I'm terribly sorry for not updating yous in a while, things have been a little hectic lately!
The team is still going strong. Our ministries are a bit slower here in the Philippines, but we are seeing God move in new and exciting ways every day. We have been painting a mission house, discipling youth and participating in feeding programs up in the mountains. We have the privilege of enjoying great food cooked by Pastor Pats daughter (training to be a chef) every day, there is internet a bit more accessible than in PNG & it is easier to communicate with the Filipino's in english. On one of our days of we got to see a famous volcano that erupted only a few years ago. We are also planning on swimming with whale sharks!
I, Claudy am no longer with the team. It was very hard to leave them behind, but I had to go back and staff the next school they are running on the Sunshine Coast. Jonathan is in control and I'm sure the girls are managing just fine :) They are all extremely mature and wise women and I trust that they will make the rest of the trip awesome together.
I will try to keep yous updated with the information that I am receiving. The team has 9 more days of outreach in the Philippines until they head back to Australia for a week and a half ish debrief time. The rain has finally calmed here on the "Sunny" Coast and we are praying for excellent weather in the couple of weeks that we have to rest and catch up here.
Thank you so much for your prayers, they are highly appreciated!
Love in Christ,
Claudy
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Greetings from the Philippines!
The team arrived here safe and sound wednesday morning and was welcomed by Pastor Pat and his wonderful family. We are staying in a city called Naga, a 45 minute flight from Manila which is the capital city. The first thing we saw stepping out of the tiny plane was a huge volcano surrounded by beautiful green landscape. Something that we have learned on this outreach is that no matter how bad humans have messed up this planet and no matter how much poverty we have created, nothing can take away the beauty of God’s creation. Both Papua New Guinea and The Philippines is mind blowing in spite of it’s horrible poverty issues.
We will be staying in Pastor Pat’s house for the rest of our outreach. He has got lots of different ministry opportunities for our team, we are very exited to see how God wants to use us here during the next few weeks. It will not be as intense as our schedule in Papua New Guniea, but we will face many new challenges of different kinds so please pray for patience and cheerful hearts no matter what gets thrown our way.
Again I must say that I am so incredibly proud of my awesome team. We are still getting along great, becoming more and more like family each day. It has been great to see God move in each of their lives throughout this challenging journey.
Please keep praying for unity, love and joy within our team. We are also praying for open minds and that we will not compare these new experiences with our old ones. Our desire is to see the world through God’s eyes and to love like He loves. We want to become selfless and wholeheartedly live in His purpose and will for our lives.
I will try to update this blog weekly. We appreciate your prayers more than you know! Thank you also for all the encouraging comments!
God bless!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
CHRISTMAS & NEW YEARS!
Hello Everyone!
Where to begin! Our original plan was to visit a village up in the mountains over Christmas, but doors kept closing for us so we ended up going to a different village inland in stead. We traveled 6 hours by "car" (on the back of a truck sitting on top of each other and other Pgians) Then we traveled about 1 hour by banana boats through thick jungle to get to a small village called Lelefiru. We can`t even begin to tell you how happy we are that God changed our plans. There was about 400 people living in this village, there was no electricity, no shower, weird and interesting foods and they drink rain water. The people of the village share everything and all have different roles in the community.It was so unreal for us to actually experience this kind of living and we have learned so much from these people. We were the first missionaries to visit their village and for many of them we were the first white people they had ever seen. They were a bit scared of us to begin with! During the 2 first days of our stay we tried building relationships with the youth of the village, we gardened with them, went fishing, made weird food, chased funny bugs, ate lots of coconuts etc. The village had a church community, but only old people were involved. They asked us to run the whole christmas service on the 25th which was such an honor and extremely challenging (and fun) for our team. After christmas we had a week to do whatever ministry we felt like doing for the youth so we created a mini DTS. We had lectures every morning that week. We had split up the main topics that we learned about in DTS and we all taught on different subjects. This was an amazing opportunity for us all and we all grew and learned so much. At night we also put on night meetings where we shared our faith on a more personal level. During the day we would spend time getting to know them and teaching them more about our faith and the love of God. We had a very busy schedule, basically doing ministry 24/7, but we know that we are backed up with lots of prayer and we really appreciate that! One night we did communion in our night lecture and we invited people to get prayer. More than 30 people decided that they wanted togive their lives to Christ and have a personal relationship with Him. It was a beautiful night and our team was in such awe of God`s mighty power and love. The next day (after a lot of convincing the religious elders of the church) they allowed us to offer baptism to anyone who really wanted that. The next day after our last day lectures we explained and offered it and 9 people ended up making the decision to get baptized!
We had 12 UNDESCRIBABLE days in the village that we will never forget. We have seen God move in such AMAZING ways and we are still in awe of what just happened in that village. I have little time to go into detail or even read through this so im sorry for all the spelling mistakes!
Now we are back in Port Moresby for 3 days of debrief and rest and we are heading to the Philippines on the 4th. I am SO proud of this team. They have been going strong every day of this outreach and they have put their whole hearts into every ministry we have done. Our days have been super long and draining, but we have had no complaing of any kind. I can`t even begin to tell you parents how VERY proud you should be of your kids. The stuff that we have seen and participated in is extremely challenging and our hearts have been touched deeply in so many ways. Please keep praying for us, your prayers really is our fuel and we appreciate it so much!
We will have more time to get online in the Philippines so we`ll tell yous more then! We hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Years! Greetings from the jungle!
Where to begin! Our original plan was to visit a village up in the mountains over Christmas, but doors kept closing for us so we ended up going to a different village inland in stead. We traveled 6 hours by "car" (on the back of a truck sitting on top of each other and other Pgians) Then we traveled about 1 hour by banana boats through thick jungle to get to a small village called Lelefiru. We can`t even begin to tell you how happy we are that God changed our plans. There was about 400 people living in this village, there was no electricity, no shower, weird and interesting foods and they drink rain water. The people of the village share everything and all have different roles in the community.It was so unreal for us to actually experience this kind of living and we have learned so much from these people. We were the first missionaries to visit their village and for many of them we were the first white people they had ever seen. They were a bit scared of us to begin with! During the 2 first days of our stay we tried building relationships with the youth of the village, we gardened with them, went fishing, made weird food, chased funny bugs, ate lots of coconuts etc. The village had a church community, but only old people were involved. They asked us to run the whole christmas service on the 25th which was such an honor and extremely challenging (and fun) for our team. After christmas we had a week to do whatever ministry we felt like doing for the youth so we created a mini DTS. We had lectures every morning that week. We had split up the main topics that we learned about in DTS and we all taught on different subjects. This was an amazing opportunity for us all and we all grew and learned so much. At night we also put on night meetings where we shared our faith on a more personal level. During the day we would spend time getting to know them and teaching them more about our faith and the love of God. We had a very busy schedule, basically doing ministry 24/7, but we know that we are backed up with lots of prayer and we really appreciate that! One night we did communion in our night lecture and we invited people to get prayer. More than 30 people decided that they wanted togive their lives to Christ and have a personal relationship with Him. It was a beautiful night and our team was in such awe of God`s mighty power and love. The next day (after a lot of convincing the religious elders of the church) they allowed us to offer baptism to anyone who really wanted that. The next day after our last day lectures we explained and offered it and 9 people ended up making the decision to get baptized!
We had 12 UNDESCRIBABLE days in the village that we will never forget. We have seen God move in such AMAZING ways and we are still in awe of what just happened in that village. I have little time to go into detail or even read through this so im sorry for all the spelling mistakes!
Now we are back in Port Moresby for 3 days of debrief and rest and we are heading to the Philippines on the 4th. I am SO proud of this team. They have been going strong every day of this outreach and they have put their whole hearts into every ministry we have done. Our days have been super long and draining, but we have had no complaing of any kind. I can`t even begin to tell you parents how VERY proud you should be of your kids. The stuff that we have seen and participated in is extremely challenging and our hearts have been touched deeply in so many ways. Please keep praying for us, your prayers really is our fuel and we appreciate it so much!
We will have more time to get online in the Philippines so we`ll tell yous more then! We hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Years! Greetings from the jungle!
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