Meetings, playing, preparing, and re-heating.

by | Mar 4, 2025 | What's New

Dear All,

Tuesday’s Bottom Line:

Scott had great meetings with both Pastor Daniel and Pastor Gil today. He’ll be starting his first Disciple-Makers seminar in Moncada by the time you’re reading this.

Tuesday’s Prayer Requests:

1. Grace for Scott to be alert and energetic during the day and sleep well at night; jet lag can be challenging.
2. Scott to connect well with the pastors at this first DM seminar; for them to identify with him and their hearts to be receptive as he ministers.
3. Our team to have God’s daily direction for next steps as they partner with specific Filipino pastors.

Tuesday’s Details:

Scott had lunch Tuesday with Pastor Daniel at Angelica’s café. When Pastor Wilson and Angelica planted their church with relational disciple-making as its foundation, they wanted to have a place where people could hang out. With Wilson no longer doing his full-time architect job, they also needed income for their family. Angelica decided to open a small café, and that’s where Scott and Pastor Daniel met for lunch. The food was very good, and Scott said Daniel is very humble and simply thankful to be a part of the disciple-making team. He has held many vision-casting sessions, and he has encouraged the 12 churches he oversees to come to the DM seminar in Villasis this Friday.

My husband loves kids, and he had fun with Wilson and Angelica’s three. I’ll have to get their names, but I think they are about 8, 5, and 2, and they had a good time with Scott today and enjoyed the gifts he brought them. 

Tuesday evening Scott had dinner with Pastor Gil (“Hill” – I’m still reminding myself of that pronunciation). Scott says, “I think he’s the real deal. He’s so humble and very serious about the things of God.” Their meeting “went great!” Over the next week, Scott will hold DM seminars in three cities that are all quite close to each other. His first seminar is this one in Moncada on Wednesday (Tuesday night MO time) at one of the churches in Pastor Gil’s PCEP organization. They are expecting a great turn-out of pastors there.

Moncada is at the bottom of this map, about 35 minutes south of Myrna’s guest home in Villasis where Scott is staying. Wilson and Angelica’s home in Tombod is only about 15 minutes from Villasis.
The small part of the Philippines where Scott is now

Scott also sent us these two pictures:


“No microwave? No problem!”

“Just be careful the paper towel doesn’t catch fire!”

I assume there was no fire = )

Scott and I both appreciate your prayers today!

Blessings,
Patty

All systems go; two pictures!

by | Mar 3, 2025 | What's New

Dear All,

Monday’s Bottom Line:

Scott and all his luggage arrived safely, and he is settled in at the guest home run by Myrna, leader of the Agape Bible school in Tombod. His back is no longer hurting, and he slept well. Tuesday he will have meetings with Pastor Daniel and Pastor Gil (“Hill”), and then, as he said, “Wednesday it all starts!” 

Monday’s Prayer Requests:

1. Productive meetings with Pastor Daniel and Pastor Gil.
2. All logistics (tech, props, registrations, etc.) ready to go for Wednesday’s DM seminar in Moncada.
3. God’s presence and peace to guide Scott and our team as they meet and minister.Monday’s Details:

As promised, now we can put names and most faces together for our cast of characters. In this first picture, Pastor Daniel (who Scott will have lunch with on Tuesday), is leading one of the five vision-casting sessions he’s held since the first of the year.
Pastor Daniel teaching from Scott’s Raising Disciple-Makers book  = )About Pastor Daniel, Scott said, “Daniel is the overseer of a group of about a dozen Cornerstone Bibleway Churches throughout the Philippines. He is now traveling weekly to one of those churches that is a 3+ hour drive from his home to lead a new disciple-makers group. The man is ON FIRE! 🔥❤‍🔥🔥”

And although in the picture below Scott doesn’t know who the man on the far left is, we do know that Pastor Gil (leader of the PCEC) is wearing a green shirt, Pastor Marcelo (translated Pressing Toward the Mark Volume 1) is seated in the far back, Angelica (Pastor Wilson’s wife and café manager) is the lovely lady, and Pastor Wilson (Scott’s main man in the Philippines) is on the right.
L to R: Mystery Man,
Pastor Gil (“Hill), Pastor Marcelo, Angelica, Pastor Wilson

Everything is going well and we have great expectations for Scott’s various meetings on Tuesday and his DM seminar on Wednesday. Thank you for your prayers today!

Blessings,
Patty

Three down, one to go, cast of characters

by | Mar 2, 2025 | What's New

Dear All,

Sunday’s Bottom Line:

As of late Sunday afternoon MO time, Scott’s third flight (15.5 hours from San Francisco to Hong Kong), is almost over. He’ll have a three-hour layover there, followed by one more two-hour flight to his destination in the Philippines. He’ll arrive about noon Monday local time, get settled, and rest. Later Monday and on Tuesday, Scott plans to meet with three key pastors, and on Wednesday he’ll lead his first all-day disciple-makers seminar. Wow!

Sunday’s Prayer Requests:

1. Scott and his two checked bags to arrive safely at Clark in the Philippines and quickly clear customs and immigration. 
2. Favor for him to connect with three key pastors (Daniel, Marcelo, and Gil – details below) on Monday and Tuesday. 
3. Scott to be able to rest thoroughly before his Wednesday DM seminar.
Sunday’s Details:

NOTE: This is quite long. You have been warned. = )

In trying to make these updates make sense, I’d like to give you an overview of how Take the Challenge’s process of training pastors to raise disciple-makers (disciples who make disciples who make disciples…) generally works in a new-to-us area.

Long-time readers may want to skip the following paragraph.

First, some pastor somewhere (could be a man or woman; I’m using male pronouns only for convenience) meets another pastor who has attended a DM seminar, has been in a disciple-makers group, and who invites him to attend a DM seminar in his area. Following that seminar, the invited pastor joins a DM group and for a period of months experiences the process for himself. Then, he begins leading his own group of disciples. Eventually, he may hold a “vision-casting” session to introduce the process to other interested pastors and church leaders Over time this process is repeated, raising more and more disciple-makers. 

Okay, so back to the present… As you follow along on Scott’s current mission trip in the Philippines, the following cast of characters may be helpful. Once he has some time and energy margin, I’ll ask Scott to send us pictures of these special folks.  

Pastor Wilson & his wife Angelica. Wilson and Angelica are Scott’s core leaders in the Philippines. Scott met them on a trip there some 5+ years ago and has been mentoring them ever since. They have three young children, and Wilson, who had been working fulltime as an architect, recently quit his job to plant and pastor a church that began just over a year ago. Many of their church members are new believers. Wilson and Angelica are passionate about raising disciple-makers and have been leading several DM groups. Some of their disciples are now also leading groups. Two of their key disciples (we call them “pillars”) are Pastor Daniel and Pastor Marcelo.

Pastor Daniel. He hosted two of Scott’s 2024 DM seminars in his church in San Blas. Scott says, “On Monday I meet with Pastor Daniel, who has led 3 vision-casting sessions and launched 3 groups… He is the one who is most running with the vision.”

Pastor Marcelo. He translated Pressing Toward the Mark Volume 1 into Tagalog (“tuh- GAH-log,” the Filipino language) and was the person whose changed life was such a witness to Pastor Gil.

Pastor Gil (pronounced “Hill”). He leads the Philippines Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC), which includes some 2.4 million Christians. Pastor Gil knows Pastor Marcelo, and when he saw the dramatic change in Pastor Marcelo’s life after experiencing the disciple-making process, he wanted to talk with Scott to learn more, hoping to encourage churches in their organization to utilize this process. One of Scott’s checked bags is a 44-lb box of his Raising Disciple-Makers books, which Pastor Gil believes will be popular among pastors at the upcoming DM seminars in various locations. 

Scott’s first six-hour DM seminar on Wednesday will be in Moncada at one of Pastor Gil’s PCEC churches

I know that’s a LOT of information, but hopefully you’ll better understand Prayer Requests #2 and #3 above. If you’ve read this far, give yourself a gold star and know that Scott and I deeply appreciate your prayers for him and his meetings with Pastors Daniel, Marcelo, and Gil (“Hill”) today and tomorrow.

And while I was writing this epistle, Scott JUST texted me, “On the ground in HK.” That’s great news! Three flights down, one to go!

Blessings,
Patty

Go West, Young Man!

by | Mar 1, 2025 | What's New

Dear All,

We are honored to welcome a number of new prayer partners during this mission trip! If this is your first time to receive TTC trip updates, here are some basics about these (usually) daily emails.

I (Patty) always give you the bottom line, the most important news, first. Please at least read the day’s Bottom Line and  Prayer Requests and take a moment to pray. Your prayers make a HUGE difference! Then, if you are interested and have time, feel free to read the optional details, where I give more background and interesting cultural information.

Saturday’s Bottom Line:

Scott is NOW on his long way west to Asia, and we’d really appreciate your prayers!

Saturday’s Prayer Requests:

1. Safety for Scott as he travels; he and all his luggage to arrive intact and on time in the Philippines.
2. Divine favor and wisdom in every challenging situation he may face over the next couple days.
3. The Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of the pastors who will be at Scott’s first seminar and for them to be open to receiving and understanding Jesus’ process of raising disciple-makers. 
Saturday’s Details:

It was a bit of a whirlwind getting ready for this trip, but now that Scott’s actually on his way, I think he will be able to breathe a little. His total travel time from our house till he meets up with our friends in the Philippines will be about 30 hours. He’s flying from Springfield to Denver to San Francisco to Clark (formerly Clark Air Force Base, now Clark International Airport) in the Philippines, arriving there around 8:00 PM Sunday MO time.

While I was writing this, he texted me that he landed in Denver, went from his inbound plane to his outbound gate, and his flight to San Francisco was already boarding. Scott likes tight connections, but that may be a record. = )

More news soon, and thank you for praying for Scott now!

Blessings,
Patty