| 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 |