Semester Break!

When Semester began in mid-October, it was a chance to take a rest for most of the

Meeting with our BU Senior High Students (we call the group “Infinity.”)

students.  However, for us in Legazpi, it became one of the busiest times of the year.  Although we set aside some of our on-campus work during the three-week break, it was filled with even more special events.

     For one, the long semester break was only for college students, not for high school, who just got one week. Since we have outreach going in three high schools, that work went on nearly the whole month of October.

However, in addition to this, some of the main events that filled the break included:

 

Outreach to Guinanayan Island

One of the first special activities God opened up during the semester break was the chance to go to Guinanayan Island.

It really all began with two of my former Bible study attendees in Manila way back in 1995, Gab and Reggie.  They accepted the Lord there, and both came and helped for a time on San Miguel Island.  After this they decided to get married and some years later move to Guinanayan Island, where their family owned quite a bit of land.

Posing with Gab and Regie and their kids.

Guinanayan Island turned out to be just a 1-hour boat ride from our campsite on Cagraray Island.  It has recently begun to receive a lot of publicity because of it’s beautiful beaches, and more and more tourists are beginning to visit.

This surge in tourism gave Gab and Reggie the chance to set up a small resort on the island, which is doing quite well.

With Tiya Rosa and Tiyo Ernesto, Reggie’s parents. Tiya Rosa was one of the first to accept Christ and be baptized on San MIguel Island in 1997.

However, they also had a heart to reach the people on the island for Christ.  So, at the end of October they invited me to visit them on their son’s birthday, which they wanted to use as an opportunity to gather neighbors to hear the gospel. and share with some of their neighbors.

It was a great opportunity to impact another place in Bicol with the gospel.  However, it was made even better because I was joined by  Ivan and Francis, two guys I’ve been discipling from our Legazpi church.

The trip was an all-day event, but was also great exposure for Ivan and Francis, who were able to see firsthand the needs for the gospel and for solid teaching that existed in man of the islands of our province.

 

 

On the boat heading to Guinanayan Island. Francis is next to me; Ivan in the back. Both great guys with huge hearts for the Lord.

 

Both Ivan and Francis got the chance to share an encouragement to the people as part of the outreach on the island, and both did great.

This trip was really the start of a whole series of events during the semester break where God began to show us all the huge uncompleted task that still remains to bring the gospel to many parts of the country.  In Albay only about half the communities have churches, and sometimes the churches that do exist are not very solid in teaching.

 

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Sports Fest at our Cagraray Island Campsite

Standing with Raul and Ivan next to the Sports Fest banner. Raul, from one our island churches, but also helping sometimes in Legazpi, did most of the organization for this event.

The youth on the islands are often overlooked and left to be pulled many directions by the bad peer pressure of ungodly peers.   It is often hard for the churches on the islands to reach them, for most have no desire to step inside a church.  Their parents, being non-believers, will often in many cases not allow their kids to attend a Christian church.

     Yet kids love sports, and so for one day we opened our campsite to hold a “Sport’s Fest.”  Youth from our three churches on the islands joined, and invited their friends from school as well.  We did not really know what to expect, but when we started the number of participants had swelled to over 70 youth.

Basketball, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, Scrabble, Chess, and poster making were among the activities and competitions sponsored.

 

 

I was so thankful to Raul Buque,  one of the youth in our Cagraray Island church, as well as May and Anne Bilolo, who did a lot from the Legazpi side to set this sports fest up.

I really didn’t have to do much of anything except show up and have fun!

 

 

Yet it wasn’t only about sports.  Pastor Alan Leigh and his group from Calvary Chapel Wahiawa joined us and in the middle presented the love of God in a very powerful way to the youth.

Chad Getz did a Arnis exhibition (Arnis is a traditional Filipino martial arts sport).

     Meanwhile Carol Price trained some of the girls in Hawaiian Hula Dance and did a presentation at the end of the Sports Fest.

Thanks so much to this team, organized by Pastor Darwin Nases, who took the time to set up the trip for the group of Wahiawa.

 

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Generation Christian Fellowship Retreat

The day after the sports fest at our campsite, we rounded up those in our Legazpi church who had not gone back their provinces for the semester break (we are still mostly students in Legazpi, with many of them from out of town) and we headed to the nearby town of Santo Domingo for our first church outing since last December.

Chad sharing at the church retreat.

CC Wahiawa was still there to assist, as they powerfully shared on the way Christ can transform our lives.  Their testimonies were amazing.  God is truly great in the way He can change lives.

 

 

 

 

Sharing before the baptism with Pastor Alan Leigh at my right.

 

Besides this we also had time for games, eating, sharing, bonding, and praying.  It was a great time to just kick back and relax and connect with others in the church in a more informal setting.  I’m ready for the next outing!

One of the highlights for me at the retreat was the chance to hold a baptism for three in our church.  Britz, Niel, and Conrad are all new believers who wanted to testify to their faith through water baptism.  What a joy!

Niel stepping forward for baptism.  Niel became a Christian my first year in Legazpi, but then had to leave Legazpi to study elsewhere.  He struggled a lot in his spiritual life there, however, and so returned to Legazpi specifically to study where he could attend our church and grow in Christ.   He is presently continuing with me in weekly discipleship and growing fast.

 

This retreat was followed the next day by a special church service in which pastor Alan and the CC Wahiawa team again shared and encouraged the brethren.  It was another great time of fellowship and of being built up in the Word.

 

Aletheian Student Circle Missions Camp

On the way to our Cagraray Island campsite for the missions camp.  Twenty-seven campers participated in the three day event.

 

We always try to hold a camp of some sort between semesters for the students in our campus ministry, Aletheian Student Circle (ASC), and this year for some of our young professionals also.

 

 

This year the camp theme was “Missions: Beyond Borders” and was aimed at introducing the students to world missions and the great need there still is for Christians to step beyond their borders to reach out to the world.

 

     In a first step of going beyond borders, we took the risk of scheduling the camp at our campsite on Cagraray Island, instead of in Legazpi, as we have done before.

The reason for past Legazpi locations is that students often have a hard time getting permission form parents to travel over the ocean to our campsite.

However, we decided to try anyway, and encouraged the students to pray and trust God to tough their parents’ hearts.  And God answered!  At first 5 students could not get permission to join, but with time and prayer, in the end every one was permitted.  It was really a breakthrough for them!

Cris with her Neala Armstrong impersonation.

 

By God’s grace the camp turned out great.  We covered eight teaching sessions related to missions.

We were so thankful to Jead Timagos as well, a former Filipina Missionary in Thailand who traveled an entire day from Samar province to share her experiences and wisdom.

 

 

 

Between sessions we had some discussion and prayer times, and a lot of time for fellowship.

Small group discussion between sessions.

 

Of course there were also  games.  The main game was modeled to reflect the process a  person must undergo if he or she is to become a missionary.  It was amazing how well it all went. God’s hand seemed to be on everything.

 

Team 1 standing before Chief Cowabunga in their final step to share the gospel to him in his language of flowers and dancing…

 

Even the meals were geared to help the students focus on missions. Each one included some type of food eaten in a foreign country.

 

First meal – native Filipino served on cut banana plant stalks.

Trying to prepare this on an island isolated from supermarkets carrying any foreign cuisine was a bit of a challenge, but the staff cooks did amazing, even preparing sadza, the corn meal I used to eat every day when I lived in Zimbabwe.

The camp was life-changing — at least it was for my life.

You couldn’t help but be impacted. For three days we focused on the unmet needs for the gospel around the world for the gospel.   We saw how Western missionary work is slacking now, and yet how cult groups and other world religions are holding their own against Christianity and in some cases surpassing it in growth.

Campers seeking out the next step in their missions game by locating a truth in Scripture.

 

We talked about and watch documentaries on our persecuted brethren in closed countries who stand for Christ at the risk of their lives.

We also saw in Scripture how every one of us is mandated by God to somehow be part of the effort for reaching the world.  How could you not be impacted?

 

 

 

     On the last day of the camp, the effect of it all was so great that our worship leader and others were so impacted and were weeping so badly that they could not even finish the line-up of songs.

We did not plan anything like that; it just happened.  It seemed something God decided to do.

 

 

I personally came back from the last of our semester-break activities with new resolve to follow the Lord in whatever way He leads in order to move our Legazpi church toward being a sending church.  We are still very small, but the vision is very clear.

 

Please pray that I will be sensitive to how God wants the church to move in this direction, and that He will raise up people with hearts burning to use their time, resources, and lives to help reach those who have never heard the gospel.

God sent me out into missions some 30 years ago.  Now I really believe He has placed me in Legazpi not simple to plant a church, but to multiply myself so that what was — and still is — the missions field for me will become the sending-field for missions to other places.  Thanks for your prayers.

It was a fast-paced but very fruitful semester-break, and I praise God for all He did during that period.  He is continuing to move, not only in the ministry here, but within my own heart.  I’m excited to see what He has next!