Merry Christmas!!

Celia

My helper, Celia, has been having a small bible study in her home for several months now. One of our seminary graduates, Judy, has actually been leading it. There are about six of them that meet regularly. A couple months ago, Judy told me that Celia and the other women in the bible study all prayed to receive Jesus as their savior. All of these ladies are great Catholic women, but didn't know that Jesus was their High Priest and that they could go directly to God through Him. It was a great day!

Then last week, Celia came to me with a heavy heart. One of the ladies in the bible study with her, named Tata, has been without work for quite some time now, and times are really hard for Tata. Celia asked if it would be OK to give one of her work days to Tata, who has worked in many peoples homes. I was fine with that. Mostly, though, I was really touched by Celia being willing to give up one day of work for her friend to have one day. Celia makes about $7/day, and she is a little on the high end for her line of work.

We made a plan for Tata to come and help Celia on Wednesdays. Wednesday came and Tata didn't show up. We weren't sure what happened, so Celia went out to find out what happened. She was excited when she came back. As soon as Celia had offered to Tata the extra day, someone had contacted Tata for a part time job...not just one day a week, but 4 days!

God provided for Tata, but most importantly, for Celia, God showed her that sometimes when we surrender and do what he asks of us, we get it back in return. Not only did Celia get the peace of offering the day to Tata, but she also got the financial assurance that God is still looking out for her finances.

Trust God with your finances! :)

Where does the time go???

I really am not sure how we have been here already five months. It has zoomed by!
The boys safely arrived the end of July after a great summer staying with their Aunt Elaina and Uncle Ric. We basically got them off the airplane, showered and sent them off to school (actually there was a couple days in between). All four of our kids are going to school at the same place, as Mari has started pre-school there! It is really fun! This is the only year it will ever happen :)
We spent the summer months with two different college interns. One from PLNU, Kate, and one from NNU, Ryan. It was such a blessing having them here with us this summer. It is so fun orienting people to the Philippines, showing them the fun differences and similarities to our home culture.Andy got the opportunity of going to Thailand with his volleyball team. They played in a tournament with other Asian schools and got 3rd place! We are excited for them and for the great opportunity they had of going and being a witness to the other teams there. He enjoys playing volleyball, but both Andy and Luke are counting down the days until they can start playing rugby. They LOVE that!

Eric and I worked together and provided childbirth education classes to three couples all associated with APNTS. It was a lot of fun working together, teaching and encouraging them. One of the couples delivered a beautiful little girl three weeks ago. We got to meet her for the first time today at church and it felt like we were meeting a little niece.

We got to spend some time with some friends from Papua New Guinea while they passed through Manila. We tried to collect several of us who had been to PNG at one time or another, and shared a meal together in our home. It was a fairly large crowd :) (plus a couple extras).

The gang in Eric's office is ramping up to do a call campaign for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM). They will be making phone calls via the internet to every local churches missions president, across the US, almost 5000 people! This is the fourth year the group has done this call campaign. The intention is to make the missions presidents aware of available materials to help get the word out about NCM and the World Evangelism Fund. Each phone call includes a "real-time" prayer between the caller and the missions president. Once again, we get to experience the mission field calling "home." Please be praying for this group as they prepare for this awesome opportunity. The first calls will begin on October 18th.

These past seven weeks have been riddled with sickness in our home. With the exception of about 6 days, there has been someone in bed with a fever and aches and pains. Our schedules had to be adjusted quite a bit. Luke has just come down with it again last Wednesday. There are a lot of people really fighting sickness this month. We know that several of you have been lifting our health up to the Lord, and we really appreciate it.

Thank you all for the way you keep us in your prayers. It is essential!

May God grow you and bless you today!

In service together,
Eric and Linda

As time goes by...

We have had a few fun experiences lately that have been encouraging to us.

We joined the youth church that meets in the backyard of our old home. We were unsure of how they were doing. We just dropped in on them and surprised them. There were approximately 20 people there. We were thrilled to see them functioning on their own. We really believe that our primary job is to encourage and pray, side by side with the people the Lord puts in our paths. They were working on scripture memorization and singing and praying for one another. God is working still amongst them. Please continue to pray for the Sampalukan Nazarene Church!

This weekend, we were able to go up into the mountains to the town of Baguio. Eric and the IT team went up to the Luzon Nazarene Bible College to do an assessment of their computer needs. The team plans to do a work and witness trip up there in the next few months. We attended church at the Pico Church of the Nazarene while we were there. This church suffered terribly back in October when a typhoon (hurricane) caused landslides in their area. The church lost 16 members in just a few moments. It was good to be with them and see that they are healing. It was good to see how they are moving forward in their spiritual lives. God is at work among them. Please pray for the believers and pre-believers in the Pico church and surrounding area, as they continue to heal.

I love how God continues to work day in and day out. I personally prefer quick answers and solutions, but a lot of time we just have to keep going and wait for what is to come. As time goes by, God continues to be Lord of the universe and King of Kings.
I am reminded of Isaiah 40:28-31
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

It is always fun to look back and see the places where the Lord has worked over time. It gives me courage for tomorrow :)

"Vacation" is over!

We have safely returned to the Philippines from our home assignment. Our travels were completely uneventful and everything went smooth as silk. The flight from San Francisco was not very crowded and the kids each got to sprawl out and sleep. We have left the two big boys back in the care of their Aunt Elaina to finish out their school semester and to work for the summer. This is an interesting new phase for our family. The boys are excited about it and are enjoying themselves so far.

We have been unpacking lots of boxes as we are moving into our new home. God has given us a great blessing of a beautiful home up on a hill, with a beautiful view, and a beautiful breeze! We are so very thankful for our new place. The Field Strategy Coordinator and his wife will be moving back to the states in August, and they previously resided here, but moved out early so that we could settle in. We are truly grateful to them for going to that effort. This is also the same home that we went to after our other house flooded back in September.

Eric will be going back to the office tomorrow, and he is eager to dive back in. I will be heading to the clinic also. We have missed our friends and are eager to get caught up on what has happened in peoples lives while we have been away.

Our home assignment time was wonderful! It was a real time of spiritual renewal for both of us. After we arrived back in the states around Christmas, we were both very "spent." We did take our vacation at the beginning of our home assignment and basically just spent it recovering and being with family and celebrating Christmas.

We were blessed to speak 45 different time while in the states, and each time we got to be with members of the body of Christ. It always amazes me how fabulous the Followers of Christ are. We really enjoy meeting our brothers and sisters. We were so happy to connect with so many of you. Of course, we were grieved to not be able to connect with so many of you.

One great story we would like to share with you from our home assignment happened in Fowlerville, Michigan. Fowlerville Church has been especially kind to us. When we were there in their church, they took us to a place called Christian Resource International http://cribooks.homestead.com/ and told us to pick out 300lbs of books and they would send them to us in the Philippines! In the warehouse, there was a language section with a small section of Tagalog. As Eric glanced at the small section, he noticed a Tagalog Bible, just like the one he lost when our house flooded. Who would have ever suspected that in Michigan, there would be a Tagalog Bible! We were also able to replace the Bible Andy lost in the flood. It was such an exciting time picking out books that we knew would be of benefit to our peers here in the Philippines.

Many people think that furlough, or home assignment is a time of vacation. As I already mentioned, we spoke 45 times between January 31 and May 1, and we were in ten different states: California, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma. We successfully had two surgeries (both minor), and several medical and dental check-ups and procedures. We home-schooled our kids in the middle of all that (thanks to the help of Eric's sister, Elaina), and got Mari to ballet when we were in the area. Sound like your dream vacation? I must say, the lovely beaches on the Philippines are calling my name very loudly!

Sunday, we had the joy of going to a special Family Camp service where many of the youth from the church that was organized in our back yard, Sampalukan Nazarene Church, were in attendance. There was a time of testimony, and Mark Anthony, the leader of the Sampalukan church, stood and shared with all of us. As tears were streaming down his 17 year old face, he shared with us how God has been changing and transforming his heart. He expressed his gratitude to many of us who have been shepherding and discipling him. It was a beautiful thing to see and hear. Please continue to pray for Mark Anthony as he leads the church.

We are so happy to be back. God has really been gracious and kind to us in preparing us for our return, Thank you to all of you who have joined with us in this journey. Thank you so much for your prayers! They are more precious to us than anything! Thank you to all of you who have given financially, in this tough, tough time. We pray that God will show you His faithfulness as you obey his promptings.

God bless you all!

Ephesians 4:1 "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."