Check out what we’ve been up to in the Philippines!

Street Level Ministries

At the end of September, we had a couple of SLM members visit the office for breakfast. Since we still meet online, we’re thankful for opportunities to meet in person. We’re continuing to go through the Alpha series and supplemental discipleship discussions on Friday nights. A couple new students have joined  since they saw our semester promo video on Facebook. Ben and Sasha also joined us for a meeting recently. It’s always nice to keep in touch with the SLM chapters in the USA. 

WOTS issue 88 has been sent to print and should be ready this week. The writers will gather virtually this Thursday to pick out local articles and start on Issue 89. 

On Saturday, we are having a phygital Halloween party. A few students will join us at the office and others who live in the province will join us on Google Meet. Everyone has been so busy lately, so we hope it’ll be a time to fellowship and laugh together. There will be costumes, candy, games, and prizes…it’s not really a Filipino holiday, so it should be fun to do something different.

Exploring Creation Science

At the beginning of the month, a special fingerprinting lesson was taught to the JFB homeschool group. Each student was able to take their own fingerprint and compare it to the main 3 types of fingerprints. This lesson shows how each person is uniquely created in the image of God and no two people (even twins!) have the same set of finger or toe prints. New Explore booklets were delivered to Inayawan Nazarene and Southern Bethany. Laura was able to visit and fellowship with the staff at Southern Bethany while delivering the booklets in person. Again, these limited face to face meetings are something we don’t take for granted! Weekly lessons continue on Facebook Live and Google Meet.

Shofar Youth Network

Last week, we delivered a USB with teaching curriculum to South Cebu Church on Talisay. It included 4 sessions from the NUA series with Cebuano subtitles and English teaching guides, which will be used in part or whole for a youth camp the church is hosting in December. The topics include “How Did We Get Here?” “Jesus: Fact it Fiction?” “What About the Resurrection?” and “What Was Jesus Really Like?” One of the ways we seek to help local churches is by providing teaching resources like NUA for youth groups to use. We also post monthly on a blog with topics that could challenge and help youth leaders. 

Prayer Requests

• The Philippines as a whole – upcoming presidential election (May 2022) as candidates are already campaigning; it is causing much division and uncertainty among the people here. We are praying for God to guide the election and place godly people in positions of influence.
• Street Level Ministries – for the students to grow as disciples, for new students to get connected, and the distribution of the new issue of WOTS.
• Exploring Creation Science – for the students who received Explore booklets, relationships with schools and staff, and endurance to continue online learning.
• Our Community – God keeps giving us opportunities to serve and be served by our neighbors. These relationships mean a lot to us. A new family will move in next month, so we’re excited to meet them!