So we're coming to the end of week two of ministry! God has continued to be good to our team in providing us with a safe and dry place to stay throughout our time in the mountains. On Monday of this past week we moved to a village called VillaFlorida to continue telling Bible stories as a way of sharing the gospel. This town has not been as receptive as the last, but we have been able to meet with a few people and share Bible stories. A typhoon hit on Thursday, so that cut out some of our ministry time. I'm learning to take joy in the Lord and do ministry because I love the Lord, even if I don't see many results. We've been doing a lot of praying over this village and I pray that God continues to work in the lives of these people. On Tuesday we leave for our third village, Mayong (which is by the beach!), where we will be for two weeks. Please pray for the Lord to work in Mayong and show us what He wants us to be doing.
Oh- and random Filipino fact: raising your eyebrows here can mean "yes" or "hey" so literally you can walk down the street here, pass someone, and raise your eyebrows and you just said hey to them. I love it.
Please continue to pray for strength for our team (especially our translators) and discernment to do the Lord's will while we are here. God is good- may all the ends of the earth see His salvation!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Hello from the Bundoks!
Well we're here! and We just finished our first week of ministry. Let's just say that our God is very good. I keep being blown away by His goodness that is unchanging in any and every situation that our team has encountered.
Our team is made up of four American college students and two Filipino translators. (Who are basically our lifesavers). We're traveling to four different villages throughout the summer for a week or two at a time to teach the Bible to an unreached tribal people group who live mostly in the mountains. Most of these people have been exposed to the Bible and some different denominations. However, there is no functioning church among this people group. Our job is to help the local missionaries start new church plants and scope out villages that are receptive to the gospel and could use full time missionaries to help with new church plants. This is a really exciting ministry- I love being able to simply study the Bible and help people understand it. So many people have taught them so many different things, with verses pulled from all over the Bible (and half of the time they're taken out of context), that it's great to be able to study the Bible with them and help them understand a bigger picture of what it actually teaches. It's also been neat to help these people understand that they can read the Bible for themselves, rather than relying on a preacher or missionary or preach to tell them what it says. I just love God's word. It changes lives without me even having to say very much. God's words are so much more powerful in drawing people to Himself than mine are- imagine that.
On another note, our team has had some pretty interesting experiences so far. Here are just a few:
- Learning to cook over a fire (it gets tough when it's the rainy season and a lot of the firewood is wet..)
- Hiking in some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.
- Having a Bible study in a cloud
- Riding a motorcycle down the mountain to get to town to buy groceries
- Bathing in a river (and no one has any parasites yet!)
Ok that's most of what I can think of off of the top of my head. But here are some prayer requests:
- For strength for our team and our translators (we've had a really busy schedule since we've been here).
- For wisdom for me especially (i'm the team leader.... so just as i'm making a lot of decisions about ministry and logistics) and for the whole team
- For discernment as we share the Bible with people here and guidance for the right words when we need them
- For our team to be led by the Holy Spirit in everything we do.
- For our team to be unified in everything we do.
Our God is very good. I'm so thankful that He's given me this opportunity to serve Him this summer. Every thing has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination, but our God has provided all we need and has given us many opportunities so far to see Him work in and through us. He is so wonderful. I really feel blessed to be able to be a part of what He's doing around the world. Today we got to worship with some Filipino believers in a town close to where we've been staying before we bought groceries for next week, and that was the biggest blessing in the world! It was amazing to be able to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ- it was really like a little bit of home even though we're still so far away. These Christians have been so hospitable to us. God is so good. I keep learning to love him more and more- which has been pretty great.
Oh- on another note: ROOSTERS! I was concerned about not waking up on time once we got to the field. No need. The roosters have been happy to help me wake up every morning promptly at 5 am. I've had two observations. 1. Roosters sound exactly like everyone imitates (with the whole cockle doodle do thing). 2. They don't stop when you wake up! In my mind a rooster's sole purpose is to wake people up. So naturally they should stop after you're awake because they've filled their purpose. Oh no. They keep going. All day. I just thought I'd let yall know that.
Oh and ps. the Tagalog (official Filipino language) word for mountain is Bundok. Like "out in the boonies." So I'm literally spending my summer out in the Bundoks! I thought that was pretty neat.
Our team is made up of four American college students and two Filipino translators. (Who are basically our lifesavers). We're traveling to four different villages throughout the summer for a week or two at a time to teach the Bible to an unreached tribal people group who live mostly in the mountains. Most of these people have been exposed to the Bible and some different denominations. However, there is no functioning church among this people group. Our job is to help the local missionaries start new church plants and scope out villages that are receptive to the gospel and could use full time missionaries to help with new church plants. This is a really exciting ministry- I love being able to simply study the Bible and help people understand it. So many people have taught them so many different things, with verses pulled from all over the Bible (and half of the time they're taken out of context), that it's great to be able to study the Bible with them and help them understand a bigger picture of what it actually teaches. It's also been neat to help these people understand that they can read the Bible for themselves, rather than relying on a preacher or missionary or preach to tell them what it says. I just love God's word. It changes lives without me even having to say very much. God's words are so much more powerful in drawing people to Himself than mine are- imagine that.
On another note, our team has had some pretty interesting experiences so far. Here are just a few:
- Learning to cook over a fire (it gets tough when it's the rainy season and a lot of the firewood is wet..)
- Hiking in some of the most beautiful mountains in the world.
- Having a Bible study in a cloud
- Riding a motorcycle down the mountain to get to town to buy groceries
- Bathing in a river (and no one has any parasites yet!)
Ok that's most of what I can think of off of the top of my head. But here are some prayer requests:
- For strength for our team and our translators (we've had a really busy schedule since we've been here).
- For wisdom for me especially (i'm the team leader.... so just as i'm making a lot of decisions about ministry and logistics) and for the whole team
- For discernment as we share the Bible with people here and guidance for the right words when we need them
- For our team to be led by the Holy Spirit in everything we do.
- For our team to be unified in everything we do.
Our God is very good. I'm so thankful that He's given me this opportunity to serve Him this summer. Every thing has not been easy by any stretch of the imagination, but our God has provided all we need and has given us many opportunities so far to see Him work in and through us. He is so wonderful. I really feel blessed to be able to be a part of what He's doing around the world. Today we got to worship with some Filipino believers in a town close to where we've been staying before we bought groceries for next week, and that was the biggest blessing in the world! It was amazing to be able to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ- it was really like a little bit of home even though we're still so far away. These Christians have been so hospitable to us. God is so good. I keep learning to love him more and more- which has been pretty great.
Oh- on another note: ROOSTERS! I was concerned about not waking up on time once we got to the field. No need. The roosters have been happy to help me wake up every morning promptly at 5 am. I've had two observations. 1. Roosters sound exactly like everyone imitates (with the whole cockle doodle do thing). 2. They don't stop when you wake up! In my mind a rooster's sole purpose is to wake people up. So naturally they should stop after you're awake because they've filled their purpose. Oh no. They keep going. All day. I just thought I'd let yall know that.
Oh and ps. the Tagalog (official Filipino language) word for mountain is Bundok. Like "out in the boonies." So I'm literally spending my summer out in the Bundoks! I thought that was pretty neat.
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