We are enjoying being home again in the USA!
It is hard to get used to the prices of things again. Also, to driving with rules, lanes, and a speed limit. We enjoy so much worshiping again with everything in English, padded seats and being with so many friends. We have met our new grandson and got reacquainted with Lydia and Josh’s son, Caleb. Being grandparents has been so much fun during our first month here.
While on our USA furlough, we will be visiting many churches and hope to see many of our friends and prayer supporters. We will be here for our first Christmas with our family since 2006. We hope to do a shipment of items for the Philippines during the month of January and then return in February.
Some thoughts concerning our next 40 foot container shipment for the Philippines: We will be sending Bibles, Sunday school materials, Bible commentaries, Bible dictionaries and concordances. School teachers -we want text books and teaching aids for all grades for the schools in the Philippines. We are hoping to ship several thousands of text books in this container. A public school classroom often has 50-60 kids and textbooks are really needed. We would like to ask school teachers to help us find and seek permission to have textbooks for our next shipment. Dictionaries are always wanted by everyone, and we would like to take as many as possible.
While we are in the states, the ministry in the Philippines continues. We recently had a pastor surveying another location for a new church on another island. We are having a large inter-island women’s conference on Negros the end of this month. They are hoping to have several hundred ladies in attendance at this seminar. Then in December, the Negros Oriental churches will be hosting an annual youth conference called YACC on the days immediately after Christmas Day. They are expecting 500 youth to be attending this event. We are thankful for the many pastors and leaders of the churches who faithfully continue in the work of the Lord on Negros and other islands. We may be here but the work of the Lord is ongoing and we often communicate with our fellow workers there and help in many ways.
Recently, we did a survey of the churches on our island and printed a new directory. It was exciting to know that there are now 86 churches on the island of Negros. Some are small and meet in houses, others are in remote areas of the mountains, and several of these have been started in the last several years in the cities of the island. When we first went to Negros in 1985, there were only 14 churches. We rejoice that now there are many more churches! VFM is actively working with the existing churches to encourage them in starting a daughter church. We have had several seminars to motivate and train church leaders on new church planting. VFM’s primary focus is starting new churches. I’m looking forward to speaking in the next few months telling you about the new churches that have been started on Negros in the last couple years.
How can you start new churches without training new church leaders? Because we want to start more churches, we will be starting a new two year training school for men next June. The leaders and workers have been meeting for several months praying and planning for the beginning of this new leadership training school. We need your prayers and financial help to make this possible. If we hope to start more new churches, then we need more trained church leaders.
In His service,
Paul and Mary Wilson
