Last week we were blessed to be able to take a quick trip south down the west side of the island of Palawan. We went along with a ministry trip of the college age youth of our church here in Puerto. There were planning to hold VBS and do door-to-door witnessing in a small (very small!) town along the road. And they asked Ate (big sister) Donna and Kuya (big brother) Bill to come along as they wanted to make a day trip to visit and encourage Palawanos upriver from the town and they needed us to interpret for them.

We stayed with Filipino Christians in the town along the road where the Puerto youth were doing their ministry. From there, we hiked with them into the Palawano village of Pengdan. There is a Palawano church there with Palawano leaders and teachers and several ongoing outreaches. This church is the fruit of the ministry of some Filipino missionaries who were there in the late 1970’s. Bill first went there on a survey in 1990. And the last time he visited there was in 1991 when he taught through the gospel of John, which was newly-translated at that time. We wanted to reestablish our relationship with this church and see how they were doing.

Since it had been nearly 20 years since Bill was there, most of the men who were leading the church in 1991 were now either very old or had passed away. But the next generation has grown up to carry on the ministry. Bill was excited to learn that Joshua, a church elder in his early 30’s, was the 14 year-old boy that had guided Bill and the others on the survey in 1990! He had played in the river with them and had jokingly called Bill and Ben Gribble buaya (“crocodiles”)! Now he was the father of four and a faithful leader of the church in his father’s stead.

We were able to give the Pengdan church copies of our worship songbook (now with 76 songs), including chord books for guitarists, and booklets containing Colossians, Philippians, 1-2 Thessalonians, Titus, James and the newly-translated book of Acts. They were really excited to get so much more of God’s Word to study!

We accomplished another goal with this trip by meeting and making connection with Filipinos Christians and churches along the road. We want to build a network of churches who have contact with Palawanos, as this will lead to supportive relationships for the Palawano church, and having these contacts along the roads will facilitate our distribution of Palawano Scripture, songs and teaching materials. Beyond our expectations, God also led a pastor from another nearby town to sit by Donna on the bus. When he found out about our ministry, he was asking for materials he can distribute to the Palawanos he comes in contact with. Praise God for orchestrating all this!

We plan to send copies of Palawano materials to that Pastor we met on the bus this coming week. We will also keep in contact with our new Christian friends in that small town, and the Palawanos in the village of Pengdan, sending them copies of Ephesians and 1 Peter in a few weeks, when the final revision of those books is completed.

We praise God for his faithfulness and for the chance to put his Word into an ever-larger number of Palawanos’ hands! And you are a part of this through your prayers and partnership with us.