All's Well That Ends Well

So our time in the Philippines has come to a close. We were in San Pascual for the 5 weeks and it was amazing. We both really enjoyed the culture - especially the missionary family that is pioneering the YWAM base in the province of Batangas.

After our mini-vacation, we continued with the same ministry as before - "friendship evangelism" in Santa Clara, campus ministry and kids programs in Balayong. The final part of our schedule was a three-day trip to Libjo, in a Badjao community. The Badjaos are a Filipino minority, originally from Mindanao. Well-known as "sea-dwellers," the Badjaos are deep-rooted in Islam and have a long history of displacement (it is actually uncertain where this minority originated). Here, they are known as the modern-day "gypsies" of the Philippines -with no real place to call home, they are either on the streets or living in shacks along the sea.

We actually only spent one night with our team for the Badjao trip. The youth from one of the local churches invited us to attend a Valentine's Day fundraiser dinner, so we left the Badjao community for that and the following day we spoke at the Love, Courtship and Marriage seminar in Batangas City. We shared our testimonies and participated in a panel Q&A with one other couple on love (we know a little), courtship (we don't really know what that is), and marriage (the other couple was 44 years more seasoned than us in that department). It was a great experience though - and we were so happy to get the chance to work with young people. We also really connected with the youth at CCFI, the church that held the Valentine's Day dinner - and were able to spend the next day at church with them while the rest of our team was in the Badjao community.

We returned to South Africa on Thursday, February 18 and spent our last week in a small community called Loerie. We were really blessed there with organized ministry and great hosts - it was the perfect way to end our outreach. We spent the entire week holding mini Young Life-style clubs each night for the senior youth and ended with a program on Friday night that was open to the whole community. Also, in South Africa, Christian teaching is embraced by schools so we went into the school twice to perform dramas in their morning assembly and speak in the classrooms. The community seemed really excited to have us there and sad to see us go and we left feeling like we had really made an impact on some of the young people. Brian and one guy, Theo, really hit it off. They spent a lot of time together outside organized ministry talking about what it is to follow God and set an example. As one of the older guys in the community, Theo has such potential to set the pace for the rest of the youth in the future.

We arrived in Jeffrey's Bay last night around 11. We have a couple days to debrief with the other two teams and then we graduate on Wednesday. We're glad to be back and ready for round 2 - the BCC. It's hard to believe we're only at half-way point! We're also looking into outreach for the World Cup. We are trying to get in with Justice Acts, an organization doing anti-human trafficking work, to do work while we are in town for the games. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we try to sort out the details for the second half of our time here, Biblical Core Course and World Cup Outreach. Hopefully we will be able to give you more frequent and detailed updates now that our bouncing around is done. We will let you know more about the BCC and the Justice Acts work as we make arrangements with those organizations. We're really excited to see what God has for us over these next few months and even more excited to be back home with you all in July!