Monthly Newsletter | April 2021

Greetings from the Philippines! We appreciate your prayer and support and want to update you on the exciting events that occurred during the month of April at our churches in the Philippines.

 

The month of April was a really strong month for us and we were able to just push past 3,000 salvations year to date between our ministries. Once we move past April, the weather becomes very difficult with the heat and potential rains. As a result, we wanted to make a big push in April for soulwinning before we move in to the more difficult months.

 

We also talked to other churches here in the Philippines and we decided we wanted to bring back the     Soulwinning Mega Marathon as part of the New IFB that we had participated in during Easter weekend of 2019. We did make a few changes that we thought would help us maximize results in our area. In the Philippines, Easter weekend is basically a holiday for several straight days. So we decided to count results from Wednesday - Sunday during that week. I didn’t expect us to set a record for souls saved due to the strict lockdown measures in place. However, we were able to get over 300 salvations that week which was a new record. In addition to that, between all of the soulwinning groups throughout Asia, we were able to get over 1,000 total salvations. It was a great success and we look forward to bigger and better results next year!

 

April was a difficult month for sickness in our churches. I personally was sick and had to have people guest preach for me but also many members and families missed some services due to sickness. Where I grew up in West Virginia, people tended to get sick during the wintertime. However, here in a very hot country, it’s actually the summertime where you have to make sure you take care of your body and when you are more likely to get sick. I am advising people to rest if they are not feeling well and to go out soulwinning for shorter times if they do not feel able to go out as long as they normally do. 

 

We finished up the Book of Hosea in April. Along with the preaching in Hosea, we had a Bible Memorization Challenge to memorize through the Book of Hosea. Challenge A was to memorize and quote word for word perfectly the first chapter of Hosea.    Challenge B was to memorize the entire book and quote it word for word perfectly. For Challenge B, you don’t have to quote the entire book perfectly at one time but every individual chapter you must quote perfectly. We were very happy to see many people complete Challenge B and then others were able to quote a various number of chapters as well. It’s a challenge we decided to start because I wanted to push myself to memorize all of the chapters that I’ll be preaching from.

 

We are going to have a bit of a break until our next memorization challenge of 1st John. I will be preaching through 1st John after we finish up Romans. There is probably not a book with more complicated verses  regarding salvation than 1st John. I think it will be a good book for all of us to dig into and make sure we have answers to people who try to subtly add works to salvation. In addition to that, we are currently   preaching through a series called “False Philosophies” which we will be in for a while. I encourage you to check out that sermon series on our YouTube!

 

Our family just moved to Pampanga at the end of April. It’s already been a good transition for us. The kids have more room to play at our new house and we’ve been able to do extra soulwinning with the church here in Pampanga.

 

Thank you for partnering with our ministry and please let us know if you need anything. Below are some pictures from our soulwinning and fellowship events that occurred in April!