Upcoming Will Graham Crusade, YWAM visit, Baptism
Recent reports from the field mention some exciting things coming up soon, which we can be praying about:
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* The Bulan church is planning a baptism of several people on Oct. 16th. Pastor Virgilio Fulo says: There are nine candidates we’re going to baptise. Please pray because our weather is not good at this time. There is a coming typhoon. (It’s headed for Northern Luzon Island, so shouldn’t hit our area directly, but can cause a lot of rain and waves.)
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* In preparation for an upcoming Will Graham Crusade (grandson of Billy Graham) called BICOL CELEBRATION OF HOPE, a local kick-off rally will be held on Oct. 19th in the Sorsogon Gymnasium. Our field director, Pastor Chito Mendizabal, was voted as chairman of this rally. This is what Ptr Chito says about it:
Kick-off rally is mobilizing pastors and leaders to commit to preparing the people for the event BICOL CELEBRATION OF HOPE (Will Graham), which will be on Apr 28-May 1 at Pili Stadium in Camarines Sur Province. So kick-off is choosing leaders as operation andrew, intercessors, women’s, youth and children leaders. Course/training will be made for all leaders, like LIFE AND WITNESS COURSE. As chair of kick off, I’ll help form committees and delegation of works.
Note: The Bicol Region is one of the 17 regions of the Philippines. It occupies the Bicol Peninsula at the southeastern end of Luzon island and some other islands. It consists of six provinces–namely Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Masbate, and Sorsogon.
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* Week-long visit/training by a YWAM team of Filipinos from Manila is to be hosted at EBI at the end of October (during the EBI semester break). Pastor Chito describes it as follows:
They are Filipino youths who have been trained in Manila by Youth With A Mission training groups. EBI could have an exposure to other training like of the YWAM who are best trained in area of ways of presenting the Gospel like miming, street preaching and others…this may serve as encouragement to our Bible students and vise versa; YWAM could learn too from our distinctives like small groups, in-depth Bible training and work program or the bakery.
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* YWAM may set up a Christian Literature center for use by pastors throughout Sorsogon Province, and is considering locating it at EBI. Pastor Chito says: About Resource Learning Materials, EBI is a nice prospect of having a christian library for pastors and workers because it’s a Bible school. We have many people to assist in proper handling of the books, they say. Anyway, this isn’t final yet, as they’re considering too having the library in the city proper.
PAMI Potluck Pictures & Video
Kermit Titrud speaking
We had a nice turn-out of about 60 people at the annual PAMI potluck on September 24th. Thank you to all who attended and helped. We enjoyed the lively worship led by Joey Feliciano and The Repeat Offenders from Crosspoint E. Free Church. It was interesting hearing Kermit Titrud speak of partnering, sharing his experience as a Wycliffe Bible translator in the Philippines, and recalling his visits with Norval and Ardelle when they lived at the Bethany Bible school in San Jose, Mindoro about 30 years ago. Mike Thorud reported with pictures on the many ways that PAMI has been partnering with others during this last year. We also viewed a 6 minute video of clips from the EBI graduation this last March. You can see this video by going to the following YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mznNRiA1PA
Read More
Raising Up New Ministers for Christ
Dioveta Anion
Your gifts to PAMI enable Filipino believers to attend Emmaus Bible Institute, where they are trained to bring the Gospel to their local communities. Here some examples of EBI students with who share a burden to reach their own people.
Dioveta Anion
Dioveta Anion is already 30 years old. Her mother died 5 years ago and his father 2 years ago. She worked for 12 years as a house helper (mostly in Manila) in order to help her family. At age 25, during one of her visits at her hometown, she was invited to attend a Christian church worship (the church was being pastored by Pastor Abner Cornelio, Presbyterian then). It was the start of her conversion, and her knowledge of EBI. Read More
Pray for Dengue Outbreak, Baptism, and Other Things
Here’s a Sept. 16th email from Ptr Chito:
Dear Brother Mike,
In God’s grace! Thank you for covering us all in your prayers. Philippine government declares many parts of the country in a state of calamity due to Dengue outbreak. About 78,000 people, mostly children have been affected by the said dengue virus (from bite of a mosquito called aedes aegypti). Three children from our church here at EBI have been hospitalized due to dengue.
This coming Saturday, September 18th, I (probably Ofel, Nicole and Pauline) will be at Bulusan to assist Pastor Virgil with their Water Baptism. They have 8 candidates. Read More
Making Use of Seminary Disks, Projector, & Audio Bibles
Before reading the following email from PAMI field director Pastor Chito Mendizabal, let me give you some background of a Russian connection. A few years ago I hosted a couple Russian brothers (Igor and Vitaliy Petrov) at our house while they were attending an Evagelical Free Church missions conference in Minneapolis, MN. They were in the U.S. to get training at Trinity, the E. Free Church seminary in Illinois. They also work towards getting seminary classes translated into Russian on DVDs, which they distribute to pastors throughout Russia as a means of learning by distance. You can learn more abou this ministry from the following websites: Read More
September PAMI Newsletter
The September 2010 issue of PAMI News is now available. Download your copy, print it out, and pass it along to your family and friends. If you would like to be on the PAMI mailing list, to receive the PAMI News by US Postal mail, please Contact Us.
VOICE Seminar Equips Ministry in Public Schools
8-18-10 texts from Ptr Chito Mendizabal:
Hi bro mike and all! Praise God for all your hearts for God’s mission. God remembers all. As of the moment we have a seminar here at ebi. This is VOICE, teaching values education in public school, elem. and high school. Included in it is gov’t endorsement, curriculum, teacher’s manual, visual mtls and students lessons. Many churches attended. We’ll be starting this month in elem. first. Read More
Ministry to Kids and Construction of Building for Them
New kids building being used for the first time on Aug 15 after steel roof and cement floor were added.
Praise God that the new kids’ building at EBI is now finished enough to be useable! After about two months of construction and $2500 spent so far, the cement walls and floor, and steel roof are now in place. But approximately another $1500 is desired to finish it (adding electrical, plastering of walls inside and outside, steel window frames and glass, and installing comfort room and sink). Please consider helping with this.
This building will especially be a big asset to the Compassion ministry. It will be a “home” for the 101 Compassion kids to gather, display their artwork, and call their own. Medical, dental, and other services will be rendered there. Tables, chairs, teaching aides, and supplies will be stored there. It will also be an office for adminstrative work. Furthermore, since this building is a big improvement to our facility, it’s probable that Compassion will increase the number of sponsored kids to 150 by 2011!
Below are photos and a report from Ptr Chito that describes their gratefulness and gives more details, history, and other facets of PAMI’s ministry to children: Read More
PAMI Strategy to Spread Further South with EBI Students from Those Places
This year, we started to plant a church/mission in Visayas region. Isomel Espinar (one of our EBI graduates from Samar) starts the work in Calbayog City, Western Samar. He is best candidate to do the job because he speaks the same dialect with the local people. And they ( with his sister Icy, {EBI graduate too}, and an EBI intern Dwight Lumberio) are having nice start as they already have Home Bible studies. Please continue to pray for Isomel, Icy and Dwight and Visayas ministry. (Note: Iso and Icy still need sponsors to cover about $100 per month allowance, $35 per month rent, and $25 per month to start a children’s milk feeding ministry like done in most other PAMI locations.)
Next mission thrust is to open ministry in Mindanao. This was a long-time prayer which begun even from the heart of our beloved first missionary Rev. Norval Thorud. One of our strategies in opening mission is to train leaders from its native place and send him/her back to his own people to bring the Good News. This is more effective than sending a pastor/worker which was oftentimes rejected/persecuted by native people because of different dialect, treated with caution being an intruder. Read More
Small Groups at EBI Named after Virtues
VSG leaders meeting which includes: Small groups of Gentleness, Love, Patience, Wisdom, Perseverance, Hope, Grace, Humility, Meekness, Mercy, Peace, Faith and Joy.
From an Aug 12th email from Ptr Chito
VIRTUES SMALL GROUPS. Last week of June 2010, we mobilized and involved every person of Emmaus Church into a small groups. These include church members, parents of compassion children, EBI staff and students and outreaches. This is to become good steward of all the people that God has entrusted to our care. To make a disciple of every believer. To have deeper relationship with people whom we are ministering in the true meaning of fellowship (koinonia) or one anothering (sharing, praying, helping…one another). Read More