Joy

Pure, faultless, unending joy comes only from the One who gives life.  These last few weeks have been some of the best ones I have ever had because of the presence of awesome joy from our holy God.  My reader Margie came for the last time and asked some deep, thought-provoking questions.  We had such a great session that we lost track of time as we learned more about God's Word.  The next day, I had my final reading session with David.  Our lesson went very well, and we had many good discussions which were all very enjoyable.  At the end of the lesson, I got a chance to invite him to church, which he came to that next Sunday (along with about 13 other readers!!!).  Before church, he asked for a New King James Version Bible, which the church donated and of which he was very appreciative.

I also had an amazing reading session with two of my newer readers, Irene and Christian.  They are two friendly and inspiring students and I am so thankful for the time I had to get to know them.  Irene has had a rough past, but she was so faithful, saying that God helped her through all of her struggles!  Christian always seemed to be smiling, and always brightened my day!  During our final reading session, we took the time to go through four lessons because they were both so eager to learn.  Each lesson sparked new conversation, laughter, and questions.  They both came to church on Sunday also.

We had our final get-together with all our readers the Thursday before we went home, and we had an amazing turn out (with over sixty people in attendance)!  We had lots of fun, and everyone received a certificate saying that they completed the Luke workbook reading sessions.  Gifts were given, touching speeches were made, and goodbyes were said at the get-together.  One of my readers, John Rey, told me that he knew God was everywhere and would be with us when we left, which was so nice to hear him say!  David also told Brittiny, Kendra, and me that he would see us again, whether that be in the Philippines, America, or heaven.  You can imagine how difficult saying goodbye to all of our inspiring friends was.

We arrived home safely after about two long days of travel.  Wayne and Margie plan on visiting our readers to follow up with them, so we are eager to hear how that goes.  I also have plans to continue reading sessions and Bible studies with some of my readers online.  I am looking forward to that!  Going to the Philippines through LST was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I will forever praise God for the time, memories, and friendships made while we were there.  Thank you again for the donations, thoughts, and prayers!  God bless!

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him"  -2 Corinthians 2:14

Answers

“Why did God choose Mary?”  “Do you believe in evil spirits?”  “Why do we confess to priests and not to God?”  These are a few of the deep questions my readers have asked me within the last week.  After answering to the best of my ability, I encouraged my readers not to take my opinion as their own, but to seek answers within God’s Word.  I really love the discussions I have had with my readers thus far!  Through them, I feel like both the reader and myself grow in knowledge.  One of my new readers, Vergian, loves to ask questions.  He comes up with new thought-provoking questions each session.  I recall that the first question he asked me was, “what is God’s purpose for us?”  I liked him from the start and welcomed the buckets of further questions he presented.  I am eager to see how God works through each discussion as our sessions continue.

On Tuesday night, Wayne came to Brittiny, Kendra, and I with a big smile on his face and a twinkle in each eye.  “I just finished a two hour Bible study with Meyet, and I have news,” he said.  I smiled, internally guessing what the news was.  “Meyet has chosen to be baptized,” Wayne said joyfully.  My spirit began to rejoice!  Meyet-whom I had often spoken with and grown to care for, and who had completed every lesson in the Luke workbook out of a desire to do so-had decided to welcome God into her life.  Wayne excitedly told us about the Bible study and about Meyet’s eagerness to be baptized.  So the next morning we gathered once again beside the ocean to sing, pray, share encouraging words, and witness Meyet as she became a part of God’s family.  “I want God to be inside of me when I go to Singapore,” Meyet said before being baptized (she was planning on moving to Singapore only days later).  After her sins were washed away, Meyet said, “Now I can share with others!”  Meyet’s excitement regarding her baptism was contagious and made my day one of the best ones yet.  Please keep Meyet in your prayers as she shares the Word of God in Singapore.

“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” –Luke 15:7

Complete Joy

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

                                                                                                                                   Matthew 25: 35-40

This past weekend, we got to participate in our first “Feeding Program”! Last year, LST began to implement service projects into every college team’s trip that summer. When most people my age think of a mission trip, they think of going and building houses or working with orphans or doing some other kind of manual labor; what they don’t think of right off the bat is sitting across the table from 10 different people a day and reading the Word of God with them for 45 minutes each while building a lasting relationship with the person. I think it is an amazing idea for LST to incorporate an element of service into their trips; I feel like this gives us the opportunity to provide a more holistic ministry for the site we visit.

LST leaves it up to the missionary to decide what type of service would be most beneficial in their city; we can help them with a building or repair project, we can play with children in the streets, we can clean the church building, or we can feed the hungry. We use these service projects in the place of one of our parties that we normally host each week. At both events we invite the local church members and our readers; so it gives them an opportunity to meet each other in an easy-going setting. The intent of both our parties and these service projects are to connect our readers with the local church members so when we leave at the end of our trip, there are a group of Christians ready to follow up with our readers and continue to build lasting relationships. Depending on the receptiveness of the reader, the local church will continue to follow up by simply providing more opportunities to practice their English or by going into deeper Bible study with the individual.

At our initial meeting with Wayne and Margie, we set the dates for the two Feeding Programs we would have while we were here—a 3 week LST team has one service project and a 6 week team has two—and we have been looking forward to our first one ever since! So, early Saturday morning, Wayne and Margie went shopping and then Margie began cooking at her house with the help of a few of the church members. Brittiny, Jen, and I joined them shortly after and they taught us how to make lumpia, which is essentially a small pork egg roll.

At 1pm, we took the rice soup, hardboiled eggs, lumpia, and juice that we had prepared to one of the many slums in Talisay City. We gathered with the children who live there and sang songs with them, prayed, and then served them the food we had prepared. Gerald, the church’s intern for the months of May and June, helped us lead songs that the children knew in Visayan as well as in English. Gerald has been with us at the church during our reading sessions every day, so we have gotten to know him well. Brittiny, Jen, and I were all extremely impressed with how well Gerald stepped up and interacted with the children during our time of song and prayer. I think it is safe to say that the Feeding Program would not have been as much of a success if he had not been there and been willing to lead.  So, thank you Gerald!

After about an hour of singing, we served the children their snack and spent time walking around and talking with the children. Though these children have next to nothing to call their own in this world, you could visibly see the complete joy that it brought them to have the chance to eat a small meal and just sing and dance and play with us.  I am so blessed to be able to have the opportunity to interact with these children even for the small amount of time. God gets all the glory for blessing us with the ability to come to the Philippines and be able to serve Him through serving the children this past weekend and this coming weekend. We could do nothing without Him and nothing that we attempted to do would mean anything without his grace.

How you can pray for us: Pray for the children at the Herbas Compound (where we served food). Pray that God blesses their lives with rich, meaningful relationships and that the community continues to minister to them. Pray that they will have someone in their lives that will show them God's love for His children. Pray for their parents; pray that they will be able to find the work that they need in order to provide for their children's needs. Pray that the people who live there will continue to find complete joy in the small things and will always remember that their Creator is watching over them. Pray for our feeding program next week...that we are able to spread more joy and that God will continue to receive all the credit for the good work being done. To God be the glory!

Growing Deeper!

My discussions with readers have taken a huge leap this week!  The fourth week is known to be the week in which conversations grow deeper; I just did not know that they would grow deeper so rapidly!  My readers have grown more comfortable around me, and one boy, Vladimir, seemed more relaxed than ever yesterday.  Another reader, John Rey, was so engaged today.  As I write this though, my mind is still reeling from my most recent discussion with a young man named David.  I have learned that David’s beliefs are based on the Bible, but he is also very focused on a variety of prophesies.  Last week, David asked to come to the church’s Bible study on Thursday to learn more about our beliefs.  So we were able to pick him up on our way, and he seemed to enjoy the lesson.  David is so intelligent and has agreed with all of the lessons we have read.  Yesterday and today, he told me about some stories in his life that related to the lessons, which sparked some good conversations.  He also gave me some pamphlets that tell more about his beliefs, so I am eager to learn about them.  I pray that I will be able to maintain an open mind and be patient as I learn more about his beliefs.

This past weekend, Kendra, Brittiny, and I went to a restaurant called the Garden Café.  The Café first caught our attention because it was very American-based and reminded us of Texas Road House, with a horse and saddle available to sit on.  As we read the menu, though, we noticed a chart of how to create different words in sign language.  This sparked our interest, so we read the paragraph above the chart which explained why the restaurant was formed.  The Garden Café began as a simple food stand and was created with the intention of employing deaf individuals.  It has since expanded into a nice, spacious restaurant which includes twenty six deaf workers and eleven hearing workers.  I was really moved by the motive behind the Garden Café.  I have seen how difficult it can be in cultures such as the Philippines for deaf individuals to find employment, so the restaurant was a brilliant idea!  We were overjoyed to support a restaurant that provides such an amazing opportunity for the deaf.

Last night, my reader, Xela, was baptized.  Wayne baptized Xela in a pool near our house (it was high tide and the ocean was too rough) while a few of us stood by to watch, including another reader of mine, Meyet.  Xela was filled with joy and praise as she entered God’s family and is still very eager to read more of God’s word as we continue our reading sessions.  I was thankful that Meyet was able to witness the baptism.  She told us that she had only recently opened her Bible for the first time in years, so I pray that her witnessing Xela’s baptism touched her heart in one way or another.  Please keep both Meyet and Xela in your prayers as Meyet seeks the Lord and as Xela embraces her place in the world as a child of God.

God is great, and I thank Him for all the opportunities and blessings He has bestowed upon us!  “I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever!!!”  Psalm 145:1

Cora

Dioscora, or Cora for short, has been my most consistent reader over the past three weeks. I know these reading sessions are not a competition about who comes the most or anything like that, but I have been so encouraged by my conversations with Cora and the fact that she is always here every morning.

Cora is a 19-year-old young lady who lives in Talisay City by herself in order to have the opportunity to work at the Gaisano Mall—the mall that is right down the street from the church building where my team eats most of our meals and goes grocery shopping at. She works 7 days a week from 9am to 6pm with a one-hour lunch break. That by itself is pretty impressive for any 19-year-old, but for Cora, it doesn’t stop there.  Most of the time, Cora is also asked to work an hour of overtime…which she cannot refuse or she will lose her job. Not only does Cora work extremely hard in children’s section of the department store at the Mall to make her minimum wage salary of around 350pesos (about $8USD) per day, but she also chooses to send the majority of her salary back to her family instead of keeping it for herself!

The first week I read with her, I always started our conversations off by asking her what she did after she got off work the night before. I quickly learned the pattern was always the same: go home, wash her uniform for work, eat a small dinner, and then go to bed. She doesn’t have time to do much more than that. The workers have to purchase their uniforms and normally have two sets. Unfortunately, the zipper is broken on Cora’s second uniform, and she does not have the money to repair it. Thus, she washes her one and only uniform each night after she gets home.

Cora has impressed me with every conversation we have had. She has an adequate level of English conversational skills, and her desire to improve herself further motivates her to wake up an extra hour early each morning to come and practice her English before going to work. Not only does Cora attend each and every day that she is signed up for, but she takes the time at night to pre-read and answer all of the questions written in the workbook thoroughly. In the second picture below, you can see a sample page our of Cora’s workbook. Sadly, I don’t think I would be as diligent and dedicated to preparing for a lesson where I don’t receive any grade, but she is.

As my first reader of the day, every day, Cora gets my morning off to a great start. I am so thankful that God has blessed Cora with the ability to come to class each day. He has blessed me so richly with the conversations I have been able to have. Cora has inspired and taught me to take every day as an opportunity to not only work hard but also be continually passionate about whatever God puts in my life. Cora has taken a hard situation and has chosen to serve God by being loyal to her family even in a time where she could be completely selfish and keep all her earnings for herself. She is thankful for the opportunity to simply work even if that means living far from her family and rarely getting to visit them. She is thankful for the opportunity to work even if that means working long hours every day of the week. She is thankful for the opportunity to work even if it is only for a temporary period of time (she is a contract worker and her contract runs out in August).

How many of us would be that thankful for the simple opportunities that arise every day that call us to work hard?

How you can pray for us: Pray a special prayer for Cora. Pray that she will never loose her sense of motivation and the drive she currently possess to strive to continually better herself even in the most difficult situations. Pray that her job will be extended so that the opportunities will continue to be there for her to provide and give back to a family who has given her everything. Pray that God will continue to bless Cora in all that she attempts and that He will continue to open doors that lead her in the path that he has planned for her to follow. To God be the glory!

Welcome to the Family, Jane-Jane!!

I'm sorry it has been so long since I have posted on the blog; it has taken me a while to edit the video for the post and to have wireless available long enough to upload the video to YouTube...Better late than never, right?

On Friday, we had the amazing opportunity to witness one of our friends become our sister in Christ! Praise God!! Jane-Jane is a young mother of two who lives with Wayne’s family and is working in order to provide for her children who are currently living in southern Cebu. Jen-Jen has been seriously thinking about giving her life to God for quite some time now, and we were so excited to hear that she was ready to wash away her old self while we were in Talisay. In these past couple weeks, we have gotten to know her well and so we were extremely excited to be invited to the Sea to hear her confession of faith and welcome her into the family of God.

So, at 6am on Friday morning, we met Wayne, Jane-Jane, and Mommy Lou at their house and made our way to the Sea. I have never witnessed a baptism in the ocean before, and I have to say there is something about joining God’s family in such a beautiful setting that sent chills down my spine. Though the location of one’s baptism doesn’t make a difference, it was still an inspiring experience to witness someone beginning their new life in the midst of God’s beautiful creation!

I put this video together so that you can join us in witnessing a new sister join our amazing family. The video doesn’t do the beauty of the place any justice, though. Thank you so much for your prayers and continue to praise God for the work he is doing in Talisay!

How you can pray for us: Pray for our new sister in Christ, Jane-Jane. Pray that she will always remember to rely on God. Pray that God will bless her life and use her as a vessel to do His good work. Pray for her church family that they are able to surround her and continue to show her what a community who is completely focused on God looks like. Pray that the will able to overcome any trials that Satan may put in her path and that her faith will continue to grow daily. To God be the glory!!

More Great Experiences

Another wonderful, fulfilling week is down here in the Philippines!  I had a great session with my reader, Reyford, last Monday.  We were reading the lesson about the angel Gabriel visiting Mary to inform her of her miraculous pregnancy.  When we read about Gabriel telling Mary that the Holy Spirit would come to her, I promised to look up some verses regarding the Holy Spirit for Reyford.  Once we finished the lesson, I asked if he had any more questions.  He said, “I want to know more about Elizabeth and her husband.”  So I took out my Bible and read about Gabriel visiting Zechariah and then about the birth of John.  After that, Reyford wanted to know more about Gabriel, so I told him what I knew and looked up some more verses to read.  He returned on Thursday, and we read through all the verses I had found about the Holy Spirit.  I love seeing such a passion for learning about God’s Word within Reyford, and I cannot wait to discuss and share more with him. 

 On Monday evening, Brittiny led a devotional with two readers, Margie, Mommy Lou, Jen Jen (a helper at Wayne’s house), Kendra, and me.  Our conversations regarding the devotional Brittiny read began on the surface but soon delved into much depth.  At one moment, there was not a dry eye in the room.  Almost everyone shared a touching story about their lives.  I was especially moved and felt somewhat convicted by two very similar stories.  Both of the readers shared, with tears falling down their cheeks, about how they longed to go to college and study but that they could not afford it.  I felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on me.  I used to complain about being in college when I could be working out in the world instead.  The girls’ stories made me realize that, while I am complaining about being in college, there are students who long to go to college, but cannot.  I also felt blessed because, although I cannot afford to go to college, there is a way for me, and opportunities for everyone, to pursue higher education in the United States.  This experience revealed to me some of the things I take for granted in my own life. 

We had our first get together on Friday night.  Our get togethers are like parties where we invite our readers and church members to have some fun and learn about American culture.  So we had a western-themed get together.  We had a lot of fun and did some ice-breaker games and learned how to line dance.  We gave our readers mustaches and taught them how to say "Yee-haw!"  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and our first get-together turned out great. 

Last week turned out great!  Thanks for the thoughts and prayers!

Week One Reflections

Matthew 18:3-4


“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”


Like children we came humbly to Christ …. And those earnest hearts we have to learn of God and to serve Him have led us here to Talisay, Cebu, Philippines. What a joyous blessing it has been to be here this past week. We have been welcomed and shown love by the many people of Talisay. This is my first time that I have ever traveled outside of the US and to be honest, I was completely nervous, but excited for the new journey. It was such a blessing from God when I walked off the plane and through the glass doors of the airport into the hands of a wonderful family. Mr. Wayne and Margie Pabillon and their three children Wayne, Dayne, and Shayne were there to greet us with open arms. They have made us part of their family for the next six weeks; I couldn’t be more thankful to God, than I am right now. Miss Margie has already cooked us delicious traditional Filipino breakfast filled with rice, corn beef, eggs, and Bihon(noodle dish). Last Thursday was our first full day to be here in the Philippines and the Pabillon family helped us get acquainted with the city and all it has to offer. We visited Shayne's school on Thursday as well, there were about twenty children all singing “The Greatest Love of All” in preparation for their festival on Saturday. It was very exciting to see the mothers there with their children. Here in the Philippines parents are very involved in their children’s education, and it is so beautiful to see:D. Jen and I woke up around five thirty on Friday morning (when it is broad daylight outside) and went walking along the beach which is about four hundred yards away from our home ( God's masterpiece if I must say so myself). It was a remarkable and humbling experience to see the many homes of the people of Talisay and realize that happiness doesn't come from what you have. It's finding the joy in the simple things like being with your family. As I could watch its seemed that at this early time in the morning most Filipino’s were awake and getting ready for another work day. Many of the homes we saw were cooking for their families and preparing the foods and other goods for selling at the market. Many homes have turned their front doors into small stores to make money for their families. The work ethic of this culture has definitely encouraged me and has been very edifying. Everything that we work for in life is of some value; here some of the value in working is having something to feed their children or to give them some sort of shelter. Friday, also was our first day of reading with our readers and I was very excited because I had a very full schedule. I was so excited with the opportunity to meet and get to know the people of Talisay. My morning started with meeting Paul, who is a 17 year old, going to be a freshman in college. He is very good at his English and has never read the book of Luke before. He is going to be studying Civil engineering and starts his first day of college in two weeks. I met next with Shaira a 13 year old Filipina girl who seems to be very shy, but she is extremely smart, and once you get her to open up she has a lot of wonderful things to say, I can’t wait to get to know her more. Trixie, Shaira’s sister, is 18 years old and is studying paralegal studies. She also is very smart and very good at her English. Trixie and I have gotten to have very in depth discussions and when talking about the type of women we want to be she simply replies “A God fearing Woman.” This exquisite, but simple and powerful answer gave me the chills. Trixie is very excited to study more and I will see her several times a week. In the evenings I have been able to sit down and read the book of Luke with Claire, Lavenmarie, and Merlinel. After we were finished reading through the lesson for that day we were able to all gather again for more discussion about God, His love and compassion, and how important it is that we serve him. Jen and Kendra also have readers at this time and we all finished around the same time and suddenly we found ourselves all praying together. The eight of us women that were in the room all reached out our hands together and prayed to our Lord and gave him thanks and praise. I can truly say that God has blessed my life with this opportunity not only to help others learn of God, his word, and his plan, but also, to learn myself.

Saturday, was another beautiful blessing from God as Jen, Kendra, and I got to read the Gospel of Luke again with our readers. The day ended with the wonderful blessing of being able to attend Shayne’s school festival. It was indescribable how beautiful it was to see so many in the community coming out to support the children of the Dumlog village area. Jen, Kendra, and I have been made part of a community. We have started getting to know our neighbors and the many children that live around us, and we can’t wait to learn about them more and more throughout the next six weeks.

Throughout the next six weeks we will be attending worship at the church in Talisay. The Lord’s Day was such a beautiful day to worship our wonderful maker. The sun was shining and when walking into the church building there was a sense of excitement of the gathering of Christians all there to worship our great God. Jovan, who is a member of the church led the singing, Mr. Wayne led the morning bible class, and Gerald led the sermon. I was so joyous to be worshiping with fellow brothers and sister in Christ on the other side of the world. It was the best way to start the week and I look forward to another week learning and growing with the people in Talisay.

Deep Conversations

Maayo Bontag (Good morning) from Talisay-

Today (Wednesday) marks only our 6^th day ofreading, but we are already amazed at the conversations we have had so far! Aswe have quickly learned, most of our readers have exceptional English conversational skills and most of our readers have at least heard the story of Jesus through their Catholic churches—some have even read it for themselves! This makes for an exceptional opportunity from our standpoint. We signed up to come and help people practice their English with the hopes of the opportunitythat somewhere in the middle of defining words and discovering the main idea ofthe story, the conversations would eventually lead to deeper discussions of faith. Instead, God has blessed us with the amazing opportunity to essentially dive headfirst into Bible study with most of our readers.

The Let’s Start Talking workbooks are designed with aneasy-to-read translation of the book of Luke followed by simple questions thatare used as a springboard into conversation between us and our Readers. The program is designed to work through one lesson each time the Reader attends a 45-minute session. What we quickly found out is that the level of English comprehension that most of our Readers have far surpasses these basic lessons; this has presented us with the amazing opportunity to open our Bibles and readfrom a harder translation. Picture two people sitting across the table fromeach other pouring themselves over the Word of God. It doesn’t get much betterthan that!

The first few lessons are very basic introduction stories.Lesson 1 is Luke 1:1-4 which is Luke’s introduction and address to Theophilus;we focus on the fact that Luke took the time to research and write a true report of the things that had beenhappening to complete God’s plan. Lesson 2 is Luke 1:26-38 which is the story of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her that God is going to give her ababy who will be holy and will be called the Son of God; we focus on the fact that God is all-powerful and can do anything. Lesson 3 is Luke 2:1-7 which is the birth story of Jesus; we focus on Jesus’s lowly birth and how this is a great example of the amount of research Luke put into his report (look at all the names and places in those few verses…it looks like a history book, doesn't it?)

For our fluent English speakers, these lessons are a breeze to go through and not only comprehend, but also agree upon the fact that they are true. This leaves a good amount of time at the end of each lesson for opendiscussion. These past few days, I have been leaving the direction of the conversation open to wherever my Reader wants it to go. If they want to ask questions about me or about the United States, they can. If they want to tell me about themselves, they can. If they want to go deeper into the Word, we will! What has truly been a blessing to me are the conversations that we have had in our open time after the lesson has been completely covered. While someof my Readers are interested in asking surface level questions about the USA orabout me, a majority of them have deeper theological or faith-based questions about various topics!

Monday night, I read with Maria Elena. She is a 17-year-oldyoung lady who is searching for her purpose in life. She has dreams and desires to go to college (high school graduation happens at age 16 in the Philippines),but her family does not have the money to send her. So she is caught in the middle of the decision. She has already tearfully expressed worry about her future and what it holds. On Monday night, I shared with her Jeremiah 29:11-14.Though I love and appreciate that Jeremiah 29:11 is so widely used and known, I believe that that the real encouragement and direction for our lives comes fromthe verses after it.

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. ¹²Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. ¹³You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord,and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

While it is encouraging to know that God has a plan for my life…and for Maria Elena’s, it is even more encouraging to know how I willdiscover that plan. We spent a long time that night talking about beingservants of God. How will we know what God is calling us to do? While somepeople hear an audible voice calling them to do a certain thing, we are notalways that fortunate. But Jeremiah tells us that when we seek God (keywords:)with all our heart, we will findHim and he will restore our fortunes to us and gather us back to Him. We arecalled first and foremost to seek God…that is the first step to discovering ourpurpose and the plan that He has for our lives.

I have several otherstories of wonderful conversations that I have had with my Readers already inthe past few days, but I realize this blog entry is already getting longenough…

I am incrediblyexcited to see what God has in store for my conversations for the rest of mytime here…just look what He has already done in 6 short days!

How you can bepraying for us: Pray that God will continue to bless our conversations and thatHe will place the urgency to come to reading sessions on the hearts of ourReaders. We would love nothing more to read every scheduled hour of every dayfrom here on out. Pray for Wayne and Margie and that God will prepare them forthe follow up with our Readers after we have left. Pray that they are able tomaintain in contact with our Readers and can continue to have the opportunitiesto share God’s love with our new friends.

Thank you so muchfor your prayers!

Here are a fewpictures (as promised!) of our reading sessions so far:

Meeting, Reading, and Enjoying Time with New Friends

Everything has been going great so far!  We went to church this morning and learned about how this world is not our home and that we need to look toward Jesus and hold onto the Word of God in order to reach our true home.  Everyone in the Philippines is so warm and friendly!  Around the eighth hour of our longest flight here, I was stretching my legs when I passed an older Filipino lady who smiled brightly and gave me a friendly pat on the back.  That small gesture really meant a lot to me.  Here in Talisay City, we have made many friends and are having an overall amazing experience. 

Wayne and his family (including Mommy Lou-Wayne's mother) are so kind and they never fail to make us smile.  On Thursday, we visited Shayne's preschool again.  When we arrived, they were singing The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Huston and learning hand motions to perform at their program on Saturday.  We sat with the children and learned the motions with them.  We loved hearing them sing so joyfully!

We began our reading sessions on Friday.  Most of our readers are so eager to learn both English and God's Word.  I'm sure Brittiny, Kendra, and I will each be oozing with awesome experiences to share once our stay draws to an end (I pray that day does not come too soon).  Friday night, in fact, turned our to be pretty special.  Although we read at the church building during the day, a group of Shayne's teachers comes to our house to read with us in the evenings.  So last night, Brittiny read with two younger girls while Kendra and I each read with one teacher.  My reader, Xela (pronounced: Zella), is a middle-aged woman with a sense of humor.  Her English is very good, so we went through two lessons within an hour.  She was very interested in the material and loved the fact that Luke actually researched before he wrote anything down.  Due to Xela's above average English skills, we had some great conversations and shared many laughs.  Once we had all finished reading, we gathered for a chain prayer.  All seven of us prayed and it was so powerful.  Xela even had tears in her eyes afterwards.  That was an amazing evening and we cannot wait to work with those readers again this week.

I had a reader earlier on Friday named Joan.  Joan told me that she was Catholic and she seemed eager to start learning.  She came again on Saturday and brought us some mangoes.  When we sat down to begin reading, I saw that she had filled out at least three lessons on her own.  She was so eager to learn more, so we read through two lessons and were both engaged (no pun intended...the word "engaged" is a vocab. word in lessons 2 and 3) the entire time.  I look forward to reading more with Joan.  Another one of my readers, Gemalyn, is also Catholic and seems a little skeptical about the whole idea of reading the book of Luke, but she was very smart and said that she plans on coming back; let's hope she does!

Besides our reading sessions, we have made friends elsewhere.  We go to the mall every day for lunch and supper, so we are beginning to familiarize ourselves with the workers there.  One great example is a coffee shop in the mall (Bo's Coffee).  It reminds us of Starbucks so we like visiting it.  We now recognize the workers there and feel like they will become good friends by the end of our stay.  Brittiny will have to tell you more about the coffee shop; she is the coffee addict.  :)

Shayne's school did their program on Saturday.  It turned out very well and was so much fun!!!  The children sang, danced, and recited poems.  Brittiny, Kendra, and I were asked to give an inspirational speech during the program, so we got t-shirts and cool hats, and talked to the parents a little about the importance of education.  We were also asked to sit in seats of honor and pass out certificates to the children.  We hope that we did not take away any thunder from the children, but we felt like we were warmly accepted by the community there.  At the end of the program, we sang The Greatest Love of All with the children.  Afterwards, there was a potluck that we stayed for.  That's a funny story actually: we were all standing at the beginning of the food table, waiting in an imaginary line, until we finally realized there was no line and that everyone just goes straight for what they want.  Now we know for next time!  So we eventually got our food and sat down.  Then multiple people kept coming to us and offering us more food.  We were brought cokes, a plate of fruit, cups of ice cream, bananas, and then meat kabobs; therefore, we were stuffed!  The food was delicious though!  After supper, we watched fire dancers!  What an experience that was!  Kendra and I had one more reader each that night, and then we crashed at the house.

I LOVE the Philippines and the people here!  I praise God for blessing me with the opportunity to be here and for people like you who made this possible.  Thank you so much!!!

Settled In

We have made it to Talisay City and have officially settled in! We arrived yesterday (Wednesday) around 11am; Wayne, Margie (his wife), Shayne (their 4 year old daughter), and Wayne Jr. (their 13 year old son) picked us up in their van that had an awesome welcome banner on it for us! We rode about 30 minutes to our apartment in Talisay City. After unloading our luggage and getting familiarized with the house, Wayne showed us around the city a little bit and took us on errands. We visited his house, which is right down the street from our house in the same "Village," and Shayne's daycare, which is also right around the corner. We went to the mall where we will be buying groceries and our lunch and dinner each day, the bank where we exchanged money, the church building where we will be reading and worshiping, and finally to McDonald's for dinner! We also drove past the internet cafe (where I am right now writing this) and the laundry shop which are in the Village we live in...very convenient! Since internet access is so convenient, we should be able to continue updating the blog regularly! 


We were also able to have our initial meeting with Wayne to go over the details of our schedules for the upcoming weeks. I think we all will agree that we already love Wayne, his family, and this city. Everyone is extremely friendly and helpful with anything we might need. The weather has been bright and sunny; we couldn't have been more blessed with an amazing site! 


Wayne and Margie loved their new camera. We gave it to them at our meeting after we arrived at our house and we could see the excitement on their faces. Through all the errands we did yesterday, 9 times out of 10, you could glance over your shoulder at Wayne and see him testing the camera out or reading the instruction booklet to help him learn more about it! We are so happy that we could do something so small and bring such great joy to his life and his work! Praise God!


We will have our Information Meeting with all the interested Readers tonight at 7:15 where we will introduce ourselves and explain a little about what we are here to do and will then sign up people for time slots to read. As of yesterday, we have 41 interested readers coming to our Information Meeting! 


Since we did not arrive until Wednesday mid-day, we have decided to read tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday of this week. These days would normally be our days off, but we did not want to waste and entire week of our trip with traveling and settling in. I am excited to meet everyone tonight and start building friendships with them! 


Today is a settling in day, since we accomplished all of the basic things we needed to do yesterday. We are trying hard to get adjusted to the time change, but we are still waking up and going to bed a little earlier than we would like. Hopefully by tomorrow we should be well-adjusted. :-) We have taken lots of pictures and will be some of them here so that you can see the things we describe too! Hopefully our next post will be able to have pictures in it. 


We would love to hear from you if you have any questions or if you would like to send us a note of encouragement. Our email addresses are:

Brittiny- brittinycase@gmail.com
Jen- jlgreen2005@aol.com
Kendra- kelley.kendra09@gmail.com

How you can be praying for us: Pray that our Information Meeting goes smoothly and that our first day of reading tomorrow allows us to begin forming deep friendships that will eventually lead to deep conversations. Pray that we are able to overcome jet lag quickly and that we will continue to work well together with any task presented to us. To God be the glory! 

Layover in Manila

We have made it to Manila! Everything has gone smoothly on all of our flights so far and we were all able to connect with each other at the various airports. God is good! We are sitting in the airport at Manila waiting for our last flight to the island of Cebu; we have about an hour until we board, so I thought I would take this time to update everyone on our travels since we are not sure when we will be able to access the internet once we arrive in Talisay City. 

Thank you for your continual prayers and notes of encouragement. As we sit here waiting to board, we are all extremely excited to just get there and meet Wayne and his wife. He asked us a couple weeks ago if we would do him the favor of bringing a digital camera with us for him to use for the work he is doing. We told him we would be happy to help him out with this errand, and since then he has continually told us how excited he is to receive it. Thus, we are super excited to be able to meet him for the first time and get his camera to him! 

Everyone we have met on our plane rides have been amazing. I am normally not prone to having a conversation with people who sit next to me--I like to take a nap or catch up on some homework or something like that. But, I have to admit, God has blessed each of us with the opportunity to sit next to some extremely friendly people. Everyone has a story to tell, and if you will simply take the time to listen, you can really learn a lot--about not only the other person but about yourself or just life in general. I definitely need to keep this lesson in mind! It is exactly what we need to keep in mind as we go into the next 6 weeks of meeting new people and forming friendships. The task ahead is not only about planting seeds and allowing God to water them, but it is also about forming genuine relationships with as many people as we can. 

I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

                                                      Philippians 2:20-21

Paul wrote these words about Timothy; they are the desire of my heart. I want to be genuinely interested in the lives, families, desires, and hopes of my Readers. I want to show them compassion and to plant seeds in their heart. God has blessed me with the opportunity to come to the Philippines this year, and I will give him the glory for all the work we are able to accomplish through him.