Summer is upon us with all of its sweltering, humid, intensity, so much so that walking for even a short distance can drench a person in sweat! If THIS is “global warming” then we do not want any of it! (Will someone please turn on the cooler?)
We just completed Session 2 and are now in the middle of our enrollment week activities for Session 3. We had three (3) immersions this past session. The first was Fralu Vaflor, who has been studying with us for a couple of sessions. He has a very happy spirit and is always wanting to talk about the Bible. He had a very difficult experience just a few days before he was baptized, when his cousin was murdered right in front of him in broad daylight. The trauma of the event sent Fralu into a state of mental shock and he has struggled greatly to maintain control. Giving his life to God was the only thing he felt he could do to save not only his soul but perhaps even his sanity! I am happy to report that so far he is doing well. Having a Christian family that will help encourage him is truly making a difference. Please pray that Fralu will continue his recovery and grow strong in faith.
The second of our students to be immersed was Ernesto Abella, who started studying with us as a correspondence course student and then decided to continue in our classroom study program. He is an older gentleman who lived on the wild side of life in his young adult years. The result has been a middle aged existence in which his wife does not have much respect for him. However, the thing that has really plagued Ernesto is the fact that his son has grown up to be “just like him”, in that he has a live-in girlfriend whom he has moved into the family house! Even though Ernesto does not like this he is opposed by his wife and the son simply refuses to even speak about the matter. All of these things ate away at him until he decided that the only way out of any of these things was for him to get right with God! So far, he has been a tenacious student of the Bible and once he saw what God said about receiving his grace, he was quick to be immersed! Ernesto knows that the road to success in influencing his wife and son will be a long and hard one because they will be looking at him with skepticism and scrutiny. Please pray that he will be patient with himself and concentrate upon growing and keeping his commitment to God.
The third student to become a Christian was Bernardo See, who began studying with us back in November of last year. Mr. See is a Chinese Filipino who has been living in two religious worlds. He was a Catholic while, at the same time, being involved in the various rituals and superstitions of the Chinese religions. When he first came to us, we thought he was coming around mainly to socialize, but as time went by he actually seemed to enjoy his studies. Once he saw this, we hoped that it would only be a matter of time before he would be confronted with the truth and simplicity of the Gospel and decide to accept Christ. Fortunately, when that time came, he decided that it was time to leave all the superstitions behind and accept God's New Agreement.
One thing to keep in mind regarding the conversion of these men is the team effort that went into teaching them! Mr. See and Fralu each had a total of seven (7) teachers in their courses here at the Bible Study Center while Ernesto had three (3)! The addition of these gentlemen brings our total to thirteen (13) people immersed into Christ since we opened last September! One point of interest regarding our recent string of conversions is the fact that most of these people come from the surrounding community in which families have lived and interacted for generations. We are discovering that when people are added to the body and come to the assembly for the first time, many have known one another “for years”, some since their childhood, and thus are much more at ease with one another than is often the case with new Christians. Please pray for these new brothers in the Lord, that they will make good their commitment and continue studying and applying God’s will in their lives!
"Easter" is a very important time of the year here in the Philippines. The Catholic church calls it "Holy Week" and it is one of three times during the year when almost everyone in the Philippines goes to church! (The other two are the first Sunday of Lent and Christmas!) To facilitate this gathering together of so many people, the Philippine Government traditionally declares the last part of that week as a national holiday. It is not uncommon to see young men dragging wooden crosses on their backs through the streets, followed by groups of people chanting and carrying candles. In more extreme cases, young men go around beating their backs with whips made from barbed wire and glass and a few even allow themselves to be nailed through the hands and feet to makeshift crosses with real nails! All of these things are done to show God how much they love him and how sorry they are for their sins! Since it is a holiday, brethren in the Lord's church usually take advantage of the time off to host a number of youth and family camps from one end of the country to the other. We attended a retreat with the Uptown and Southside congregations and for three days we did almost nothing except vacation together with the families of these congregations! We packed up and left the city for a mountain resort that was built into a hillside and has three different swimming pools! There were Scrabble and Boggle matches and the most "formal" thing on the program was eating together! However, you could always find groups of people singing together! It was a very neat experience and the relaxed program was welcomed by all.
As we prepare for next week’s launching of Session 3, we continue to target families living in the general area of our Bible Study Center location. Since it is now “summer vacation” for the local schools, we decided to host a Vacation Bible School for the local children. Although we wanted to give the kids something to do with their time and teach them some values from the Bible, our main goal was to use this VBS as an avenue to reach the parents. We had over 80 individual kids attend at least one session during the four-day event. This exceeded all of our expectations and the kids enjoyed the classes and various activities of the VBS; especially the singing portions! We took them through the Old Testament story of Joseph. We were especially glad to see about half the parents attend the small “graduation” program we had for the kids last Saturday morning.
We are currently in the middle of another enrollment week seminar here at the Center. We enlisted the help of “Grandpa Wilkey” to come back down here once more before he flies back to Texas. This seminar is on the books of Philemon and Colossians. Dad's James seminar went very well and quite a few of those who attended enrolled in Session 2. We are hoping that this one will do the same for our Session 3 enrollment. Please pray for the success of the seminar and for our strength and wisdom to help our students understand God’s will!
Our “member courses” are moving along very well. We have two groups studying The Sermon on the Mount, one behind the other, and a new third batch is due to begin next week. We try very hard to get new Christians into an immediate study of this material and since we have so many who need it, we are going to start getting the local church members teaching the classes! This a very exciting develpoment for the Lord's work!
The eight (8) teachers we had in the twelve-week Advanced Teacher Training course are now finished and ready to begin teaching our course, Jesus: Lord of Our Lives, which is exciting because it will give many more of our Christians a chance to teach a course in which non-Christians will study the details of the Gospel. Aside from giving the lost in this part of the city a chance to hear the Good News so that they can be saved, we also want to give Christians a chance to teach the Gospel and become part of the process of God harvesting souls. Once you have taught a person the Gospel, seen them immersed into Christ, and realized that YOU can make the difference in the lives of people and their eternal destiny, it is very difficult to be satisfied with sitting around idle! Oh that we could get every Christian in the church to have that experience! (grin)
The Greek students are agonizing under the “immersion” they are getting in their advanced studies. They are half way through reviewing and expanding what they covered in their first year of study, but this time in a mere twelve weeks! They are still breathing but the challenge is beginning to show through. Another six weeks and they will face what could be the most difficult exam of their lives! (That is not a joke either!)
As for family news, we are now roughly six weeks away from furlough and we are looking forward to seeing many of you and sharing our experiences face to face. Amy and Sara are finishing up the school year and will be on summer vacation very soon. As always, we are so thankful for the opportunity to work here in Cebu City and pray that you who support us financially will see fit to continue to do so for another tour.
May God continue to give us the strength and wisdom to carry on!
We just completed Session 2 and are now in the middle of our enrollment week activities for Session 3. We had three (3) immersions this past session. The first was Fralu Vaflor, who has been studying with us for a couple of sessions. He has a very happy spirit and is always wanting to talk about the Bible. He had a very difficult experience just a few days before he was baptized, when his cousin was murdered right in front of him in broad daylight. The trauma of the event sent Fralu into a state of mental shock and he has struggled greatly to maintain control. Giving his life to God was the only thing he felt he could do to save not only his soul but perhaps even his sanity! I am happy to report that so far he is doing well. Having a Christian family that will help encourage him is truly making a difference. Please pray that Fralu will continue his recovery and grow strong in faith. 
The second of our students to be immersed was Ernesto Abella, who started studying with us as a correspondence course student and then decided to continue in our classroom study program. He is an older gentleman who lived on the wild side of life in his young adult years. The result has been a middle aged existence in which his wife does not have much respect for him. However, the thing that has really plagued Ernesto is the fact that his son has grown up to be “just like him”, in that he has a live-in girlfriend whom he has moved into the family house! Even though Ernesto does not like this he is opposed by his wife and the son simply refuses to even speak about the matter. All of these things ate away at him until he decided that the only way out of any of these things was for him to get right with God! So far, he has been a tenacious student of the Bible and once he saw what God said about receiving his grace, he was quick to be immersed! Ernesto knows that the road to success in influencing his wife and son will be a long and hard one because they will be looking at him with skepticism and scrutiny. Please pray that he will be patient with himself and concentrate upon growing and keeping his commitment to God. 
The third student to become a Christian was Bernardo See, who began studying with us back in November of last year. Mr. See is a Chinese Filipino who has been living in two religious worlds. He was a Catholic while, at the same time, being involved in the various rituals and superstitions of the Chinese religions. When he first came to us, we thought he was coming around mainly to socialize, but as time went by he actually seemed to enjoy his studies. Once he saw this, we hoped that it would only be a matter of time before he would be confronted with the truth and simplicity of the Gospel and decide to accept Christ. Fortunately, when that time came, he decided that it was time to leave all the superstitions behind and accept God's New Agreement. 
One thing to keep in mind regarding the conversion of these men is the team effort that went into teaching them! Mr. See and Fralu each had a total of seven (7) teachers in their courses here at the Bible Study Center while Ernesto had three (3)! The addition of these gentlemen brings our total to thirteen (13) people immersed into Christ since we opened last September! One point of interest regarding our recent string of conversions is the fact that most of these people come from the surrounding community in which families have lived and interacted for generations. We are discovering that when people are added to the body and come to the assembly for the first time, many have known one another “for years”, some since their childhood, and thus are much more at ease with one another than is often the case with new Christians. Please pray for these new brothers in the Lord, that they will make good their commitment and continue studying and applying God’s will in their lives! 
"Easter" is a very important time of the year here in the Philippines. The Catholic church calls it "Holy Week" and it is one of three times during the year when almost everyone in the Philippines goes to church! (The other two are the first Sunday of Lent and Christmas!) To facilitate this gathering together of so many people, the Philippine Government traditionally declares the last part of that week as a national holiday. It is not uncommon to see young men dragging wooden crosses on their backs through the streets, followed by groups of people chanting and carrying candles. In more extreme cases, young men go around beating their backs with whips made from barbed wire and glass and a few even allow themselves to be nailed through the hands and feet to makeshift crosses with real nails! All of these things are done to show God how much they love him and how sorry they are for their sins! Since it is a holiday, brethren in the Lord's church usually take advantage of the time off to host a number of youth and family camps from one end of the country to the other. We attended a retreat with the Uptown and Southside congregations and for three days we did almost nothing except vacation together with the families of these congregations! We packed up and left the city for a mountain resort that was built into a hillside and has three different swimming pools! There were Scrabble and Boggle matches and the most "formal" thing on the program was eating together! However, you could always find groups of people singing together! It was a very neat experience and the relaxed program was welcomed by all. 
As we prepare for next week’s launching of Session 3, we continue to target families living in the general area of our Bible Study Center location. Since it is now “summer vacation” for the local schools, we decided to host a Vacation Bible School for the local children. Although we wanted to give the kids something to do with their time and teach them some values from the Bible, our main goal was to use this VBS as an avenue to reach the parents. We had over 80 individual kids attend at least one session during the four-day event. This exceeded all of our expectations and the kids enjoyed the classes and various activities of the VBS; especially the singing portions! We took them through the Old Testament story of Joseph. We were especially glad to see about half the parents attend the small “graduation” program we had for the kids last Saturday morning. 
We are currently in the middle of another enrollment week seminar here at the Center. We enlisted the help of “Grandpa Wilkey” to come back down here once more before he flies back to Texas. This seminar is on the books of Philemon and Colossians. Dad's James seminar went very well and quite a few of those who attended enrolled in Session 2. We are hoping that this one will do the same for our Session 3 enrollment. Please pray for the success of the seminar and for our strength and wisdom to help our students understand God’s will! 
Our “member courses” are moving along very well. We have two groups studying The Sermon on the Mount, one behind the other, and a new third batch is due to begin next week. We try very hard to get new Christians into an immediate study of this material and since we have so many who need it, we are going to start getting the local church members teaching the classes! This a very exciting develpoment for the Lord's work! 
The Greek students are agonizing under the “immersion” they are getting in their advanced studies. They are half way through reviewing and expanding what they covered in their first year of study, but this time in a mere twelve weeks! They are still breathing but the challenge is beginning to show through. Another six weeks and they will face what could be the most difficult exam of their lives! (That is not a joke either!) 
