Juniors' Camp

The boys

"Action" to worship songs

Waiting for the night-time devotion

The girls :)

Each team made their own banner. This was Team Patience.

We only had one nosebleed from the heat.

Funny game called "Find the Sheep"

The "Electric Fence" game

The youngest camper..isn't he adorable?

My favorite game. They balanced the water...

...until they couldn't take it anymore!

Some of the youth helped out

This is our Staff. The theme was SuperHeroes =)

I had the opportunity to give one of the devotions.

All the kiddos!

These are pictures from the 3-day Juniors' Camp I mentioned in the last post. The kids were from ages 8-12 and were so much fun! Our friend Maricel did a great job planning everything and we were blessed to be a part of it.

wonderful creation

One of my favorite things about living in the Philippines is the food. There are plenty of things I miss from the States, but overall, I'm thankful for the healthy and delicious eating here. Filipinos pride in their cuisine (and rightly so).
I'm even more thankful for getting to watch things grow and see how God's creation really provides for our bodies' needs. It's a really amazing process to see food grow.
Apart from our garden, a couple other things I've enjoyed seeing for the first time are cocao (chocolate) and black peppercorn.

Black pepper right off the tree

After two days of drying in the sun...ready to be cooked!

This is the fruit of a cocoa tree

The pulpy seeds inside..sweet and delicious to suck

After the seeds have been fermented and roasted

and ground into chocolate powder!

The powder can then be used to make hot chocolate or melted down with milk and sugar/honey for a super yummy, natural, and healthy dark chocolate bar! Add some nuts or coconut and it's like dark chocolate paradise :)

Hope you've enjoyed a little look into our life here.
-Autumn

P.S. Please pray for us as this afternoon is the beginning of a 3-day camp for children in our area. Josh will be coming each day as the 'photographer' but I and some other young Filipinos will be sleeping at the church with the kids. Pray for a safe and fun few days. And for the Spirit's anointing as we share Jesus' love with the kids. Thanks!

my favorite flowers

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas reading this.
Holidays always seem to get to me here. This never happened to me in America. But now, they sneak up on me and I get emotional. It never fails.
This morning I wrote my mom a message on facebook because I wasn't sure if the trusty postal service between here and America had delivered my written letter in time.
Then we went to church where the mothers were asked to stand. A special song was contributed to them and the children delivered hand-made paper flowers to each of them. I felt my face warming up as the emotions rolled in. Here we go again. I missed my mom.
But this time was somehow different than past holidays. Instead of finding myself in despair, I praised the Lord that I have a mother and that she entrusted me to Him. "Thank You God that I'm in the Philippines and not Mississippi today. I'm right where You want me." As I talked to my heavenly Father, I looked up and a couple of sweet little faces and two precious hands offered me the prettiest flowers. I wasn't standing with all the mothers; I'm not a mom. Both of these girls have mothers of their own. But God has given me the ever-special opportunity for this time in their lives to be a spiritual mother. I play with these little girls every Monday and Thursday at promptly 4:30pm (the only thing they're ever on time for). I've bandaged wounds, held hands, and sang songs with them. I've told them stories from God's Word and prayed for them often. As I took the flowers and offered hugs in return, my eyes filled with tears and my heart swelled with thanksgiving. What a blessing to be a part of their lives. What a blessing that they chose me to receive their flowers.What a blessing that I had a mom who loved me and taught me to love others.

These are my favorites flowers. I receive flowers from these kids a lot..almost weekly (most of them stolen from our own yard, but what can you say?). I like to put them in my hair and they like it even more. It doesn't take much to receive a flower around here..our white skin attracts them. But these flowers are my favorite because they were given out of love- not just love for me, but what I believe is a growing love for the Lord.

I don't know much about being a mother and I don't know when my time will come, but I pray that when Josh and I are blessed with children that we will remember the fruits that come with pouring into them spiritually. And I encourage you to look for the little ones in your life and point them to the only One worthy of their love and adoration.

...So today, the holiday hasn't gotten me down (at least not yet!) but rather has found me with joyful, teary eyes thanking my Father for His goodness.
Happy Mother's Day!!

And the thunder rollllsssss....

Last night we experienced our first real thunderstorm since being here in the Philippines.
I was scared. I was hot. And I was in awe.
We had never experienced a storm like this before...anywhere. It had been such a sunny day and a storm certainly wasn't anticipated. But around 1am we woke up to a hard downpour of rain on a tin roof. It got louder and louder... and then came the lightening. And what follows lightening? THUNDER.  The lightening would light up our house, then the thunder would literally roll all around us. I gained an entirely new definition for ‘rolling thunder.’ It sounded as if God had a big whip and with each crack the thunder would just ripple across the heavens. Each time I would clinch my eyes shut and just wait for the roar. I’ve never experienced anything like it. You could actually feel the rumble.
The pouring rain started coming in through our screen windows. But because the storm had caused a brown-out (Filipino term for power outage) it wasn’t worth it to close the glass and suffer the heat. I held on to Josh’s arm or wrapped the pillow around my head with every strike of lightening, preparing myself for the thunder to come.  Between praying that we wouldn’t get struck by lightening and for peace for Monica in her house by herself, I found myself just worshipping and praising God- the God of the universe- God of lightening and of thunder. His vastness and greatness in light of my smallness and helplessness was too much to take in.

He is the God of the storms; the storms of raging thunder and the storms in my life that sometimes seem even bigger than the lightening bolts we saw last night.  He's so sovereign and He's so big. He's the Creator of the world. And He knows my life's storms. But He leads me by still waters and leads me to get lost in His vast greatness.

The Lord reigns; He is robed in majesty; The Lord is robed; He has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; It shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O Lord, The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, Mightier than the waves of the sea, The Lord on high is mighty! Your decrees are very trustworthy; holiness befits your house, O Lord, forevermore.     Psalm 93

Summer Youth Camp 2013

Youth Camp is here! Unloading the tricycles

Something cool about camp here is that people donate veggies

Friends

How would you like to find this during your quiet time?

Everyone washes their own dishes

Adobong Sitaw and Rice for dinner

We are praying for God to move in this generation of Filipinos

Small groups

Eggs, Tomatoes, and Rice for breakfast

Upo cooking over open fire

The sweetest cooks

Funny games

Filipinos will do anything to shield themselves from the sun!

Local ice cream man came by everyday

Praying over campers

Praise God He speaks all languages..my Tagalog is still growing

Hotdog, Eggs, Eggplant, and more Rice for breakfast!

Song about the children of God

Throwing balls at campers for fun :)

We introduced them to the wheelbarrow race!

Josh did an AWESOME job speaking

Morning exercise

Each team had their own cheer

Each team made a flag to represent themselves

They decorated their tables for banquet night. Creative!

We were blessed to wash campers' feet on the last day

"How beautiful are the feet of those that preach Good News!"

The whole gang

We hope to be a part of discipling a few new believers

We spent last week at Lorentess Resort near our home hosting almost 70 high school age campers for 5 days.  Our roles were mainly to assist our friends who were leading the camp. We helped with whatever they needed and Josh was deemed official photographer so we have lots of pictures! You'll notice some things are very similar to youth camps in the States and some things are quite different (washing your own dishes at the water pump for instance). Nonetheless, we enjoyed the week. I personally felt like it was a small spiritual retreat as I was able to spend a lot of time in the Word and prayer early in the mornings while things were quiet. Thank you to those of you who were praying for this week.

Thanks for reading!

 In writing this blog I try to give you all regular updates and pictures of our life here in Aurora. But sometimes I feel the need to take a step back and give you a glimpse of the bigger picture of what's going on here.

 Since all of our visa requirements were finished, we have been able to spend our longest time yet in the province. It has been very enjoyable and very busy. I used to long for a busier schedule (thank you American culture) and now that I have it, I bask in the down-time moments :) But this really has allowed us to invest in the ministry opportunities we've been given. Most of our time and effort- whether planning, praying, doing, or reviewing- is spent in these three areas:

1.  FAT Group: This is a group of believers/leaders from our church. Upon starting the group, we requested that they be faithful, available, and teachable (FAT).  If they couldn't be these things, then it would be nearly impossible to become a disciple maker.  The group has grown in members from the last update, even as we've told the members not to invite their friends.  Instead, they should start new groups with their friends.  The group (now 17) has been split into four smaller groups for portions of our weekly training time.  Additionally, everyone has a ministry partner within the group.  We wanted to do this to keep the amount of accountability and practice/training each person gets at a higher level than we can do with one group of 17.  We do start and finish the group together as a whole.  The intention of the group is to train these members to make disciples.  They're currently in the process of starting Bible studies with people who are Lost/Far from God within their circle of influence and possibly even training others who are currently walking with Christ.  Our prayer is for these two things to continue taking place for the rest of their lives.

2.  Kids of the Street:  Let me clarify that these aren't "street kids".  Although they may have dirt floors in most of their homes, they aren't homeless.  We've had some people think it's so amazing that we're working with "street kids".  It is an awesome thing to work with the homeless, but these are just the neighborhood children who play near our house.  It's simply loving on our neighbors' children and helping them learn God's story.  We've had less kids lately as some of the children go to their relatives' for summer (March-May here), but we've got a nice little core group that's pretty faithful.  Three or four of them are doing well in their memorization too.  Again, we're moving through God's story from Genesis to Christ.  We covered God's promise to Noah last week, and as of right now two of the girls can quote Genesis 1:1, 1:27, 3:13, Romans 5:12, and Genesis 6:6.  We're practicing Genesis 9:15 this week.  We're really proud of the ones trying to memorize and do appreciate your prayers for them.  The ones who are memorizing well are beginning to push some of the others also because we told them whenever 7 people have 10 verses memorized, then we'll have a picnic.

3.  Calabuanan:  Since previous blogs about our work in Calabuanan, we've started a Discovery Bible Study within the community.  We have one member who is faithful and seems very hungry for God.  The other adults are in and out (mostly out as of now), but their children always come.  The faithful one is around 20 years old, by the way.  Anyway, the children really come every week, and they listen attentively for the most part.  They're precious and their presence is enjoyed, but we've got plans within the next two weeks to start taking them through God's story from creation to Christ like we do with the kids that live in our neighborhood.  The goal is to teach the kids, but also to teach the youth of the church how to minister to others relationally.  We think it'll be a good starting point, a helpful way for the kids to learn, and it'll allow the DBS to be just for the adults of that small family compound.  Please pray for guidance in this area, and for hunger for God's Word among these families.  There's so much potential in this poor community.  It's right next door to a tourist town that's growing.  The influence really could be island wide.

And now I give a big thank you to Josh because I was able to copy and paste this from a newsletter that he wrote to our supporters this month. Many of you have probably already read it.

Anyways, those are the areas where we have been really pouring into lately. We're very thankful for the doors the Lord has opened. Please join us in praying for each of those three as well as a youth camp that we will be involved in next week. Josh is speaking on the last night so please pray for him.

And here are a few random things I've been meaning to share:

We experienced our first earthquake. It was 5.3 on the Richter scale. 

We received a care package from family and felt very cared for! 

We found this guy in our bathroom. So glad he's on the outside!

Ahh!!! Real Monsters!

We've come to accept that this little thing just isn't leaving :)

Prayer

This is something I've been meaning to share for quite some time. Josh and I want you all to know that you are being prayed for almost daily. We painted this chalkboard on our wall to help us memorize the book of Colossians (we just finished chapter 1!) and we decided to add sections for a to-do list and a prayer list at the bottom. I'm sure you all can relate- it can become very difficult to be diligent in regular prayer or even difficult to stay focused. This board has helped us so much. I would guess most anyone who reads this blog is on this list in some way (family, supporters, missionaries, Trek-Xers) but if you're not, please please let us know. Or if you have something specific that you would like us to pray for on your behalf, send us a message! We just wanted to send some encouragement your way...you are loved and your are being prayed for often.



"Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."     John 14:13-14

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."    James 5:16

"Rejoice always and pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."     1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

"The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth."    Psalm 145:18

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."      Philippians 4:6-7