’s bible studies and we noticed a new strength about her that comes from a deepening relationship with Jesus. She is now 30 years old! Udi was ordained as one of the elders of the church in Kauyunan and has remained faithful in the things committed to him.
He also is maturing. He is now 32 years old.

Our Grandkids: Charly is 8 and is in Gr. 2 and is as much a little princess as ever. Clint is 4 and is growing up and becoming much more independant.
He is going to day care and is learning to be a big boy. Clint was always sidling up to Grandpa and sitting quietly next to him.

Here is Jubab lying across the laps of his birth Dad and Mum, Bubuy and Wila,
and his brothers who are aged 23, 21, 18, and 15. Jubab was delighted to be taller than his Mum, Wila and to be almost as tall as his brothers!

The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful extended family!
Bubuy and Wila have continued to serve faithfully in the church in Tumpagon.
They are some of the most hospitable people you could ever meet and a wonderful family!

Pictures speak volumes!  You can see how happy we’ve been in the past couple of weeks to be back with our loved ones!

Lots of Love…….Paul, Deb and Jubab XXXXX

Our time in Cauyunan and Tumpagon

How can we describe our reunion with our beloved brothers and sisters in the first churches we saw the Lord plant through us in the villages of Cauyunan and Tumpagon – the first borns of our labour here on the field?

We were ages 28 and 25 when we saw the first fruits of our preaching of the Gospel and the church was born in Cauyunan. Now it is 20 years later and this photo was taken last week on our first evening back in Cauyunan.

Here I was being introduced to 5 young ladies and their babies whose husbands (children who grew up in the church) are now serving the Lord and helping to take His Word to other villages. These young women gave their testimonies of how they came to hear the Gospel and believed and how they want to serve their Saviour alongside their husbands!!

While the women and I were having a wonderful time visiting, sharing and singing, Paul was meeting with the elders of the churches at a place nearby and they talked late into the evening discussing all the things that the Lord had done through their lives during the time we were away.

They caught Paul up on all the news of the six churches in the Dulangan Higaunon area and spent some time in prayer and in strategizing for new outreach.

The men in the picture here with Paul are the elders and bible teachers from the churches in Cauyunan and in Tumpagon.

The next day we went across the river to Tumpagon and had a combined meeting with all the believers from both churches. Afterwards we shared a meal together and people kept piling different things on our plates, fried fish, noodles and chicken, ferns from the forest, sweet potato, bread fruit cooked in coconut milk........

Jubab loved being with his brothers,
with his nephew Wawa,
and with Udi his brother-in-law!

They took their plates of food and sat
in their own little group to eat.

We came away from our time visiting the churches in Cauyunan and Tumpagon just so thankful for the unity that was very evident amongst the leadership in those two churches and so thankful for the maturity of their faith and of their lives and thankful for the way almost 100% of the leader’s wives are there with them serving the Lord alongside them.

We are rejoicing and send you all much love along with this news......

Paul, Deb and Jubab

Reunion

We had a happy reunion in Cagayan with our co-workers Josh and Belinda and their children, Daisy, Ally and Neo on Jan. 25th! It is great to be back in LAPOC working together again with them.

5 days ago they received the news we’d all been praying for: that Neo’s adoption has been approved!!!
Jubab loves being big ‘brother’ to Neo as you can see from this photo below which was taken while we were in Cagayan together for a debrief.

We are so thankful to the Lord for you and for the part you have in the glorious work of the Gospel which is taking place here in Lapoc, in Kauyunan, in Tumpagon and in the surrounding areas.

We praise God for you!

We praise God for the great things He is doing!!

We praise God for bringing us back here again to be a part of this work!!

Love you,
Paul, Deb and Jubab

P.S. Keep a look-out for more updates coming soon!! It will take a few emails to catch you up with all that the past few weeks have held.

We had a good safe trip

Thank you so much for praying! We are safely back in the Philippines as of last night! God undertook for us in every way on our trip!!

Funny but it sort of feels like we were never away – we stepped out of the airport into a familiar world of oppressive heat, smog, children playing in the busy streets, horns blaring and traffic absolutely crazy, garbage piled up along the sides of the streets. Quite a contrast to the very cold weather we had in Warragul the day we left Aussie soil, the pristine country-side, the neat brick houses and the hot roast dinner and raspberry cheesecake that we ate with our friends there before we left.

Jubab would say, “It’s like we were teleported into a different world!” And it DOES seem like a different world but a familiar one and although Jubab had a couple of sad moments at lunch time because he wanted to eat a pizza rather than rice and snails (yes! we really did eat snails.....  ) he soon recovered and enjoyed it. (He was happy though that there was chicken too.)

An exciting event happens tomorrow evening! Jubab’s teacher Barbara Bjerking arrives with her sister Heather on the flight from Melbourne and we are thrilled for the answer to prayer that they are to us!! We’ll introduce you more to them when we get down to Lapoc.

We talked on the phone today to our daughter Jen and are very excited about seeing them in a few more days!

This is just a short email as we are very travel-weary tonight but we want you to know that we are back safe, that we are resting in God’s grace and goodness to us and that it is a huge privilege to be able to serve Him in this way.

Much Love....
Paul, Deb and Jubab XXXXX