Missionary work report

Posted by: wrguptill on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Original members A BIG THANK YOU FROM A LITTLE CHURCH

New church for Cabar
God has blessed the little Cabar church near our land in many ways lately. They would like to send their thanks to each of you who have helped our project which has also benefited them in many ways! First of all, they praise God for the donation for the building of their new church! (Their present church is literally crumbling down with termites!) We encouraged them to step out in faith and start planning even though they had put in all they had which didn't amount to much in starting to even build. They are now praising God for being able to focus their energies on their 37 new members from the recent baptisms and begin the process of building without worrying about where they will get the money.

Perilous missionary work
The Cabar church is (or was!) small but very active in outreach and missionary work to their native Palawano neighbors who are even less fortunate than they are. We facilitate them with their missionary work wherever we can with transportation, Bibles, literature, picture rolls, nurturing, etc. We are helping a couple church members specifically in their missionary work. One man (brother Nitz) and his family, we are helping especially to be able to spend more time doing missionary work by paying him a full week's wages while he works on our land only 3 days a week. His family has started a new church in a nearby village where many of the baptisms were from. They also come together to meet once a month with the other members at Cabar church. This is the same family that has endured rocks and spears being thrown at them as they do their missionary work. The man that threw the stones at them has just recently killed another man and is now in prison. Pray for this man and Brother Nitz as he plans to visit him in prison soon.

Health workers class
We are also teaching a health workers class to the church members and their older children so they can not only help their neighbors who are desperately needing their help, but they can also know how to better take care of their own families. It's a lot of fun. The class is growing and they are learning to put their skills into practice as patients are also increasing! There are about 12-15 regularly attending even though many of them have to hike for several hours even to get to class!

Sponsored students
Thanks to your support, this church now also has 2 promising students being sponsored to the Adventist Academy a few hours north of here. We see them often on weekends when they come to visit. They are doing very well and getting good grades (despite the financial challenges just to pay for their food and basic needs) and they are very thankful for the great opportunity God has given them.

Standing room only
It's exciting to see the work grow. We smile each time we visit the Cabar church and have to stand or sit on the ground in the back or outside with all the other "old" church members, while the new church members fill the only few wooden "pews" they have in the church.

Learning how to worship
It's so rewarding to see the new believers coming to church with excitement in their eyes. It is also encouraging to watch the "old" church members teaching the new church members in practical ways how to have worship with their families. Even the young teenagers are helping the new members, showing them gently how to pray and sing and read from the Bible.

Praise God for His blessings on this little Cabar church, and on behalf of them, Thank YOU so much for letting God use you to make it happen!

Dwayne and Wendy