October 16, 2014
Greetings from Bacolod City,
We rejoice that we have had visitors here for the last few months sharing with us in the ministry. During the months of August and September, we had Christian Barnett from the Oakwood Christian Church in Enid, Oklahoma. He is 20 years old and spent some quality time with our Bible College students. He spoke in chapel several times and also helped at the Green Plains Education Center with Mary’s elementary students. We were able to visit many churches where Christian was able to preach and meet church members. He also spoke at the dedication of a new preschool classroom building that your financial gifts made possible last month at Bago City!
The first of October, my older brother David, arrived in the Philippines. Everyone here thought Christian was tall (6’ 5”) but now they are meeting David and are in shock since he is two inches taller than Christian! David loves to share poetry and it has really been well received in his speaking and preaching. We have already visited the two building projects on Panay, as well as the construction at Tayasan, Negros Oriental. This week, we went with our seven VSL Bible College students and other individuals to rebuild a small church as a school service project. The roof of the church was falling in, the doors were all damaged because of termites, and the floor was cracked and broken. It was in desperate need of paint and repairs. What a wonderful change has happened at this small church! The pastor’s name is Ernesto Sanao and is 83 years old and still actively preaching and teaching with the help of his wife Tessie. Pray for the Magbagaton church that the attendance can be rebuilt. The pastor and members seem to be so encouraged with this beautification project.
Last Sunday, we attended the 2nd anniversary of the Tayasan City, Negros Oriental church. They had scheduled to have a baptismal service after the anniversary service but it became stormy, so it was changed to Monday morning. As we were gathering for the services, people kept coming and coming to be baptized: Twenty five adults were immersed in the ocean at one glorious, beautiful service among the fishing boats! Seven young students could not be there because school classes were in session, so they are to be baptized at a later time. Praise God that this church is averaging 90 people every Sunday and have many members being trained in Leadership Training classes. Abel and Nida Lobos are busy ministering there with the help of a young intern named Angelo.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We are busy helping three churches that have construction projects all happening at the same time. Two of these are on Panay Island and the other is the new church building at Tayasan, Negros Oriental. We are also preparing for the start of the second semester for the Visayas School of Leadership the first of November. It has been exciting to see the growth of confidence in the VSL students as they are preaching their first sermons. We are so thankful to be able to say YES to a request for land at one of the mountain churches this month. In the cities, land is so very expensive often $45 a square meter. This land in the mountains, will only be about $1.25 a square meter for the Pamplona church. It will be for land rights and we are buying 600 square meters. We are glad that some of the sister churches on Negros are also buying some of the square meters of land.
Thank you for your faithful prayers as we are traveling so much. The financial support you give, makes possible the ministry here in the central Philippines to teach, train leaders, help pastors, and churches.
In His service,
Paul and Mary Wilson (and brother David)
