An unexpected opportunity came to us this past month when I (Brian) was asked to be one of plenary speakers at the 250 person all campus IGSL community retreat.  Initially I thought it might have been some kind of rookie hazing here.  And despite being overwhelmed with so much first time teaching I felt prompted to say yes to the opportunity because I felt the Lord grant me a clear message from the word to share in light of my experience here this year.

     I spoke from Hebrews 4 and other places in Scripture about the power of drawing near to the Lord through the sacrifice of Christ.  Many students come from backgrounds in which God is still quite distant to them or impersonal.  And many because of that also struggle to really bring their authentic selves to community.  I spoke to some of these issues and directed them to the freedom and power of God’s grace.

     While I always go through a significant self-critical phase after speaking, I was very encouraged to hear from so many staff, faculty, or students that the Lord really used that time to help them take steps to share with their small groups more of who they are move towards deeper and more authentic fellowship.  I also heard from many, especially from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka…) that the Lord used that time to really help them repent of sin and get right with the Lord or helped them to rethink their orientation towards their devotional lives and view of God.  It was very encouraging to see God use it, especially when I don’t see myself as a powerful or gifted speaker. Was grateful that God was at work the whole time.

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    One of my favorite moments though was spending time with the man below – someone captured a good photo of us talking the day after I spoke.  He and his wife are from Pakistan and teach at the Bible college level and also do some incredible ministry through radio that is reaching some of the most difficult places to reach in Pakistan.  He and his wife both shared with me and Christine how my session really blessed them and had them thinking about their marriage and relationship with their kids in a whole new way.

     These are the humbling moments – seeing God use you to equip, encourage, and sharpen men and women in the faith who are doing ministry that is 20 times more dangerous and risky than anything I’ve ever done.  But we rejoice in what God is doing – that we are contributing more than we could have imagined, but that we are learning and receiving twice as much as that from the Lord and from the community here.

Family Update

Thank you so much if you’ve been one of the many we’ve heard from that has prayed for us in this challenging season as we shared in our last update.  We’ve seen so many answers to prayer.  One big one is that the last couple weeks has been a real encouragement to Morgan. It lifted her spirits to hear from people back home (Thank you to all those commenting when she blogs!) and family and friends.
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Christine and her also took some steps to create more opportunities for her to bridge with other girls here at IGSL, including a fancy tea party which was a huge hit. The girls in the picture you see are from Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and a girl from Thailand was coming but got sick. Amazing! But the real prayer requests is that many of these girls started reaching out to Morgan even before the tea party – and some out of nowhere which has begun to help Morgan see the value of prayer.

It’s been challenging, but the last two weeks have taken Christine and I’s relationship with Morgan to new levels of connection and authenticity and it’s been pretty amazing to see her growing as a person right in front of us.  A few days ago she initiated a family check-in asking how everyone was feeling about the looming decision to stay or return home and shared where she was at. Tears may have been shed 🙂   We’re so proud of her and she’s impressed us so much the last couple of weeks. But continue to pray as there are still challenges for her and Christine as well.

Christine and I are teaching Christian Marriage here at the school. It’s our first time to teach Christian Marriage in such a formal venue and it’s been a good challenge and very developmental for us. But it’s amazing to dialogue every week with couples from arranged marriages and from all over the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and South Asia about Christ-centered marriage when there are many cultural and religious backgrounds represented like Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim backgrounds.
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As my parents were here, it was a great opportunity to have them guest lecture last week and it was incredibly fun. So many students have come to us communicating how they were so blessed and it had them thinking about their marriage in ways they had never thought of. I talked to a couple from Sri Lanka that’s been in ministry and married over 25 years in the class and they shared it was so powerful it’s all they’ve talked about for the last two weeks and it’s taken them to a new place of oneness in their marriage! They brought Sri Lankan food to us the night before my parents left to show appreciation.  We all enjoyed that – especially Kaelyn who is our adventurous eater here!

Pray for Christine and I as we teach God’s heart and perspective on marriage for these students and that we model what we are teaching as we’ve been facing some very stressful realities and pressures in our own marriage and family life in this season!

     This picture captures one of our favorite experiences thus far. We were invited, along with my parents, to celebrate Lunar New Year with the Vietnamese community here at IGSL which has several CCC staff among them. I have had I think all of them in at least one of my classes so far so I’ve gotten to know them well. And my dad had read a book this fall titled “The Christians of Vietnam” which details the last century of the Vietnamese Church. I asked him to bring it so they could read it and they were so excited. 

It is found that males who are tadalafil sample suffering with any other disease then the dose needs to be altered. The appeal of online pharmacy is great to someone who is looking to buy erectile dysfunction medicine viagra without prescription free online, but consulting with doctor for proper usage is important. Fortunately, Kamagra tablets have it as their primary ingredient. generic india levitra It is the enzyme phosphodiesterase 5 that is responsible for get viagra in canada the person to be facing erectile dysfunction in his life.      But these students blessed us beyond measure. They don’t have much money but laid out such a feast because this is one of their great celebrations. We had traditional food and talked about these men and women’s journey as Christians and missionaries in their country. It was a humbling and powerful night for us and represents so much of what this school is about – equipping these incredible people to do ministry in places that God has called them to go (and that we could never go to). These are people that have suffered at times greatly for the cause of Christ.  It was humbling to be invited into their world for a night.

These are the moments that have defined our year – moments not in the job description and not part of any plan.  But moments birthed from relationship where new worlds are opened up and new blessings experienced.  We’re so grateful for these moments with the different families and communities here at IGSL this year!

     If you remember years ago when Christine and I worked with short-term international mission teams we would often fly to meet with teams half-way through their year to help them process their experience, work through conflict and culture stress, and make mid-course corrections. Fortunately for us my parents have plenty of experience doing that too! So we had a brief getaway last weekend to do some of this work to help us and our kids process the highs and lows of the experience and do an honest assessment of where we’re at.

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Thanks for your prayers!  The spiritual battle is great around what we are doing and especially around our decision making right now.  We would appreciate prayer for God’s provision for us in areas of need for different members of the family  and that God gives us wisdom on how to steward the next year.

One of my big takeaways from my time is that leadership matters. I already knew that as I find myself as a leadership studies professor at a graduate school and seminary – but sometimes you see things with increasing clarity and crisis situations like this tend to expose leaders for who they are.

Over the few days in Mayorga and Leyte I was exposed to great leadership by people who have earned the trust of their people and who serve well – and many were IGSL graduates!

In other posts you saw the Mayor and some of the government who are giving timely leadership. The Mayor is doing a great job bringing the right people around him and around Mayorga – but it’s clearly done with an authentic humility and a commitment to serve and lead people to a better place that lifts them up AND honors God.

But we served side by side with a few IGSL graduates that really got me excited about what we’re doing here at IGSL.  Pastor Danny (in red below) is one of the key players in mobilizing our church partnership as he’s a pastor at a large megachurch here in Manila that had the resources to provide the domestic relief kits.  He went with us and it was a privilege to see his leadership both of his own people from his church as well as in the community where he was able to preach the gospel several times.

He and I at one point ended up being able to talk to one of the councilmen about the gospel and about the difference between a religion about Jesus and a relationship with Jesus. Danny graduated IGSL in 2012 and he continues to have a great ministry both in Manila and now in Mayorga.

Loy is also an IGSL graduate from 2012, a classmate of Danny’s (above).  He is pastoring in a different part of Manila (tando sp?). But I was as impressed with him as he connected with different communities in Mayorga and communicated the gospel, but not in a performance based way given that we were holding a lot of things they wanted. Both Danny and Loy communicated great honor and respect and connected with the people. It was a joy to see and some people did come to Christ and some made commitments to repent and again turn back to Jesus as the Lord of their lives.

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Gerri is also an IGSL grad from a couple years ago.  After being released from prison (where he was discipled and ministered to by IGSL students at the time who visited the prison), he got to know the school and eventually applied to study here.  He continues to give great leadership to our military ministry and much of our relief efforts as well.

This in addition to my friend and fellow professor and Phil. CCC staff Neil and IGSL’s President Tom who I’ve seen lead with commitment, dependence on the Lord, and great vision for what God can do.

These experiences have been a blessing to me. I am blessed to serve, but so encouraged that through serving and going I was given such vision and motivation for what God has called Christine and I to here at IGSL in Manila for however long he leads us to be here.  It’s so motivating to raise up Christ-dependent, servant leaders who have the character and skills to minister widely and deeply to their own people.

I’m excited that we’re all a part, you and us, in raising up leaders like that throughout all of the Philippines and the whole of Asia.