May was a busy, but fruitful month for ministry. It began with the National Deaf Camp on the island of Bohol. Over 120 deaf gathered for a week of spiritual renewal. God used deaf pastors from around the nation to minister throughout the week. Mindy was privileged to lead one of the classes - encouraging the hearing involved in deaf ministry. Maddy and Caleb had a delightful week playing with hearing and deaf children and learning more sign language.

We had many deaf pass through Cebu on their way to and from deaf camp. Sterling was the official driver making many trips to the airport and boat terminals. Many deaf stayed in our home. What wonderful times of fellowship with our dear friends, especially the deaf group from Baguio. After camp we were privileged to host the National Assistant Director of the deaf ministry in the Philippines, Rev. Lani DeGuzman. Our times of sharing God’s vision for the deaf in the Philippines was God ordained.

Pastor Brenda is a deaf pastor in Manila with family in Cebu. During the May PGCAG General Council held here in Cebu, Brenda introduced us to a group of 15 deaf in Carbon. From that meeting we began a weekly Sunday afternoon service in Carbon. Thank you, Light for the Lost, for the Easy to Read Version of the Bible, we were able to give to those in attendance.

To add to the excitement, the Lord brought an enthusiastic and wonderful deaf woman to this church. Luz has been a Christian for many years and is assisting this church plant. She is sensitive to the needs of the group and has a heart to reach them. We praise God for the work He is doing in each heart and life.

We met with the teacher of the deaf in Lapu Lapu, where we volunteered last year. She is excited to have us teach again (school begins in June). We thank the Lord for the continued favor He shows us in this public school. Teacher Delores has given us permission to hold a weekly after school Bible Study in the deaf classroom. We have been sharing the gospel personally and through “values education”, but this will give us opportunity to really disciple the young people being saved in the class. Pray with us as we begin our first Bible Study on June 24th. Fifteen students were saved in March and we desire to see them grow and mature in Christ.

God is working in the deaf community and we are so blessed to be part of it. Please continue to pray for more to be saved and discipled for His great glory. We couldn’t be here without your faithful prayers and support. From the depths of our heart we say, “THANK YOU!” Your faithfulness is reaching many for Christ.

Are you interested in going a step beyond? We have been able to purchase only 120 Bibles, but we’re out of them now and hundreds more are needed. A box of 20 Bibles from WBT costs about $75. Would you consider donating a box or more? If interested in helping in this special way, please leave a comment…

In October 2008, a visiting videographer from St. Johns, Newfoundland, stayed with us for several weeks and graciously videotaped us in our home in Cebu City. We received the completed and edited video file in January 2009.

NOTE: Edited out of this final cut by the videographer is our discussion on the exciting Christ-centered Chess Club we started in August of 2008 for the Deaf, which we hope to now extend into the National High School class for the Deaf in the new school year. Chess instruction has been made part of the school curriculum in the Philippines (2009 Memorandum #1, DepEd [pdf]). It’s been very sad to us that we can’t get a single church or member interested in this amazing open door the Lord has opened up to reach lost youth directly in the public schools! Doors never stay opened forever, but having said that, we are responsible for what God has shown us, so if no one else will go through, we will. On a future post we’ll talk more about what the Lord has done through Roaring Rooks Chess Club.

… and all ministry endeavor points to establishing a sustainable Deaf Church in Cebu and stronger Deaf Churches in the Visayas…

Our week is full… we are teaching reading, science and will begin livelihood skills training to a deaf class in a public elementary school… we teach there three times a week and on Saturday we have chess club (The Roaring Rooks)… on Wednesdays, Mindy is teaching sign language to six workers in the compassion ministries of the church we attend and we have a Deaf Prayer and Bible Study Fellowship in the evening… Mindy is homeschoolong our two kids, 6 and 4 years old, (which next year I’ll be helping to teach them as well)… I am preparing a formal Christian Chess curriculum, preparing a study Bible for the deaf for publication, as well as preparing the way for the livelihood skills training to happen…

All this on top of helping to organize a monthly Deaf Pastors meeting in Mindanao, Book of Hope outreaches for the Deaf, various outreach opportunities as they happen (the “Doulos Week” just past for an example), organizing a medical outreach with local doctors, praying for God’s leading in starting a youth outreach center in Lahug as a venue for Deaf chess and helping the Deaf earn an income there, plus, looking at expanding our Deaf scholastic chess instruction to the highschool level in light of the fact that the Departartment of Education has now included chess as integral to the regular curriculum…
AND finding time in the midst of it all for our family…

Plus praying for workers in the harvest field!

Our days are full to the brim… we may lack “style” as someone told me yesterday, but what we lack in style, we make up for in substance by the Grace of God.

Back from the long week in Mindanao. It was unique to be with three other missionaries throughout the week… good friends of ours and it was unique for them, too, to be with a family since they are singles.

I’ll write later about the ministry that occurred during the week… lots happened and it’s encouraging…

Had a funeral to attend on Saturday afternoon after returning on Saturday morning. Then Saturday late afternoon, we learned that our next door neighbor, a Turkish nursing student and a violent man, was killed in a motorcycle accident on Friday. Talk about that later too…

Just wanted to get this quickly out there, let you know we traveled safely by God’s Amazing Grace and that He’s working in these last days in His Deaf Church…

Please pray for our wonderful friends Doug and Linda and for Mike and his family… they are hitting some rough turf these days - just as many of you are… but we love them dearly and would ask for your prayers for them as well.

Talk to you within the week…

Preparing to head out tonight/tomorrow at 0330 for the airport and a District Council in Cagayan D’Oro and Valencia City, both in Mindanao. I am a co-speaker with another missionary. The family’s coming to the one in CDO and returns and I head to Valencia City and return next Saturday.

Sounds funny, but I’m a reluctant traveller. I like flying, but hate airports with a passion. And here you have to take off nearly all your clothing to pass through the three checkpoints…

Anyway, I’ll have to report when I get back in a week… the weight restrictions and no guarantee of net access precludes a roving blog this time.

Gotta go and finish packing… see you all in a week.

Tuesday’s normally our “day off”… that is, when we have time to prepare for the next formal ministry day.  Yesterday, we needed to visit the Doulos (www.mvdoulos.org) which is docked in Cebu until 10 February. We want the Deaf kids at LLCE to visit the ship and wanted to arrange things with the ships’ crew.

As in all things in the life we live in Christ, you just never know where, exactly, He will lead you in a day. It’s a marvelous thing to experience and we had one of those experiences yesterday.

We were told onboard that since the Governor of Cebu Province, Hon. Gwen Garcia, was visiting the official opening of the ships’ docking, we couldn’t speak with anyone about scheduling since it was, understandably, a busy day. They took our business card and would call us when they had a chance.

So we visited the bookshop and afterwards, had an ice cream and a cookie at the small little snack counter onboard. We were departing the ship (laden with books of course [smile]), when one of the crew approached us and asked us if we’d like a tour of the ship. Of course, we said yes.

That is how the Lord had us meet Hong Jun Soon. Amazing how the Lord moves in our lives. What a delightful and wonderful sister in the Lord we met. We spent 2-3 hours in the tour and sitting in the galley just talking about how our Lord Jesus moves in our individual lives.

We had a wonderful afternoon (even spoke briefly with the extremely affable Captain Pat Tracy in his civvies no less!)… we will be returning with the LLCE kids on 3 February at 10 a.m…. and Mindy and Jun Soon hope to have a lunch with our unsaved Korean neighbor across the street from us who Mindy’s been having a Bible study with each week… please pray that she accepts and that God seizes her by the Power of His Great Affection…

When we started this blog, we weren’t sure what we wanted to say or (as some may have noticed) how many times we could actually post new experiences and thoughts.

We found that our doing is far more important than talking about it, yet we want to let you know what’s happening.  So, we’re starting over.  We’re getting rid of the 2008 posts except for one and start from scratch.

There’s been a lot happening, but it takes us hours to write e-mails to those who write us and we simply don’t have the time to talk about it all every day… so… we’ll go slow, but we’ll try much harder to be consistent this year in posting new material that you’ll want to read.

Have to go off to Lapu-Lapu now, so I’ll get back to this soon.

It’s been a busy time.  The Lord Jesus has opened up some thrilling opportunities for us to minister to the Deaf here in the Philippines.  We are ministering at a public elementary school three times a week; we will be providing sign language training to the hearing within the the next several weeks, which will include training teachers at an AG Christian elementary school;  we have expanded our weekly Deaf Prayer Fellowship on Wednesdays to include a Bible Study (new people are attending) and will be adding a chess club for after school kids near the church.  That’s right, a chess club.

Although the Lord had shown me for a few years that chess would be an avenue to pursue with Deaf kids and adults… we have been surprised at the connection chess has made with them.  Every Friday morning, which is PE day at the elemenary school, I teach the kids chess.  I have written the beginning of a Chess Theology and Chess/Bible curriculum, so it’s not chess for its own sake, but for the Glory of God in Christ. I will write a separate blog concerning chess and what’s happening with that, but just know that the kids are responding and are genuinely interested in learning the game.  It’s exciting to see because they WANT to use their mind!

…and that’s the other, more difficult part for us.  These kids, although in a public school for a few years some of them, are woefully under-educated.  In our class, there are 36 registered students although we have only seen at most 20.  They range in age from 7 to 29.  Although there is a range of knowledge across the class, these kids know virtually nothing.  The kids have no textbooks. The kids have no access to a library (in many of the schools the libraries are locked because the kids will “get the books dirty”… and there is no public access library system in the Philippines).  The kids have very little to no writing ability.  Math?… forget it.  Science?… nada.

But the great thing is this:  THE KIDS WANT TO LEARN! It brings tears to our eyes to see how incredible their hunger is to learn and to use the brain that God gave them.  They are excited and they voraciously attack any books we bring… no matter how simple they are.  In recognition of that, we have begun purchasing books - basic readers and basic science books - to start a lending library of our own. Due to the small number of books, so far, the kids can borrow one book per week, signing out for it just like in an actual library.  Every kid has borrowed a book.  And we are trying to get more, but most books will need to come from the States, since the selection here is sporadic and limited.  We’d only had one chess book that was suitable for lending out and it’s the hot ticket item, so we’ve recently ordered five more books with good visuals to augment that.  They should be arriving via a short-term missionary this month.

The local Assembly here has, just today, confirmed that we will have a dedicated room at the Church for our Learning Center for the Deaf and an office for our Deaf Church called New Life Deaf Assembly of God.  Well, let’s put a list of what your missionaries to the Deaf in the Philippines are doing and hoping to do:

• Teaching & Witnessing Christ three days per week at a local Public Elementary School
• Beginning chess clubs at the school and soon at the Church for after school Deaf/Hearing kids.
• Deaf Prayer & Bible Study Fellowship every Wednesday.
• Beginning to put together New Life Individualized Learning Centers.
• Initiating a soon-to-happen monthly Sign Language Seminar for the hearing.
• Working with Book of Hope in getting the Deaf churches throughout the Philippines to work directly with public schools and/or public outreaches in Evangelizing the lost deaf using Book of Hope and a unique “God Man” DVD filmed entirely in ASL by Deaf Missionaries in Southeast Asia.
• Putting together a cafe-style weekly fellowship and venue for outreach to the Deaf.
• Writing the study notes for a Deaf-focused Gospel of Mark using the New Family Translation (excellent by the way) which must be completed before January 2009.
• Completion of a Scripture-based chess curriculum that can be used by all.
• We’ve asked AGWM for short-term teams and a medium-term individual to help work with the Deaf.
• And as always, we are continuing to educate our kids at home…

Also happening this month… we have been approached by a short-term missionary to spend two weeks, out of their seven week stay in the Visayas, filming the Lord’s work through us for His Deaf Church.  It’s a professional who recently sold his stake in the ad agency he co-founded to work more full-time in missions.  We are excited at the prospect and will keep you posted.  THE TIMING FOR THIS IS AMAZING AS WE ARE JUST NOW SEEING DOORS OPENED UP!

As a family, we are grateful to God for His promised encamped host around us!  We are healthy.  And although our kitchen shelves have been bare, we have truly given great praise and thanks to God for spaghetti and popcorn!  Maddy (6) is excelling in homeschool and Caleb (4) has been writing praise songs and preaching sermons even in his own version of sign language!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support… truly, we’re out here in the tropical heat, but it’s YOU who keep us before our Lord in prayer and who allow yourselves to be used to keep us on the Harvest Field for His Glory!

We’ll be sending out our latest newsletter by the end of this month.