Youth Camp

This is the Lapoc church youth group almost beside themselves with joy as they formed a welcoming committee for the 250+ youth who were arriving from 22 different churches on Oct 30^th.  They had been waiting for this day for months and finally Youth Camp was about to start!!!!

By early evening, after serving a meal to over 300 hungry travellers  including the 50 Camp leaders, the first meeting started off beautifully and profoundly with the camp theme song written by some of the youth in the Lapoc youth group. They had been practising for days and the Lord really blessed their hard work and was glorified through them. 

The youth delighted in the early morning praise times outdoors, led by a special team from Cagayan who were a huge blessing to all the youth at the camp. If you have ever stood with nearly 300 fellow believers in our Lord Jesus, joining your voices in praise under the shade of tall pine trees with the blue skies stretched high above you and the early morning sun shining gently, accompanied with the resonant sounds of a cajon and a guitar and led by Goldie, a beautiful sister in the Lord and a gifted song leader....then you would know the feeling of God’s presence and the foretaste of heaven.

The youth were so focused during the messages and you would have been amazed at the quietness and the discipline they showed as they followed along in their Bibles and took heaps of notes. It amazed us!

Activity and game times were hysterical and the roar of laughter and fun bounced off the walls of our church building, echoing onto the nearby hills. We just absorbed it all as it was happening and praised God for their laughter and for the pleasures of being one family in Him!

This was the last group photo before their goodbyes. Tears flowed pretty freely as the young people said goodbyes to each other and the loaded vehicles set off for home. Even though we had some dear friends visiting with us, the house still felt empty without the 40+ campers that had been staying with us in our house but they’ll be back next year! 

Jerwin's Parents

This picture was taken exactly a month ago at the first baptism to be held at Lantod, in the little Picutin river down the hill from the church building. Lots of pictures were taken that day but this picture in particular holds a very special place in our hearts because these are Jerwin’s parents, Claudiano and Lidime Gamat.

You may remember that this year started out with great tragedy for this couple when their eldest son Jerwin, was treacherously shot and killed on January 30^th. Jerwin was a new believer just starting out his new life with Jesus, training to be a bible teacher and excited about his faith. Jerwin and his wife Erica hosted the meetings of the baby church at Talid-Talid and showed much hospitality to Rodil, James and Marjun each week when they went there to teach the Word.

As we shared earlier this year, the church in Talid-Talid was scattered not long after Jerwin’s death because of the threats to the believers’ lives and much persecution starting with the home of one of the believing families being burnt down.

In spite of being babes still in the faith, Jerwin’s parents kept the faith through this awful year and expressed to us when we saw them on the day of their baptism that they had trusted all to Jesus. It gave us a lot of joy to witness their baptism (his Dad is on the left with no shirt, being baptised by Danoy, in the centre is another member of their family, Sopronia, being baptised by Marjun, and on the right is Jerwin’s mother, Lidime, being baptised by Jabil).

About fifty people were baptised that day in Lantod including Lola who used to be blind from cataracts but who now can see as a result of cataract surgery that God provided for her. In the picture below she was telling us that she’s happy she now has her eyesight back but the real joy she has is because Jesus opened the eyes of her heart and gave her spiritual sight!

Only eternity will give you the time to get to know each member of the Lord’s family who was baptised that day in Lantod, but one day you will meet them and you will personally be able to hear what the Lord has done in their lives and these testimonies will melt your heart with His glory and power and love!

If you don’t mind, the next few days we are going to inundate you with news because there are so many things to praise God about that we want to share with you!

A Big Push On The Translation

Translating the scriptures has been part of our ministry since

the beginning of our work in Cauyunan. Progress though has been very,very slow because it has been just one of many ministries we have been involved in.

In Cauyunan:

- During initial stages of evangelism, we preached the Gospel and

sometimes we were teaching up to 7 or 8 times a week.

- Each bible lesson had to be painstakingly written down and checked

with language helpers as we were still on a steep learning curve in our

language learning.

- Medical work consumed many hours, both day and night.

- The young believers needed much encouragement, discipleship and

teaching.

- We were compelled by the poverty and needs all around us to help as

we could and so we built a corn mill and asked God for cattle and for

fruit trees which were distributed amongst the churches.

- Extensive outreach started and our work load just snowballed.

In Lapoc:

- By the time the Lord moved us to the Lapoc area in the year 2000, we

had portions of Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels translated as well as

the book of James and part of the book of Acts and Ephesians but it

was seriously in need of revision and so we began a big revision project

which took several years.

- In 2009, we were on Home Assignment in Ballina and it was our heart’s

desire to see if we could not make some good progress on the

translation while away from all the other ministry needs that

constantly face us when we are here in Lapoc. We were able to

complete the whole book of Luke that year which is 14% of the New

Testament!

- This has inspired us and we feel before the Lord and in fellowship

with leadership, that it is the right time in our ministry to put aside a

season to focus on finishing the translation of the New Testament.

Big Push On The Translation After Home Assignment:

We hope to begin the big push to complete the Tala-Andig New Testament

at the beginning of 2015, which will be when our home assignment ends.

Ballina will be our base where we do most of the work but twice a year we

will make trips back here to Lapoc to check the translation with language

helpers and to visit the churches.

Based on our experience before with the book of Luke, we believe we can achieve about 15% or more a year and so we are thinking that possibly within 3 years, we could have the translation completed.

This is also very timely for us as a family because Jubab will be in Gr. 11 then and needing to make decisions about his future and we want to be with him and to see him established in the path God has for him in his life before we leave him to return here to Mindanao.

Please keep this in your prayers and look forward with us towards the completion of the Tala-Andig New Testament. It is a really big job before us……God is ABLE!!

Survey of New Area

This is Dungguan, still early in the morning not long after sunrise and this little group of about 22 adults had already gathered under a make-shift shelter to hear the story of Jesus’ resurrection. While Paul taught there was a pig that wondered through, some dogs and chickens, children were wondering in and out…..but in spite of these distractions they listened hungrily and we could see that many of them had just put their faith in the Lord Jesus as their Saviour.

You can see some of them listening in the photo below – how they listened intently and with joy as they heard about the finished work of Christ on their behalf. In particular, I watched the little lady with the white hair and the young Mum beside her who was holding her new-born baby and they hardly blinked as they just drank in the Word of God. 

 The young man on the left of the picture was struggling within himself as Paul was teaching and my heart was praying for him that whatever spiritual struggle he was in the midst of, he would just surrender it to Jesus.

It was no easy trek to reach this little village of Dungguan – very rough roads and no amenities along the way. Parts of the road were quite muddy and it started to rain just before we arrived so the guys on the motorbikes stopped to get their rain gear on. We had 4 large, retired laying hens in the back of the car who were intended to be dinner that night when we arrived at Dungguan and they had to be rescued numerous times from the backpacks and bags that kept falling into their box.

Upon arrival, all 21 of us were received in a little house that belonged to the couple who host the bible study each week. The cooking fires filled the house with smoke, water for washing was carried in plastic containers from a little spring about 20 min walk downhill, the bathroom was any private bush you could find…..the people were gentle and quiet and very, very needy with lots of sick children and no medical help available apart from the little town which we had come through hours before. Everyone got fed and the dishes got washed in the semi-darkness and we all lay down Tuesday night on our grass mats in our designated areas. Paul, Jubab and I had a little room all to ourselves about 5 feet wide and just long enough for Paul’s feet to stretch out. During the night we were woken several times with bugs on us (I got a harmless but sore spider bite), the floor boards were digging into our rib cage and it was totally uncomfortable…….but these small discomforts were utterly meaningless compared to our purpose for being there – to help lead the souls of men and women and children from darkness and hopelessness into the light and hope of a relationship with the Saviour!

Apart from Dungguan, we also saw the villages of  Tignapuluan, Salimbal, Man-ay, Bangkirs and Malumpayad. At Malumpayad, there is a group of about 10-12 people who are listening to the Word who are being taught each week by Ruel and James - our Higaunon missionaries from Ricodo. Ruel is one of the elders from Tumpagon, sent out as a missionary two years ago along with his wife and baby daughter. James and JingJing recently joined them in the work. Ruel was instrumental in opening up this area to the Word but they need help.

We are praying about sending two missionary families from here to locate in perhaps Man-ay and to work alongside Ruel who travels to that area from Ricodo one day a week. The needs are huge and there are thousands of people living in those villages we mentioned above.

All of the 14 church leaders from here who went on the survey with us, are excited about doing missionary work into that area. Lord willing, two of those men will be the ones to take the big step and actually GO there! All of them would go if they were sent but there are two in particular that are prominent in all our thoughts and plans who it appears God may have chosen for this enormous task. Interesting note is that I thought the wife of one of these two men would be negative towards going and not willing to give up her comfortable life here and her close proximity to her family, but when I asked her yesterday what her thoughts would be if the church leaders sent them, she said she has already been talking about this with her husband, wondering if they would be sent and she said that she is willing go and ready if God sends them!

PLEASE BE PRAYING WITH US ABOUT MISSIONS INTO THIS NEW AREA!!! 

Home Assignment

Paul, Jubab and Deb on September 7, 2013

It is hard to believe that another four years have passed since we were in Australia
but it HAS and us Howells are on our way back to Aussie on Home Assignment, Lord
willing in December!

The past four years have been an incredible journey and some of the highlights are:

•  Jubab has grown from an 11 year old boy in Grade 6 into a 15 year old‘man’ who will soon be starting Grade 10!
• The Gospel has continued to spread through the church here in Lapoc with 4 new churches planted during the past 4 years and about 8 new outreaches started.
• There have been 9 new church leaders raised up over the past 4 years and 423 baptisms.
• There have been four new church buildings built during the past four years: Tinaytayan, San Aquino, Tagbak and Lantod. 
• There are new books of the Bible that have been added to the Tala-Andig scriptures: Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians and Colossians is only a couple of week’s work away from being completed!

Plans for Home Assignment:
1. Christmas in Brisbane with both Paul and Deb’s family which will be very
special after many years apart! We are so thankful for the improvement in
Deb’s Dad’s cancer.
2. Move to Ballina in January and set up house. Jubab is looking forward to
going back to his school there and to enjoying a bit more freedom then the
dangers here allow him. (Recently he was looking forward to watching a
game of basketball – the come-back game of his favourite player after a
long time out with an injury – so he was very excited. Halfway into the
second quarter, a gun battle between enemy clans broke out about 500 m
away from our house. That was the end of watching the basketball game
for the evening. Hopefully this won’t happen in Ballina! Danger and
uncertainty is just part of life up here and is often stressful.
3. Catch up with friends, church family and partners in the work of the Gospel
at the first possible opportunity!
4. Write a couple of books? Hopefully! This has been a dream of ours to do for
a few years now and maybe this Home Assignment year we can make some
headway on this dream.
5. Enjoy some quiet time with the Lord and with each other. We are feeling
pretty battle-weary.

Half-way through the year - about June 2014 - we hope to return to Lapoc to
encourage the church leaders and to visit the churches, and then also again in
December 2014.

We praise God for your faithful prayers and partnership in the work here over this
past four years – it has been a huge journey – and we ask for your prayers for us as
there is so much unknown for us in this next year, a lot of adjustments that we will
have to make and much that we will have to trust the Lord for.

May God’s peace and joy fill your hearts!