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!
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!
At 6:30 PM this Tuesday, October 8th, we will be hosting our annual Take The Challenge Missions Banquet here in Branson. I will be sharing, among other things, how the East Africa Disciple-Makers movement currently hosts over 50 DM groups training over 400 pastors and leaders each week. Wow! In support of this, God has expanded our team, raising the number of TTC missionaries from 1 to 4. Praise God!
Along with additional discipleship activity come additional costs. Our goal for this year’s banquet is to gain 20 new monthly partners (and/or have 20 existing monthly partners increase their monthly giving). If you would be willing to be one of these 20, please let us know. We have already had one couple who cannot attend the banquet give online, and this has been a great encouragement to all of us.
If you are not able to attend the banquet in person, we plan to Livestream the event at our TTC Facebook page. We have a great story to tell, so we expect this to be a great evening. I hope you will be able to join us to see everything your prayers and giving are enabling God to do through Take the Challenge. Thanks for partnering with us in this great work!
As you know, Scott just returned from a hugely successful 26-day mission trip to East Africa, during which God moved and ministered to hundreds of pastors and their spouses. Many of those people have now joined newly forming disciple-makers (DM) groups, and Scott is especially excited about the new online DM group he began leading yesterday with pastors from several East African nations. He has great anticipation for this group, and we expect that some of these men will eventually establish new DM outposts in Tanzania and Uganda.
Back in the U.S., on Wednesday morning, September 15th, Scott will begin leading a local, in-person DM group with seven pastors from Branson and Forsyth, Missouri. These folks are fired-up and ready to cause a wave of biblical disciple-making to build through churches here in Taney County.
Never bored, we are now only two weeks out from our annual TTC missions banquet, which will be held in Branson on Thursday evening, October 8th. If you are in the area and would like to attend, we still have seats available; please reply to this email requesting banquet information. Our goal for this fundraising event is to raise 35 new monthly partners for Take the Challenge. If you are out of the area and would like to become one of those 35, please reply to this email requesting partnership information.
Finally, Scott has a personal prayer request. During his journey home, he spent 15 hours sitting next to a passenger who was very sick, and he seems to have caught whatever that man had. The worst of it is a Covid-like headache along with body aches and cold-like symptoms. With only two weeks to finalize preparations for the banquet, Scott says, “Please stand in agreement with me that I will fully recover quickly (immediately) and that God will protect Patty from this plague.” Patty says, “Amen!”
We appreciate you so much and look forward to hearing from you or seeing you on October 8th!
Scott’s luggage came with him, always a nice touch. His Dallas to Springfield flight was delayed an hour, but there were no problems. Goals tonight are sleep, sleep, and sleep.
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