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During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9, NIV).
During the Apostle Paul’s second missionary trip, as he considered where to travel next, he received a vision beckoning him to Macedonia.
I’m not the Apostle Paul, but my “vision” was a Filipino woman who approached me after a service at my home church in 2001 and said, “You need to bring discipleship to the Philippines.”
I put together a small team from our church and went to Cebu, Philippines, where we taught a Discipling Another to Love Jesus (DA2LJ) conference for 200 church leaders.
Since then, I (and many others) have traveled to the Philippines over 30 times.
We have led approximately 60 discipling conferences with nearly 10,000 church leaders attending. There is now a team of Filipino leaders who constantly promote and hold conferences about disciplemaking throughout the Philippines: Visit their Facebook page here.
A great harvest, starting from one woman inviting me to visit the Philippines! But the fruit of our trips continues in other ways, too.
In 2003, my sister traveled on a team that visited General Santos City. While there, she experienced an overwhelming burden for impoverished and hungry children. When she returned home after the trip, she sold her house, moved to the Philippines, and founded Naomi’s Heart Mission.
She recently sent me a text saying that since 2004, Naomi’s Heart Mission has provided over 150,000 meals to street children. After establishing a school in 2008, it currently tallies an education provided for over 5,000 children and college students—and the numbers grow each year, with 500 children now attending Naomi’s Heart Academy.
Along with DA2LJ Philippines and Naomi’s Heart Mission, Joshua and Hannah Davis work in Cebu, helping Filipinos develop financially sustainable lifestyles and leading a church with tremendous outreach in a very poor area of the city.
And the list of fruit keeps growing.
There are other ministries started by Americans who first came to the Philippines on a discipling trip, along with many Filipinos who became missionaries and pastors, planted churches, and started ministries after being inspired by the vision of disciplemaking.
All from that first invitation to visit the Philippines after a church service in 2001.
Please pray for my wife, Barbara, and me. We leave today (with two others) for another trip to the Philippines. We will visit General Santos, lead a church leadership conference with over 50 pastors, and teach at a retreat for 35 DA2LJ leaders from around the Philippines.
Please pray for safe travel, good health, spirit-filled ministry, and financial provision.
Keep praying until we return on October 4th. Thank you!
Below is a photo of participants from the DA2LJ 2023 retreat.
