Exclusive stories from the mission field
Men in a tribal area showed no interest in Bible studies, saying they were too busy working and that such meetings were only for women, but a local missionary has involved men from two villages in study of God’s Word. “These men have shown great change in their lives by committing themselves to join the Bible study,” the ministry leader said.
People in many areas have heard the gospel of salvation in face-to-face talks with local missionaries, but the pandemic also multiplied outreach when workers used video calls and virtual gatherings to proclaim Christ’s atonement.
Many unreached people became interested in Bible studies after workers provided food, helped them obtain livelihoods and educated their children, while others came to the Lord through gospel events, film screenings and social media.
Three siblings heard the gospel from a local missionary, accepted Christ and then came to Sunday worship with their parents. Workers shared about Christ with their parents after the church service, and they also trusted in Christ and were baptized along with their children.
Members of a tribe in the Philippines lived in tense isolation from each other due to decades of conflict that at times flared into war. Then native missionaries arrived suggesting the unthinkable – rival factions working together in community farming. For the tribal villagers, it would be a necessary evil that brought unthinkable good.
With the second-worst coronavirus outbreak in Asia and hundreds of cases of the highly contagious Delta variant, the Philippines saw the highest daily increase in new infections in two months at the end of July.
When he turned 18 last year, Manong still had his childhood habit of stealing money from his mother for liquor, cigarettes and drugs. He survived his childhood in a rough-and-tumble slum of the Philippines and feared nothing, including the effects of the drugs he was taking. His haughtiness had alienated his friends, and he had cut off contact with what little family he had when he found himself facing a life-threatening injury.
Justin Galang assumed God must care only about heavenly things and whether people were moral or not.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, highway patrolmen at a checkpoint in the Philippines stopped a local ministry leader and three co-workers as they traveled together.
The year began with the death under suspicious circumstances of a local missionary.
Before that, the director of a native ministry in the Philippines was stunned by the sudden death of a 43-year-old pastor he had known since childhood.
In March he and his wife lost their adult daughter to cancer. The challenges of COVID-19 lay before him as he learned to press onward in faith.
