Tag Archives: Routes

As Christians, it’s always a tremendous blessing to see the Lord work in our lives and in the ministry around us.  Sometimes we get discouraged when we don’t see the results of our labor turn out quite the way we wanted.  But then there are times when you weren’t expecting it, that God moves and does something amazing.  I think that’s one of the ways the Lord reminds us that He’s in control.  He gets the glory!  Because you know that it definitely wasn’t your doing!  We had one of those moments this week.  Many of you will remember that we just started seeing wonderful results from our back yard bible school in Nasipit.  So far we’ve had twenty-five to thirty children come to listen to our Bible stories!  That has been a major blessing in itself but we’ve still seen only a few come to church with us on Sunday.  This past weekend happened to be a fiesta for our little town so I wasn’t expecting anything different.  In fact my expectations were so low that I wouldn’t have been surprised if even our regulars didn’t come to church.  Visitation that Saturday went well, we actually had several great conversations and received several promises.  On Sunday I went to pick up our route and was shocked to find several visitors waiting for me!  When we got to church I found that a family had even come on their own!  This week our numbers doubled and the seeds of the Gospel were planted! What an exciting Sunday!  Praise the Lord for this special blessing!  Pray, pray, pray that these families will respond to what they have heard and be saved!

A couple months have passed since we chose our target area in Cebu.  Nasipit is a town that appears small at first but once you start down the dirt road you quickly find yourself surrounded by homes and small stores.  The first time we went soul winning, we had a group of fifteen children follow us as we witnessed and passed out tracts.  The need is definitely great as we discovered almost everyone is devout Catholic.  Many are not happy about our presence in town but some are curious and want to hear more.  Of those people only a handful have come to church but praise the Lord some have been saved!  Every Saturday we have returned to Nasipit, hoping that we’ll meet someone searching for the truth.  As we have reached out to the community we have noticed the growing requests for a backyard bible school.  As a result we changed our routine, started to bring our songs and Bible stories, and invited all the kids to meet under a tree.  This time the response was great!  We had twenty-five kids show up!  Even the parents watched from their homes and listened as we presented the Gospel.  Our prayer is that through this backyard bible school, families will get to know us and become more willing to talk about Christ.  Please keep these people in your prayers!

Shortly after arriving in Cebu we selected a target area to begin our outreach to the local people.  Since we’ve been here we’ve gone every Saturday with a group from North Cebu Baptist Church and focused our soul winning efforts on that one specific area.  The little town of Nasipit looks small at first but we quickly discovered several clusters of homes filled with families.  There are no street names or real roads, just paths made of dirt or concrete leading you to the next group of houses and little stores. You always pass people on the road but since we’ve returned we’ve hardly met the same person twice.  The people as a whole are friendly but it didn’t take us long to realize that Cebu is very Catholic, even more so than Manila.  It was here in Cebu that Catholicism was first born around 1521 and the people have clung to its superstition and beliefs to this day.  Even a large portion of the children go to mass everyday so you can imagine some people aren’t too thrilled that we’re here.  We’ve been faithfully returning to this town for weeks now and have seen some become defiant.   Now they post their catholic symbols on their doors when they were not there before.  Praise the Lord, a few have responded well.  One young mother actually came to church and made a profession of faith!  A few children have also come but there are so much more that we need to reach!  The benefit of returning to the same area is that over time the people will get to know you on a more personal level and will eventually want to talk.  One thing we noticed right away were the requests for a backyard Bible School from several young children.  Due to these requests we’re going to change our game plan a little bit next week and bring the church to the neighborhood!  Lord willing we’ll hold a mini Sunday School class right in their backyards!  Please keep us in your prayers as we try to reach the local community of Nasipit!