Update for January 5, 2008
Happy New Year!
Palawan Base is happy to share to you the many ways in which we experience the joy of seeing results to the little things we do in His Kingdom.
THE DUMP SITE
Through HANDS, the ministry that reaches for families living and finding livelihood in our City’s garbage dump site, we now have 11 believers and 8 new persons the staffs are still working on. Sammy, one of the 11 and though whose wife left him is one of the DTS students this year. The feeding program, mostly for children, continues every Friday. We also have health workers assisting their health/medical needs.
Life is very tough in the Dump and is especially hard this time. We are planning to conduct cooking training for mothers. We realized that if they will cook something and sell those to the public, it will sell hard because the items come from the Dump. We are praying to be able to acquire the cooking facility ourselves and have these mothers cook in the base so that we can monitor the hygiene of their products and encourage buyers. We are excited!
Mar, who came from a similar background and is doing a great job as a father of his two (soon to be 3) kids, will conduct a parenting seminar to these families.
THE DTS…
We conducted various Christmas Programs for the Dump Site community and our sponsored students’ families. It was not as much in material things as past celebrations but it has more message and response from the people.
The outreach season was very satisfying where in one day nine people accepted Jesus and 25 others heard a good presentation of the gospel message. Hallelujah!!!
The DTS, for its weekly outreach, will alternate between our Dump Site feeding program and personal evangelism in a nearby High School. Tribal DTS will resume on the last week of January.
Prayer Points: Lectures, School fees, Positive life-change and coming mid-outreach in the tribes.
THE TRIBES…
After a long period of seeing only few visiting teams, we have two of them coming within a month of each other. One team of 8 is from the Honolulu DTS. The other team of 15 young people from Australia is coming to do a Summer of Service (SOS) by building our tribal dormitory and remodeling our training area. The buildings will be used by our tribal DTS, sponsored students and visiting teams.
Teams are also to visit the nearby schools for evangelism and our tribal villages in the high land to assist our tribal workers in their ministries. Teams are a blessing to us.
Prayer Points: Seeds planted will grow, our Tribal DTS students, protection, and more workers
THE STUDENTS
We used to only get our sponsored students from the tribes and our Dumpsite ministry. Our DTS early this year had students that want to improve their lot in life but their families can’t afford helping them. They are also trained enough to be workers. We felt we cannot just abandon them, so we took them in our sponsorship program. This is a challenge because we know that those we already have are not receiving enough support yet.
We have lost several of our tribal sponsored students to the pressures of marriage. This was heartbreaking for those of us who mentored them. Lately, a number of those who left came back expressing their brokenness about where their life is now. Somehow, this made us see that the years with them were not in vain. How encouraging!!!
Prayer Points: Growth in their relationship with God, ministry with the parents and finances.
We are counting on you to continue praying for us. We have heard God’s promises for us this coming year. Our greatest desire is to know God more and also for lots of opportunities to make Him known. Blessings!
YWAMPPC by Barbie Calo
DUMPSITE MINISTRY: The City government of Puerto Princesa City reacted to a complaint about scavengers in the City dumpsite getting sick by closing the dumpsite for scavenging. These has affected the source of livelihood for many of the people in the dump. Our staff are praying for a way to help these families. During our last feeding program held in a local Church, more than the usual people showed up because they are really hungry. The weekly Bible studies also have more participants. Please pray that we shall have wisdom how to assist in their spiritual and physical development.
TRIBES: We rejoice for the worldwide support to our Medical/Dental mission last September. We have organized this in response to an epidemic that claimed the lives of some village folks. About 260 people were treated by our two doctors and 64 people were helped by our two dentist. This was the biggest response we've ever had, so we only realized at the end of the day that we did not have time to talk to the people about God. We kind of felt sad about it but resolved to do some follow-up.
A lot of people still came to our operating location in the tribe to ask for medical assistance. In all these times, the staff faithfully saw to it that these people will have someone share the gospel with them. Our tribal workers who had done the DTS in the past were such a help in this. Praise God that we have enough medicines, even for now. One of the Barangay Health Workers (BHW) is working closely with us to check the people and decide which medicines are needed.
Missionary/Pastor friends from Malaysia came to take part in the medical mission. They also conducted training for workers and Pastors ifrom the various villages. We are happy to see that many came to participate.
DTS: Praise God for our 7 students of the tribal DTS and 6 students of the City DTS successful completion of the training. They were such a blessing to the places they have worked, in Palawan and IndoChina. All the tribal students continue working with us in their various areas and they meet once a month for encouragement and planning. The Staff are now on training and preparing for the opening of the November school in the City and another tribal DTS this December. Rene Makin(from tribal DTS ) committed to staff in our tribal DTS while Aiza Joy Galanga(from City DTS) will staff the City DTS.
STUDENT SPONSORSHIP: Two of the students from our City DTS are now with our Student Sponsorship Program. Marysol is in First Year college while Jimson is doing a program that will enable him to finish elementary and High School as fast as he could. These give us a total of 3 college and, 2 High School and 4 elementary students living with us while 10 others in the tribes and another 10 in the dumpsite are receiving assistance but stay with their families. Parents are also meeting regularly with our staff for discipleship.
OTHERS: The base Ministry Leaders are happy to hear from God during the year-end and year 2008 planning time. We have so much favor from God and assurance to face the various challenges. Also. thank God for the success of the joint fellowship last September of YWAMPPC staff with other YWAMers working off base, specially the Frontier workers. They had fun together! Another blessing to us is the visit of Tom Kramer, Robin Wales and later the Mcare workers- Elmarie, Aida and Hong Baek. Thank you so much guys for the encouraging times!
Manungang Aldaw (Good Day)! Please read and be blest....
God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). It is a delight to see the uncomplicated faith the tribal students have of God. And so they come back with much testimonies of God's power.
They started with a lot of challenges. Fear of (land, air and water) travel and finances are just the biggest. They have never done skits, dances or anything like that before. These are things often expected of DTS teams. What they have is the word of God that they should go. They also have some revelations in the form of visions during the prayer times before outreach.
Some of them saw themselves being together in a big boat. They also saw mountains that looked like they have stairs, planted with vegetable gardens. The mountains were like islets and they were in high winding roads. The staff felt this may mean the land of the Northern Philippines. We think it maybe good for them to work among other tribal communities who have embraced change as a natural part of development as a people.
The first hurdle was to take the boat to Manila. We expected them to have difficulty all the way but the excitement of recognizing the boat/ship as the one in their vision encouraged them. Yes, there were a lot of puking and Menan Dulmin(the oldest lady), who is so thin, was almost blown off the boat by a strong wind. No kidding! It was good that the younger Melding was with her and managed to grab her down instinctively. That ended their desire to prominade.
They worked in Balut (Tondo), Baguio City, Bontoc and Dalican (Arthur's tribe/hometown). This meant they were invited in many churches and two jails. In their testimonies, they were so happy to be able to learn how to sing, dance and do skits quickly. Thank God for the teaching gift of the tribal staff: Ria, Jocelyn, Arthur, Eva and even Abigail. But the thing in which God really used them is in their testimonies and evangelistic message. They do have incredible miracle stories and they are very passionate story teller. One of their translator, who is higly educated, was crying while interpreting!
They lost their fear of bus rides, because again, they were noting that everything they passed were the places in their visions. The mountains were the mountains seen in their visions. And yes, they said they can do/will make the same farming style in their own mountains.
For their return journey, they sought God what tranport to take. Money just always came at the right moment for them, but this time they had nothing.
They again saw visions which when the staff heard, realized meant an airplane. Their repeated anthem is the last instruction of the Barbie, the School Leader. "Do not be a Jonah." Meaning, don't try to go the other way when God told you to do something. So they decided to go for airplane. Then the money came and the rest is history. They came home with so much stuff given to them by churches that they almost paid for excess baggage. Arthur went to the PAL airline manager to ask for favor and they were allowed to even put all the baggage they were trying to handcarry. For free!
In our debriefing, we have to warn them to be careful when to give away the goods(which is their reason for bringing everything). We may end up having so many applicants for the next school because of the blessings. They did realize it and planned to not bring up the things in an attention getting way!
All of them will continue to be our ministry partners in their tribe. At least one is praying to become YWAM Staff. Thank you once again for many of you who were a part of this outreach in prayers and gifts. This is truly a special school that not only stretched us but also revived us!
Blessings,
YWAM Palawan by Barbie Calo
CHALLENGES: Malaria has become active in our tribal area. Staff and students suffered from the attack. One of our sponsored student did not immediately take the medication because it does make one feel worse than the sickness itself. The result was that his malaria got worse to the point of driving him "crazy". He had to be hospitalized and later had to undergo psychiatric treatment for depression. Now, he has a long way to go before complete recovery. Otherwise, malaria is not that hard to eradicate and is easily prevented!
Our pursuit of the purchase of a 1000 square meter property for the city ministry is well on its way. Because of how busy this time of the year is for us, we find it difficult to set up meetings with lawyers and the owners. We need to see this done before most of us leave for DTS outreach and we need financial breakthrough also that soon.
VICTORIES: We have six highly motivated all-filipino students in our City DTS, the start of which was delayed to January 29. What worked well is that this school's outreach will be the same time with the last month of outreach of our tribal DTS. We need to plan and prepare only once and we can have two to three teams. Even if the financial challenge is scary and our tribal students are frightened of the trip, we are excited to bring out these students to bless other ministries and places.
We have scheduled another tagalog DTS to cater to the needs of tribal communities. We are committed to see to it that this DTS is as effective and well done as any other school. This will be held in our tribal location and will start on the last week of September. Right now, we already have 8 applicants from our own area. We welcome applicants from other locations so please take note of this information. We do not need to make the DTS difficult and impossible for those who have not enough educational backgrounds!
