Summer Camp

The 5th annual Waray-Waray Summer Camp was a great success.  More than 160 attended from all over Leyte & Samar islands, mostly young people.  Great news: God blessed the Camp with ten baptisms!  What a blessing!  Most of these were young people who were influenced by the wonderful church at Tunga.  I was blessed to give one of the main lectures, and had a lot of fun at the Camp.  There were games, singing contests, a wonderful lunch provided by the ladies at the Tunga church, and just a lot of great fellowship.  Nathan had a great time too as he was one of those responsible for helping to plan some of the games, and he also participated in the singing contests.  All in all, a great day.  We left in the early morning and didn't get back home Saturday night until 8pm.  Thanks to organizers Reuel Belo (LCC instructor) and Rolando Quibedo for making this great Camp a success.  Thanks to God for the increase of ten souls.  The Camp ended on Sunday afternoon.

The Latest

Since the end of the recent school year and our first-ever graduation on April 7, 2012, we have had a break from teaching classes.  Our summer in the Philippines has been nice.  The weather actually has not been as hot as it could be, and we have had some frequent rains here in Tacloban which has cooled things down a bit.  We have been busy even though school is not yet in session.  Of course, there is always the attention to the construction on campus.  Right now our crew is finishing up a new girl's dormitory which was an absolute necessity.  We were "full up" in our two small girl's dorms during the last semester.  We only graduated one young lady so we were not going to have room for the new girls when classes open on June 13.  Thus, this new dorm was absolutely necessary.  Thanks to a generous donor at Southwest Church in Amarillo (our sponsor) for the funds for this new dorm.  We are also busy working on the road up in to campus.  This road is probably half a mile and we want to have a good road for those times when the whether is bad (rain & mud).  Plus, there are still a few finishing touches to be done on the main building, although it is fully functional at this time.  All rooms will be in use when school starts.  We have also been busy with preparing our new lectures.  We had to take a trip to Cebu to renew Nathan's U.S. passport (which took the whole day almost to process).  While in Cebu we were blessed to be able to attend the wedding of Jessica Bacante, our first female graduate.  There have also been chores around the house which get neglected somehow during the school year.  So we have been somewhat busy this summer.  That is about to come to close however, as we begin welcoming the returning students very soon.  Actually one young lady will return this weekend (early).  So far, more than 40 young people have taken the entrance exam to apply for admission at Leyte Christian College.  At this point, 16 have passed the exam and been accepted.  More are sure to follow as there will be more exams administered in the next couple of weeks.  I want to thank LCC instructor Jun Patindol for doing much of the recruiting for us.  This weekend, I have been blessed to give one of the key addresses at the annual Waray Summer Camp, in Tunga, Leyte.  My topic is "God Is Bigger Than My Problems."  Thanks to all of our supporters.  By the way, if you are reading this please make a comment or check one of the boxes (interesting, like, etc.).  Give us some feedback if possible.  Blessings to all!

Moving Ahead

Words just cannot express our joy at the successful graduation of our first nine young people at Leyte Christian College. Several of us have been moved to tears in the past few days, and we are so thankful for this wonderful opportunity to mold the hearts & minds of so many young people into the image of Christ. Thank you, supporters, for this blessing & this opportunity. As we now prepare to move ahead and begin planning for the future, there are many bright lights on the horizon. Now that we have graduated one class, that helps us on the road to accreditation. And our building being 99 percent complete, another hurdle is about to be cleared. Good things are happening here, including evangelism. Our team excels in that area! So much fruit has already been reaped from those labors. One last thing: If there are good folks who might be willing & able to help us financially, we could really use your valuable assistance. Growth is an inevitable consequence of the success we are having here, and we need more great supporters. Please consider us if you could possibly help.

A Great Day In Our History

Several years of hard work finally reaped some major fruit this past Saturday as Leyte Christian College graduated its first batch of students. Nine young people walked the stage and received their diplomas for a Bachelor's of Arts degree in Bible (see pictures). We are so proud of them all, for their hard work and sticking to it, and we are also so blessed by what they represent: the first crop of LCC graduates who will "go into all the world and preach the Gospel" and bear fruit for the Lord for many many years to come. We are confident in each of them and in their abilities. Four of them will stay on and work as staff at LCC and help us to evangelize this area for the Lord. Thanks to all of our great supporters for helping to make this become a reality through your prayers, words of encouragement, and financial support. We are blessed by you! This success and fruit from our labors is also your success and your fruit, for we could not have done any of this without you. We also want to thank those great friends & supporters from Southwest Church of Christ in Amarillo for coming and taking part in the ceremony: Doyle Corder, Roger Wilcox, DeWayne Trimble, and Aaron Lopez. Thank you all, and thank you Southwest for being our sponsor. We are so blessed by you!

New Blessings

Thanks to our great God and to our supporters for the new blessings. We now have a better school vehicle for Leyte Christian College after our old one "gave up the ghost." It is a small truck but has covered seats on the side, enough to sit six people. And it is four-wheel drive. It is truly a blessing. And another wonderful blessing that has been so long in coming is our new road. We had a bulldozer come in and level the old road, then we ordered 150 loads of gravel and large stones, and have compacted them using a steamroller. All this past month I have been able to drive my car right up to the door of our new building. Just awesome! And this was so needed. Before this our old road was just destroying all our vehicles, including my car. Now we anticipate soon we will have a permanent road which will be a smooth ride. Thanks to all our supporters for helping fund this road. We still have a debt to pay for part of the 150 loads of gravel, however. If you or your congregation could help with this, it would be much appreciated. Thank you all for your support and for your vital prayers.

Several Baptisms

God is so good! He has blessed us with fruits from our labors with ten baptisms in the last couple of weeks. This past Saturday, March 17, saw six baptisms in the Pacific Ocean just one hundred yards from the LCC campus, including three of our construction workers on our new big building. Arnold Narsico, the foreman of the crew and a really good guy, was immersed into Christ, as was one of the lead masons, John Ricky Belarde, another good guy. Arnold is from Cebu and is here for the construction but John Ricky lives in Baghapi, the next village up the highway from us. Jennifer Makabata of Tagpuro was also baptized last week and we are happy about another resident of Tagpuro being added to the Lord. Tagpuro is the village where LCC is located. Then yesterday, another person in Baghapi was baptized - her name is "Niece" incredible as that may seem. So yesterday, Sunday, March 18, a small congregation was born in Baghapi, meeting in the small house of one of the new members there. One of our LCC students, Jeron Pabian, led the worship and did the preaching. We have been so blessed with this new crop of converts. Thanks to all of you, our great supporters, for helping make this a reality.

Graduation Nearing

Hello friends! Sorry it has been so long since we posted here. We had a wonderful February with our daughter Lauren and her husband Jordan here with us since late December. They have gone back to the U.S. now as Lauren begins the application process of trying to get into a medical school. Please pray for her in this endeavor. I can tell you they loved their stay here in the Philippines, almost ten weeks. They both taught classes here at Leyte Christian College, and loved it. Speaking of LCC, our first-ever graduation is only three weeks away! Exciting times! We anticipate nine young people will be walking the stage and becoming the first ever grads and alums of Leyte Christian College. Some of the guys already have preaching positions waiting for them after they graduate, and we are so proud of them. Graduation day is April 7, and what a great day it will be! We will be sure to take plenty of pictures and share them here. Thank you to all of our great supporters for your help during these past four years, getting us now to the point where we are producing preachers! What a blessing!