Contending for our all

Dr Melba Maggay from CPX on Vimeo.

"I need a deeper rootedness in God, a closer walk with him so that
I am able to hear the thud of his footfall in our history. Amid the
gore, and grime, and grinding poverty, among people who serve
quietly in the armpits of cities, making a space for grace in the
squalor and violent hate, life springs forth from the Word, bringing
a fresh blast of wind, carrying the weary and the wounded on
its wings. . . ." (Filipina theologian, and educator)

How should we respond to the physical and spiritual poverties of our cities? How should we accept our responsibilities as believers of Christ? What should our mindset be? And where is God in the midst the injustices and sins running rampant in our dying city.

(Bethge on Dietrich Bonhoeffer)...The man who felt the whole weight of the pacifist position and weighed the "cost of discipleship" concluded in the depths of his soul that to withdraw from those who were participating in the political and military resistance would be irresponsible cowardice and flight from reality. "Not" as his friend Bethge says, "that he believed that everybody must act as he did, but from where he was standing, he could see no possibility of retreat into any sinless, righteous, pious, refuge. The sin of respectable people reveals itself in flight from responsibility. He saw that sin falling on him, and he took his stand. Here he acted in accord with his fundamental view of ethics, that a Christian must accept his responsibility as a citizen of this world where God has placed him.

We need to win the battles that are being waged inside our hearts and mind and soul. In the midst of the horrors and injustices that are happening around us, we need to step out of our safe zones. That looks different for each of us. In the West, time is a high value. And then there is the "stuff" we hold dear. On the mission field, missionaries in tinted windowed vehicles travel from their subdivisions to their destinations, and no one is the wiser.

(John Owen)...[More important than all ] is a diligent endeavor to have the power of the truths professed and contended for, abiding upon our hearts, that we may not contend for notions, but that we have a practical acquaintance within our own souls. When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth, when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us, when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts, when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for. Then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.

If we are in Christ and he is in us, then we should understand his vision for the city and his people. If God has changed our minds and our hearts, and made our thoughts and affections his, then we are prepared to fight his battles for his people. We have been commissioned to act as his social and spiritual agents to right the injustices of the enemy, bring relief to the sick, hungry, oppressed and down-trodden.

Great lessons can be learned from Melba Maggay, John Owen, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We need to submit our wills and hearts and minds to the teachings of Jesus, and allow the Holy Spirit to rush into our lives and shape our thoughts, hearts and actions. We certainly are not at a want for more evidence of the need. And we have been more than educated and indoctrinated with various teachings in different mediums. We cannot allow the words of the wise, and the teachings of the holy to acquiesce to useless platitudes.

What say you? There are peoples and cities out there to be won for Christ. We are Gods' instruments for change and relief, and He has already won the battle. Rev 17:14 They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful."

"Tragically, the Philippines’ social, economic and political problems
remain dire." Maggay continues, “There is a hardness to evil, a mystery
to its persistence, that cannot be fathomed nor remedied by mere
politics. . . . We continue the fight. Yet we need to mine more deeply
the resources of our faith if we are to make even a small dent in the
monolith of injustice that fazes us.”

Vision, Passion, Compassion

When people get a vision and passion for God, this pours out in compassionate care for people who need physical and emotional relief, and answers to their ultimate concerns. Yesterday I had the privilege to watch 72 volunteers minister physical, emotional and spiritual relief to victims from the recent typhoons and flooding. 400 adults and 300 children received a very clear message of who Jesus Christ is and what he did to save the spiritually lost in this world. "For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoesover believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life".

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he". I am so thankful that my dear friends from Higher Rock church in Manila visited our church and community in Sito Lupang Arenda, Brgy. Santa Ana, Taytay. Our community was recently torn up by the typhoons and floods of the last couple months. Thank you for coming and sharing the revelation of who Jesus Christ is, and how he can save us from the ultimate fires and floods and destruction. And thank you for being such an encouragement to the pastors, their wives, and volunteer staff serving at Jesus Christ the LifeStream Christian Ministries. Maraming Salamat Po Kayo.

Pastors Relief at Talim Island

On Wed, Nov. 17 I visited Talim Island. Many highlights. I met Pastor Noel who shared, "My vision for my church is......"! Those first six words captured me immediately. I love talking with pastors and men who have a vision and passion for God. For Pastor Noel, pastor and educator, he is is beginning with pre-schoolers (ages 3,4,5) and teaching their math, tagalog and english, writing and reading, Bible stories and memorization, and other skills and subjects.......from a Christian perspective. He is educating and training youth before they begin their formal education. And he pastors his church. His school has been in operation for three years and has had 50 students to this time. He is teaching his students to have vision and passion for God, and compassion for all people.

Proverbs 29: 18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Higher Rock visits Arenda

Arenda Medical Relief

I will have more story to come from the floodway in Arenda, Taytay. I wanted to get these pictures off to you. I was out in the crowd talking with the men, working the pharmacy table or running between the exam stations and the pharmacy and the supply truck. We had an incredible day. Great ministry. One of the men I spent time with was an educated man and resident of this neighborhood. He had a degree in Civil Engineering and came to Manila from the Bicol Province 35 years ago. He hoped for a construction job, but became a laborer his whole working life. He raised his family, and proudly introduced his daughter who is a Christian and student at a seminary. He now cooks barbeque chicken and sells it in a street-side stall. We discussed the needs of the community, and he shared the lack of jobs, food and medical care. And obviously the present state of the community with the effects of the typhoon, he is unable to sell bbq chkn. Basically this community has carpentry, masonry, laborers and unemployed living in the community. And many children

Arenda Medical Relief on Friday, Oct 23….There were 150 tickets distributed. All showed up, and then some. Three children, with very bold mothers, were brought to us without tickets, and we accepted them as emergency cases. One had a 104 degree temperature, another had severe ear infection, and another had scratched a skin infection raw and bleeding. A scene that is etched in my memory is of one lady who came in with two children, her eyes were swollen and wet with tears and lack of sleep. As she came down from the examination station to receive her medicines, she was still looking haggard, but her face showed relief and a wide smile. We had to turn no less than 25-50 people away, who had waited 5 hours to see if they would be allowed to get treatment. That was very hard for them, and it was very hard for us. But it was a difficult reality. We could only serve 150 patients in this allotted time.

We treated skin rashes, diarrhea, high temp, and various exposure related conditions. We had a variety of antibiotics, pain and fever relievers, ointments, vitamins, etc.... We had two doctors, a nurse, and a pharmacist. Two doctors who had originally committed to come fell ill that morning. And a bunch of us volunteers were fitting in on a number of tasks. Pastor Bernard spent the first hour sharing from his heart, speaking to this large Catholic community about a relationship with Jesus Christ. Accepting Jesus as their Savior and Lord of their life. Many in the crowd were from families of drug lords (Shabu), gambling (cock fighting), alcoholism and other lords that have separated them from knowing and having a relationship with the living God. Pastor Bernard is gifted and passionate in dealing with the people in his community in the Arenda floodway, Taytay.

This work was a true blessing to the church and volunteers, and to the people in the community. It will strengthen the relationship of Pastor Bernard and the church with their immediate neighborhood and beyond. You will notice water is still in the streets, three weeks after the typhoon. And that water isn't going anywhere soon, with new storms and rains sure to come. This is a critical time. There will be more Typhoons between now and the first week of December. Please pray that this area will be protected from further damage, loss of life, and economic fall-out. Also the health concerns, from malaria, denghue fever, typhoid, and other exposure conditions created by flood waters.

We thank you friends for your prayers and sacrifices. Many have and will come to know the Lord through these calamities and through these relief efforts. This of course is one of the ways God works. His ways are way beyond me, and when he reveals his plans I am stunned by His awesome grace, mercy and provision.

God bless you and take care,

Phil

a note to my gitna

Hey Mags,

I was thinking about you the other day, and could have used you to take some pictures of some great needs.... I was buying supplies at Tikling. I felt a tug on my shirt and heard a voice "P50 for rice". I turned around and a woman was looking up to me with a cup in her hand. Her baby girl was suspended by a sling hanging from her shoulder. I was moved by the reality of this womans situation.

Tikling corners and the vendors, people waiting for public in the shade of phone poles, fruit and veggies, pork and fish, chickens and flies. I couldnt get this picture out of my mind.... the physical need, and her reaching out for help.

I love you gitna, dad

PS..... I had heard about about this video, but had not seen it. This father is very resourceful, cares for the street kids. and provides for his family. With limited resources and options, he is doing the best he can. These are families we are wanting to reach.

How to use Sustainable Livelihood & Agriculture for God's glory

Dear friend,

Thanks for the chance to share what I am doing.

There are a lot of places that missionaries can go with sustainable livelihood and agriculture. Both of these places can do a lot of good things in the development arena. What I like about agriculture and sustainable livelihood is that we can help the pastor, church, and community address common goals and issues over a period of time.

I understand the challenges we face with sustainable livelihood and agriculture. But what I like about these models is they provide an opportunity to work side by side with the pastor, church, and community toward a common good. When that happens, relationship begins to happen and trust forms. If success happens, and I am fully committed to that, then that is a great thing. If it doesn't happen, we commiserate together, go back to the drawing board and try again. Fail and succeed together over time and a real relationship develops. In the course of that, we can share our faith, our pastors and church leaders can share their faith, and in God's timing these people will come to the Lord, And the people will learn how to put food in their stomach, and money in their pockets. This is not a quick fix, or get rich quick scheme. The nice thing about this is that it sets the stage for building relationship, pursuing a common goal, and time for the Holy Spirit to move in the community.

Take care and God bless,

Phil

How can we come alongside the Filipino pastors, churches and communities in light of their everyday realities?

Hey folks..... A couple of weeks ago I sent a communication to my leadership. I shared it with Julie yesterday and she said "this" is what you need to put in your blog! I said to her, "But I am not sharing a solution to the problems." And she responded, "Thats okay..... You are telling the people whats going on here in the Philippines, and the challenges we are facing." I read it again, and I turned to Julie and said, "You are right. The people need to hear this stuff too."

Below are some of the realities of our work, as I shared with my leadership. Please pray with us that we provide God honoring answers and solutions to the poor pastors, churches, and communities we serve..

"I think we are doing a good job of choosing topics if we take a hard look at the needs of the poor pastors, poor churches, and poor communities, in light of what causes the poverty conditions they live in.

For us in the Philippines, and we are not alone, we are working with people who have very little. And if a fire, typhoon, flood, mudslide, or demolition comes through, they have close to nothing. This describes some of the physical challenges. If you add the deprivation of education, medical, food, and earning potential caused by a variety of reasons, we as a mission need to be prepared to respond. And I believe, we as a mission, have done a good job in our response to all kinds of calamity and social injustice.

How can we come alongside the Filipino pastors, churches and communities and respond to their needs? I think it might have been Greenway or Grigg who said, and I am paraphrasing, "we have succeeded in providing bread to the poor, but the bread of life has been reserved for the middle and upper class."

What are we doing to create Kingdom movements in the slums, the squatter areas, amongst the poor?

Yes, we respond when calamities come through. But what are we doing to establish/plant churches on the floodways and under the bridges?

Do we know how to do that?

Do we know how to help our pastors in those situations?

How do we come alongside with physical solutions in one hand, and the bread of life in the other?

And how do we equip and mentor in those situations where the money is never going to be enough, the leadership is also struggling, and western missionaries won't go there?

And how do we describe that scenario to western pastors wanting to come over here with the intent to help develop these pastors?

How do we describe poor and poverty to the West?

It is hard enough to try to explain real poverty to people who have lived here for 10 years.

Brother, all of what I just shared is an indictment on me, because the Holy Spirit has convicted me. As I travel through squatter areas, and villages with dirt roads, I am convicted of my affluence, and I have no right to talk about my lack. I have no idea what these people deal with everyday. Intellectually, I can process it. But the brass-tack nuts and bolts of it all, I dont live the way they do, and suffer the realities of their daily existence, and their years of oppression, and injustices of life in Manila.

All of that to say, " How do we come along side and support our poor pastors and provide leadership development in light of their everyday realities?"

Pastor Rey Ingaran teaches FAITH Gardening to KIM Kids at Grow Ministry Center

I first met "Pastor Rey" Ingaran in 1998 when I went on a Basketball ministry trip to the Philippines. Our Short-term team from West Hills Community Church, headed up by Pastor Daren Beck prepared and then led a young group of guys... some younger than others. Dan Hunter, Greg Mayer, BJ Lopez, Pio Conde, Nathan Wells and myself, then two brothers from Santa Cruz Bible--Brian and Kevin. It was November, shortly before Thanksgiving, and we arrived in Manila. In addition to this group of basketball players, Jodie Beck, Andrea Lopez and Debbie Kenyon came to work in a Birthing Clinic down in Davao, Mindanao.

Our trip was life-changing for many of us, although it presented much physical challenges for others....injuries, motion sickness, dehydration, blisters, and reaction to new kinds of foods. But in the course of this ministry trip, we gained great exposure to ministry work in the Philippines. As well, we had a chance to work with some Philippine Nationals, Tom Randall and Paul Duncan. One of the PI Nationals was our Pastor who organized alot of the trip, and acted as an interpreter for the presentation of the Gospel and all of our testimonies to the half-time crowds. This was Pastor Rey Ingaran.


Last Monday night I was reunited with Pastor Rey. We have spent the last several days talking about his ministry in Northern Luzon, in Santa Maria, Isabela Province. And today I was able to offer up my Grow Ministry Training Center, so Pastor Rey could present some basic gardening techniques to the children of Kids International Ministries.


As Pastor Rey and I have talked this week, we have had the opportunity to make some preliminary plans to present Food Always In The Home and Natural Farming to four churches he is responsible for up in Northern Luzon. In addition to that we have discussed some of the development needs, as well as the christian witness needs (evangelism, discipleship, church growth and health, pastor leadership development). Pastor Rey will be going back to Isabela on Monday to discuss with his leadership how we can work together to strengthen the pastors, the churches, and the communities. We look forward to partnering in the training of his leadership on the development and christian witness fronts.


Please pray that the Lord will have his hand on this work. If you are interested in learning more about this ministry, please write grow.rizal@gmail.com


Take care and God bless, Phil

DeHarts Summer News 2009

"Living the dream"......De Hart family and ministry- Summer Report--

A good friend and I often talk about "living the dream" here in the Philippines. When we served at Faith Academy, knowing God had put us right were he wanted and needed us. And now, my friend is running an orphanage and school, and I found Grow Community Transformation ministry 20 months ago. Grow's aim is to share Gods' love in practical ways (development) to pastors, churches and communities, and coming alongside the pastors and their leadership to assist in their churches (christian witness) strategies to reach their membership and community with the love of Christ.

Last week, we trained 10 men in FAITH Gardening and Natural Farming. The whole week I felt like I was "living the dream"or more accurately "living the answered prayers". I have been praying for this ministry, sharing about it with friends and churches, promoting this work with pastors and communities here in the Philippines. Three weeks ago I shared this work with over 300 pastors at a pastors conference. Below is a slide show which show the various activities of our three day seminar. There was much lecture and note taking, sweating an blisters, eating and fellowship, questions and oral quizzes, making effective micro-organism concoctions-- alot of chopping, cooking, charcoaling, baking, smashing, measuring, mixing, bottling.........and now waiting for the concoctions to ferment before we can spray these powerful natural concoctions on to our soil and young seedlings. Food production and Sustainable Livelihood are two major physical needs our Filipino churches and communities need, and we are coming along side to address those concerns.


Grow Community Transformation.......helping pastors, churches and communities

Daniel and I are bachelors for 5 weeks -- Julie, Emily and Maggie left for the states July 27th. It's so quiet here without them and it evokes strong emotion in now having more children stateside than when we left for the field 10 years ago.

Julie & the girls will be together with Jon & Katie for 2 weeks, then on to MN to be with Julie's mom, and get Maggie situated for her freshman year at Bethel. While in Delaware with Katie & Jon, they get to visit some family living on the east coast and the Lindstedt’s (Phil's sisters family). They will also try to take in some historical sites which abound in this area -- the Smithsonian, Holocaust Museum, Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Museum to name a few

Katie took her Nursing’ board exams and passed and she is now a licensed RN in the state of Delaware. We are so proud of her! She is interviewing at a hospital very close to their home on the Air Force Base in Delaware.

Anna begins her junior year at Bethel in Sept. This will be her first year in the nursing program, and she has been selected to be a mentor to gals who are leading dorm Bible studies. She is very excited about this opportunity, but it will add to her already busy schedule. Maggie will be at Bethel too, which will be a great support for both of them. That has been a huge blessing for us, as parents, for the kids to have each other at school.

Maggie will be studying art and photography. Surprisingly, Maggie's senior year in high school was the first year she had time to really develop her art & she grew in leaps and bounds this year. She received an Art scholarship to study at Bethel which was awarded to only 4 freshman -- we are excited for her and so proud of her. Photography is her first love though, and she is always snapping pictures. She contacted photographers in the MN area, and will be interviewing in a few weeks for an internship to work with them. Very exciting!!

Daniel is starting his junior year in high school. He has a full load of courses, volleyball and basketball after school, and good friends returning from furlough. A friend handed me a new Fellowship of Christian Athletes Bible the other day "Gods Game Plan". It is packed with a good Holman's Study Bible, also good bible study lessons. Daniel and I are looking forward to getting into it.

Emily is the "Drama Queen" of our family, and she received that as an "official" title from her drama teacher this last year. Emily loves school, friends and fashion stuff. She is an eighth grader who enjoys life and sleep overs; hates sports; is crazy about boys and not afraid of them at all -- nothing seems to intimidate her. She is a motivated student and definitely has her own ideas about life and "stuff." We are trying to work with that without squealching her God-given spirit :)

Julie holds it all together, keeping our family together on both sides of the ocean. She continues to be involved in different volunteer responsibilities in the Faith Community. This year, Julie will begin a mom's ministry to the women in our Barracks Bible Church community -- crisis feeding and teaching hygiene and parenting skills to the mothers. This is much needed in the community and a great platform to build trust and relationship, and sharing her life in Christ. This kind of relationship building will give us evangelistic and discipleship opportunity with the mothers and young children.

Working with the Children's Garden boys, the Barracks Bible Church, and our GROW Community Transformation ministry keeps me busy. Our 2010 Ministry Budget Proposal is due to our field leadership in a couple months. I shared a glimpse of our work with the leadership recently and received good counsel. The challenge in the Philippines, like everywhere else in the world, is not only the abundance of spiritual and physical needs, but the challenge to stay focused, and carry out God's work in our community. We are confronted with extremely critical needs everyday.

A few years ago, a friend of mine quoted Henry Blackaby and reminded me to, "Find out where God is working, and join in." This is where prayer becomes so important. How can we know for sure what we should be doing, if we don't pray? I ask you to pray for Julie and I in the coming months that we can be intent on God's work to our community.

Please remember and pray as I prepare to share Faith Gardening (Food Always in the Home) with 150-200 pastors in a couple of weeks. Our pastors are very poor, and food is often scarce and not nutritious. We are sharing, teaching and training pastors, church leaders, and members of their congregation to grow vegetables and fruits, raise chickens and pigs, and begin a fish operation. All of the methods are organic, adapted to their region. And also pray for an agricultural training site that I am setting up at our home. We have been blessed to rent a large plot of land; it could almost be called a "compound." My hope is to develop demonstration gardens, so we can share this knowledge and teach these skills to our community -- another platform to build trust and share Christ to the lost.

God bless you folks; we appreciate you so much -- your prayers and financial support are what keeps us strong.


Phil and Julie De Hart

Faith Gardening Natural Farming--Batch One

At long last, we finally got our first FGNF Training under way. Our first batch consists of Dennis Tunghol, trainer from Tribes and Nation Outreach. And then 9 participants. Pastor Pong has five of his church members in the training. I have two joining me from our Grow Training Center. It has been a lively group, with lots of questions, and much muscle digging the planting beds and preparing materials to go into the soil. We will continue with the process tomorrow. During tonight, as I write, are charcoaling rice hulls, which will become part of the soil mix, along with chicken manure and leaves. There is much excitement and anticipation for the future when the men from Pastor Pongs church will be able to begin their own garden in the community. But for now they are learning the principles of Faith Gardening and Natural Farming.

I will have more to add, as there is still much to be accomplished in the next couple of days. And in the next few months we will add a few animal, fish, greenhouse, mushrooms, and other features which will help make this operation sustainable. Will add more later. I have added pictures in a slide show. I will edit and explain as time goes on. We had a good half day of lecture, then plot preparation, and burning of rice hulls in the first day. Looking forward to hard day of work tomorrow. Take care and God bless, Phil

Grow Community Transformation Resource and Training Ministry Center-- August 26, 2009 Update

This morning I wrote my Christian brother and partner in ministry , Mike Bucher. Mike and his wife Natalie founded Grow International Ministries. www.growourworld.com

I just have to write this morning…

First, we are getting ready for our first dry run through a Food Always in the Home Training, which will run Wednesday through Friday. This will mostly be for the benefit of Noel, Lito and me, but I have also invited Pastor Pong and some of the men from his church, and possibly some BBSI seminarians. We want to keep it very small, because we want to take time to talk about the logistics of operating this training session.

As I am writing, I can hear the buzz of machinery coming from the yard. Noel is using our new Craftsman—Briggs and Stratton Lawn mower. It is very sweet. I am not catching. I am mulching, so we can get those seeds back into the soil. The smell of fresh cut grass and exhaust is exhilarating. I picked this mower up at HRM Surplus on Pioneer, near Shaw Blvd. Chris told me about this place. I went to by a gas weed whacker, but they were out of stock, and then I saw this Briggs and Stratton and my jaw dropped. It was just sitting on the floor room all assembled. There were no sales people around. So I checked the gas level and it was full. I quickly looked left and right again, and then reached down and fired that pup up. It started on the first pull, and it was a sweet sound. I quickly turned it off as I had attracted about 10 sales people who were running toward me. And I said, “I will buy it”. It’s one of those mowers with the large back wheels. On the way home I stopped by the Home Depot near Ortigas and Meralco. I wanted to check out their Weed Whackers. They had three different models of the German made Stihl grass cutter. It had a six month warranty, and some kind of lifetime service agreement. A service center in Quezon City, and supplies I could get at that Home Depot. Maybe you can guess where I am going with this. I bought it! Here is my rational…. I just sold my blue Honda civic and had the funds available. But secondly, It was taking the guys considerable hours every week to mow and pick weeds with their hands, bolo and clippers. I thought that this equipment would pay for itself by getting our grass and weed cutting done in just a couple of hours, so they could focus on the house and Ag projects the rest of the week. So there you have it.

I have been working on ministry strategy stuff this morning. And I had this vision that whenever a team comes over to do work projects, or anything, I would like a pastor to come over to minister to our Filipino pastors. The pastor can come over with the intent to go through some material…….preaching, administration, quiet time and study, discipleship, marriage and family stuff. My hope and goal is to have pastors coming through here, so we have year around coverage. It is a great way to connect pastors and churches stateside with the work that we are doing here. Teams can come over for a variety of projects, but we should make it our goal to have at least one pastor available to minister to our pastors and churches.

Basketball….. Last night I had our first basketball practice with our Barangay select team from Penny Lane. It was basically a scrimmage so I could familiarize myself with names and faces, positions and skill level. The guys had a great time playing with each other. They were genuinely friendly toward each other, no machismo. Of course they wanted to win, but not at the expense of their brother or cousin on the other team. I was told that all of the guys are related in some way or another to each other.

While Pastor Pong and I were sitting, talking about the scrimmage and future ministry opportunities, he asked me if I would take on the youth team 19 Under from the area. These young guys are really fun, and we have connected well through the basketball, giving them rides, and a youth function we had at my house. I am looking forward to working with them, and getting to know them on a deeper level.

Excerpt from letter to Julie this last weekend……. “I drove my young guys from the Barracks Bible Church down to Angono this morning. I am coaching the youth basketball team from Penny Lane, /Faith Community. The young guys did pretty well. We won 61-44 over a team from the Angono Floodway. I think I had 12-14 on my bench, and I got about 10 guys in the game, so that went well. It was competitive through the mid-way part of the third quarter, and we began to push the ball up court (fast-break), and we stopped their offense they were generating around the baseline (short-corner). I have several guys that can rebound well and play physical, so that is something very nice to have. I had almost the whole team in the car. There were 12 guys, including me. The guys like having a coach and learning new stuff. I will coach them one practice and one game a week. This will be a good bridge to connect some of them with the church activities, and can have some bible study and fellowship at our house. We may want to get that basketball hoop over on the concrete slab, and then a foosball and ping pong table.”

Well buddy, gotta run. I need to go gather egg shells for making some EM Concoctions, and get some seeds and other stuff. I am going to go to the Palengke with the guys and we will pick some of this stuff up. Fish guts, Animal bones, Chicken manure, Bamboo, and some beverages containing yeast……… I have a list.

“Through our God we shall do valiantly” Ps 60:12… “I do not understand how God has made me. Joy, sheer joy and thanksgiving encompass me. Brother, this is great. We have never had it so good. God has done and is doing all I ever desired, much more than I ever asked. Praise God. He said, ‘I will never leave thee or forsake thee’. May I boldly say, ‘I will not fear…” I gain strength from the life and words of Jim Elliot. “He is no fool who gives up what cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose’. But I am human. I live on “this-side”. I experience daily the tension caused by the flesh. This is why our focus needs to be towards Heaven.

1 John 2: 3-6 (James B. Phillips translation) The life of a man who professes to be living in God must bear the stamp of Christ “It is only when we obey God’s laws that we can be quite sure that we really know Him. The man who claims to know God but does not obey His laws is not only a liar, but he lives in self-delusion. In practice, the more a man learns to obey God’s laws, the more truly and fully does he express his love for Him. Obedience is the test of whether we really live “in God” or not. The life of a man who professes to be living in God must bear the stamp of Christ.”

Pray for us this week and our training……….and working with our trainers. Pray that Christ will be our focus, as we work with our Pastors, Churches and Communities.

God bless and take care, Phil