Philippines

In all our activities such as crusades, medical missions, outreaches, etc., thousands of pieces of literature provided by Love Packages of Illinois has been a great blessing. To date, we have distributed more than 500,000 pcs. of literature that they have so generously provided. They are mostly outdated Sunday School materials, magazines, quarterlies, tracts and bible portions. In many areas, young people rush to grab the material out of our hands. - 5 out of 13 school principals at participating feeding centers in Oriental Mindoro have received Christ into their hearts.  11 young people wanting to enroll in Bible School this June.

Over 75 pastors/Christian workers availed themselves of your materials I received on the container. Many came to pick up materials such as SS materials, devotionals, books, tapes, CDs, bibles, etc. All these pastors/workers were very grateful that by using these items their church members have increased in numbers both the children and adults and many were saved even only by reading them. The pastors who have used your materials are very happy since they have these materials for their churches for free.

 Last week, I had the privilege to launch feeding programs in 228 elementary schools in the Province of Kalinga.  Kalinga is known to be the "killing fields of the Philippines".  There are tribal wars between tribes unabated. Headhunting sprees are a daily occurrence.  Even in populated areas where there is supposed to be police and military forces, shootings, stabbings and killings take place regularly.  I nearly wept, as I stood before the principals  of the elementary schools of the whole province and presented to them the feeding program.  I   turned over vitameal, paid for by Feed the Children.  The donation was worth more than 5 million pesos.  Here was an opening to reach even the farthest remotest most dangerous places with the Gospel of Jesus. The food, and the outdated Sunday School materials donated by Love Packages are going into areas where killing, fighting, headhunting is still ongoing and where there are totally no churches or church outreaches.  There are no television or radios in most of these areas.  But the word of God is going in there, Glory to God.  

 It is indeed a blessing for us Christian workers (pastors and laymen, deaconesses and other Christian workers in the Vineyard to have received these Christian literature for our churches.  Not only that our church members have increased in membership (including the children) but most especially our members are tremendously blessed and being matured spiritually with the messages that we are getting from the books, bibles, (SS & VBS for our children) teaching tapes, and many other Christian materials.  As you can see in the attached report, many  pastors from Central Luzon came to my small warehouse to pickup their portions, and they are craving for more if possible, because such materials are hard to obtain here especially the bibles which are very expensive to buy in Manila.  They are indeed a blessings to us.  Since we cannot reciprocate you, be assured that our continued prayers are always with you and the entire Staff of Love Packages there at  Butler.

Regarding testimonies, yes we have many among church members of pastors who are getting materials from my warehouse. Many were saved by reading the materials you have sent especially the children who have gone through Sunday Schools and Vacation Bible Schools. And many pastors were happy that even their membership grew as a result of your materials.

Praise the Lord. Although the container was released the evening of Friday , the truck had trouble pulling the container up the mountain and broke down twice. At one time it lost its brakes and almost fell off the mountain. When we unloaded the container we were overjoyed at the items that were in it. Foremost were the Bibles. Then the Vacation Bible School kits, then the thousands of reading material. The container arrived just in time for a large Women's conference we are having next week, and then successive medical missions, school crusades and outdoor evangelistic crusade from January to May, 2007. Thank you also for the bicycles and sandals. The children here in the Orphan Home will enjoy them.

We held simple Christmas parties for all the children in our feeding centers jointly run by Bethesda Ministries ans the Department of Education - 2,564 children. We fixed a bag of candy, a little toy, an apple and some snacks to give to each child. It was so good to be able to hand each child a piece of Sunday School literature. What amazed and blessed me so much was that in ALL of the feeding centers, the children IMMEDIATELY opened the reading materials and excitedly read stories about Jesus. The response was terrific as the children saw pictures and read the stories. (NOTE FROM LOVE PACKAGES: We received pictures with this testimony and to see all the children looking at the pictures on their SS leaflets instead of playing with the toy they had received at the same time was SO encouraging to us we knew you would be blessed to read it too! Come visit to see the pictures!)

Thank you for asking if we want another shipment. The answer is YES, YES, YES! Your generosity and kindness in sending us books, bibles and other materials is a big and tremendous help for us Filipino servants of the Lord. Many, many pastors are able to establish church libraries. We thank the Lord so much for you. You were indeed answers to our prayers in providing us materials for our use in our ministry as we continue to serve Him during these endtimes. All pastors and churches that took materials are now conducting Vacation Bible schools with them. Our fervent prayers for you, your donors and supporters and all that help are that God may continue to bless you richly as you share your blessings with us.

We sailed our old boat into the Don Islands, with approx. population of 3,000, these are a chain of Islands we have been working for Lord in the past 2 -3 years. So far we have planted 6 new congregations in these islands which are located just about 100 nautical miles north of our general headquarters in Cebu. We anchored and the report from our advance party was that the people of the island was excited to hear the gospel. Over 50 people were healed in this crusade, 937 people said sinners prayer, and 36 new bible studies were opened. Praise God and to God be all the Glory!!!

Billy Taylor is a modern day apostle and one of our literature distributors in the Philippines. In the past several years he has trained leaders and pioneered 153 churches. Billy has a large boat that he pilots to remote islands and takes our literature all over the nation of the Philippines. He called me a couple of weeks ago to update me on how the ministry was progressing. In a previously sent container we had included a number of VBS kits. He was pleasantly surprised and blessed to see that we had sent exactly 153 kits - one for each of his churches. (we didn't plan that, God did) He told me that thousands of kids had come to VBS and that hundreds had come to Christ. He and a team of workers, had also taken one of the kits and went to a small island where the gospel of Jesus Christ had never been preached before. He later sent me an email with a picture attached. It was great, 400 kids sitting there on the ground with the little crowns they made on their heads, hearing about Christ for the first time.