SOBA 2009 GRADUATION CEREMONY

We welcome you to come and honor them this year!






Devin O'Dean
Sally Sargeant
Jenner Horton
Brittany Clark
Samuel Burns
Benjamin Hororik
Ethan Bennett
Nathan Karkness

Date: Saturday August 8, 2009
Time: 7-9 pm
Place: Chapel at Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Boise, Idaho
4950 N. Bradley St. Boise, ID 83714
Dessert Reception will Follow Ceremony

July 26: Gospel reaches for first time in Philippines Rice Fields

We have been in very rural areas and busy with relationships and teaching/ preaching prep. We were in a place with no electricity for about 4 days. We just arrived back in Bohol from the CPG islands. The last week was challenging but good. The team has taught the inductive seminar 3 times and we have one more coming up. We have been on the move a lot and the biggest need from Ronnie was preaching, ministry and visiting all the church members’ houses. Each time has been filled with preaching and encouraging through the word. One girl during the youth service really was hit by God's presence and we encouraged the pastor to follow up with her with discipleship. Revival in the heart is common here but discipleship is lacking. One church was very encouraged by Philemon because of the issue of forgiveness. I personally am doing well. We have another guest traveling with us named Aldren, and I swear he is a spiritual brother. We have had so much time to encourage one another .

I am finding time with God a lot and my devotions are crucial everyday for my strength. And it helps when we share because God has put many applicable parables on my heart for later sharing with church members. Especially ones about rice fields! The Spirit has been guiding me for sure and has given me insight into things that stretch past culture and language. We went to a rice field farming area a week ago and that was the FIRST TIME ANYONE HAS BROUGHT THE GOSPEL! I got to share a parable about the rice fields...I plan on writing it out when I get back. They need & love stories! God has been so good and the Holy Spirit has been our teacher and helper. We cannot to anything on our own.

Next on the schedule...
Loboc River for lunch
Inductive Seminar
Velencia waterfalls
Preaching and teaching
Arms of Love Orphanage (preach and teach) and maybe I will adopt :)
Then fly from Tag-Manila and stay the night in the airport :) and fly home Sunday

Love you all and pray for us as we are praying for you
Everyone is healthy...Jenner and Devin have a rash (nothing big though) and Devin has been sick to her stomach.

Got to go,
Eric

July 26: Jenner's News from Philippines

Hello my friends and family! Since the last time I wrote so much more has happened! I don't much time to tell you now, so I just want to let you know that we have all stayed healthy and full of food and safe. We have been riding pum boats which have scared me because of how small they are and how much they hold. I preached a Sunday service all by myself and we have been continuing to tell people how to study the bible. So I get home on August 2 and my graduation is on August 8th. I have much appreciated your support and prayers. Thank you and I look forward to seeing some of you soon! I have so much to tell everyone!!!!
Jenner

July 26: Brittany's update on travelling Filipinos

Hello all.
We are back to civilization for at least now, so we snuck off to the same internet cafe I sent the last update from. We left the last place evidently earlier than planned, because after the boat ride, we got to the town and our ride was still an hour or two off. So we have been doing so much. Lots of walking, I had to buy new flip-flops because the ones I had been wearing were wearing down too much, they already broke, and one of the teens fixed it the first week. But they have worn down on the bottom too much. So 140 Pesos. about 2.50 US$. We are off to travel the rest of the way around the island of Buhol. We made it about half way around, before we took a boat out to a little cluster of islands for a week, and now we are back on the main land. Now we are traveling a lot this week. I think we will be at a different place every night. at some point we will be eating lunch on a ferry, going to some waterfalls, snorkeling, and then the last night (Saturday night [Friday day to you]) we will be spending the night at an orphanage in one of the towns we first visited. We made a bunch of friends with the kids at that orphanage so a night there we will stay. I hope all is going well. I still have about a week, less I suppose. Yesterday was our last Sunday here. I was the one who got to teach in front of the church. It was intense but it went really well.

Miss everyone in the USA.
Hope all is going well.
Brittany C.

July 26: Nathan's update on Ecuador team & VBS

Haha Im typing on a a Spanish key board! So sorry about punctuation!
I hope all of you are doing well, it was exciting to see some responses from you all! thanks for your encouragement and prayers!





I’ll jump right into things. I have to be at breakfast in 20 min.
This past week was a bit bumpy. We were teaching mornings and nights almost every day this last week. To start things, Sally contracted a bacterial infection in her stomach from something she ate which is weird… she eats so little. Because she was unable to keep anything down and dehydration was a factor, we took her to the hospital. She was able to rest there & heal from help from the doctors, along with some amazing mothering skills from Patty (pastor Benny's wife). She was feeling mush better in a matter of a day. She is out now and recovering. It feels good to have our sister back. While this was happening, Sam and Ben were experiencing head-cold symptoms. We are thinking it’s from all the pollution. They too are doing better now, praise God! We managed to get through all the teachings and see some people impacted through them. It is so clear to us that the enemy did not want us teaching anything that would lead people closer to Christ.
There is a quote that we used this week to sum it up it says, ¨If I were the enemy, the first aim would be to make people stop studying the Bible to make them think that studying this old book is not that important and that it would be ok not to. ¨
We say nice try! We have completed all our teachings and are not scheduled for any more. I’m a bit bummed, but looking forward to what God has next.
We united with the Vineyard team who just arrived, so now the team size is about 42ish. We have a whole hostel to ourselves! We will be working mainly with kids and setting up a Vacation Bible School (VBS) for them. It’s gonna be great, I can’t get over how cute the kids are here! Plus I really miss Claire! I am looking forward to taking tons of pictures!
Here is a stat for you: About 85% of Christians today became Christian before the age of 13. So it only makes sense that we spend our time with the kids --they are so important to God. This week is gonna be packed out, so please lift us up in prayer:

Please pray:
• Team unity and rest
• NO MORE SICKNESS
• a fast recovery for Sally
• Safety from theft and for traveling
• that many Children would be impacted by VBS

Thank you guys so much for supporting the team & I in prayer. We could not be doing what we are doing without that. I miss you all and can’t wait to see you all. Thanks for being a part of this trip! Blessings on your day! I gotta run!
-- Nathan

July 21: Nate's Update from Ecuador

Hey Guys! Once again, I don’t have too much time so I will make it short. We are back in Quito after spending 4 days in Tena teaching, and painting a church. The bus ride went well. Today we had a day off so we went to a zip-line place out in the country about 2 hrs from Quito… it was great! Tonight we will be teaching the Inductive Bible study method to a small group. We will be doing some more teaching later this week & will also be getting ready for the bigger team that comes later.
Things to pray for:
• Mike's back (our leader): He tweaked it and it is stiff in the mornings. He is
doing better but we want him totally good to go.
• Pray for our safety in Quito where it’s generally a bit dangerous
• Pray for our teachings --that they go well; things are tough with the language
and translation.
• Pray for our rest so we can keep going strong

- Nathan

July 19: Brittany's update- Leaving Buena Vista, Philippines

Hello. Made it to another Internet cafe. 15 pesos per hour.... that is about20 US cents. It is pretty crazy. But all has been going extremely well. We finished out a week in the village of Buena Vista with a wonderful group of people. We stayed at the Pastor who has been our contact here. The girls stayed in one of the rooms in his house, while the guys were about 1000 yards off in the woods at one of the youth's homes. We spent a lot of time getting to know some amazing people, which has been absolutely great, but then when we left it was really hard. The group taught two 2-hour classes about how to study the Bible, which went extremely well. We were able to see some of the Island of Buhol's most beautiful tourist attractions, The Chocolate Hills, and a spring that fed a pool. Going to the pool felt amazing… it is pretty hot here and very humid. So now we are on our way to an island called CPG... I do not know what that stands for but that is all right. We will be spending a week there and will be doing random things. Then awhile after that, we head home to the USA. So all has been going really well, we are starting to get on each other's nerves a bit more, which is a problem, but we are working on that.

Please keep us (Brittany, Devin, Jenner, Eric, and Ethan) in your thoughts and prayers.

July 13- Eric in hte Philippines

We are here safe in the Philippines!

My four students & I arrived in the Philippines on August 8th. I taught the book of Ezra on the 10th and then we flew down to Bohol Island on the 11th. Devin preached at church on Saturday and on Sunday I preached. We have been staying very busy and are on the move a lot. The students have been inductively studying the New Testament all year, God has given them so much to give to these people... but they (along with myself) are learning quickly that the Filipino people have so much to give as well. When I preached, I encouraged the church that we as Americans have more to learn than to teach and to not be shy (because they naturally are) to share there stories with us. That opened a floodgate! People have been very open to telling us about their lives. We are doing a lot of teaching, but the most impactful things is like last night-- when Ethan and I stayed up with 5 of the male youth and shared stories of God's faithfulness. The girls have been doing the same with the female youth. We are now in Buena Vista in a little village and are continuing to sleep in nice harsh conditions! But it is so good! We of course have seen cockroaches, massive spiders, 16-foot python (in a cage of course), and other things. The roosters speak to us every morning!
Ronnie and Naomi have been wonderful hosts. They sure do know how to be hospitable! Our goal, like I have said, is to refresh them. I shared that with them the first night... I said God put it in my heart that our team would be like a charger to cell phone... that when we are here, they would feel recharged. And Ronnie became teary-eyed and said that was what he was praying for!
As intimate as it has been, most of our time is filled with laughing...they love to laugh. You can see the stars inside Ronnies house and he said that in America we have 5 star hotels but his house is an all-star hotel because you can see all the stars! They have these 3 huge pigs they are fattening up for food and he said when we leave he is going to miss us...but he will go to the pigs and cuddle with them because they have pink skin like us white Americans! haha. He loves to laugh and make jokes. He is a 21st Century Paul...he has 10 churches and we are visiting 8 of them this month. So other than church work, we will do some construction, encouraging, also seeing the beauty of what God has put his hand on in this nation!
So in short, it has been great! We are learning so much and are attempting to break the mold a bit of American dominance. Filipinos have so much to offer, so we are enjoying raising them up as well through Bible Study and Teaching.

On the schedule today:
-Help Naomi at the local market
-Outreach
-Maybe basketball outreach again
-More bucket showers
-Squatty potty! Oh how I have missed those
-Frog hunting tonight with the youth for frog and rice as a meal!

We love you guys and again, thank you for your prayers. Please pray for health, because we don't always know what we are eating or drinking. Naomi is an incredible cook and is a really hard worker! She is going out of her way as we speak to get us purified water.
Ok, I am done. I could go on and on.

Eric

July 13: Nathan writes from Ecuador

Top photo is of Velma (one of team leaders and medical professional) & Sally (soba student). They ran medical clinics for hundreds of women who needed exams.





Nate writes: Hey guys. God is doing some amazing things over here. We have taken three students under our wing. They speak English pretty well & have such a passion for learning this Inductive bible-study method. I could go on and on about how amazing they are and the divine things that God has been doing through us, but I don’t have enough time. I’ve got to keep it short. Our first teaching went very well with them today and we plan to meet again tomorrow. Re courses are very limited over here, but we did find a very small Christian bookstore to buy them a NIBD in Spanish to use as a recourse for background information. Because of their strong passion for God, we expect that they will continue to study as a group after we leave. They are already talking about passing on this new "gold nugget" we have given them of Bible-study tools. These guys have blessed us so much through the power of God and their obedience (its a long story). We have been able to speak into peoples’ lives here and have seen 2 people delivered of demon possession. Let’s just say that the Holy Spirit was moving Saturday night!!! I believe God wants to start something big through these three amazing people (Sari, Renaldo, and Andreas). Miss you all and can’t wait to see you. God is doing some amazing things! For now just know that things are going great! Blessings and thank you all so much for your prayers and support.

July 6, 2009: Ready to leave for the Philippines

Here are a few pictures of the family we are going to be spending time with in Bohol.
Bottom Picture: (Ruth- 15 yrs and Keziah May- 2 yrs)
Middle Picture: (Keziah May, Naomi, and Ronnie)
Top Picture: (Ronnie and his girls)
This is the family God has blessed us with. They have been incredible through email and a few phone conversations. We are looking forward to getting there and meeting them.
They live in poverty and are filled with joy! Ronnie said, "You guys in America have 5 star hotels... well my house is an All Star hotel.... when you sleep upstairs you can see All the Stars because there are holes in the roof!" He is a man with a great sense of humor who is sold out to church planting.
--Eric, Philippines team leader

Team Bohol, Philippines!

As of July 7, 2009, myself and my team (from left to right: Brittany, Ethan, Jenner, and Devin) will be leaving for Manila where I will be teaching the book of Ezra at the YWAM bases SBS. Following the teaching, we will be flying down south to spend time on the island of Bohol where the students will get a whole month to apply what they have learned this year during SOBA. They will be preaching, teaching and serving the people of Bohol. Our goal and objective is to love and serve the Vineyard pastor, Ronnie and his family that we are coming alongside. We want to encourage them and refresh them for the next phase of their ministry. They pastor 10 churches on the island of Bohol and we will be traveling to most of them (Apostle Paul style) to teach the Bible Overview and the Inductive Method to both pastors and the congregation. We are extremely exited and I personally am exited to see what God does in and through my students. They are going to get plenty of chances to apply what they have learned and that is the goal... School of Biblical Action. I will be doing my best to keep this blog updated with stories and pictures of the team and their accomplishments during this next month. Thank you and here are some prayer points for when it's on your heart...

• For my teaching of Ezra at the YWAM base
• 1 day later, a student will be preaching at the youth service at Ronnies church
• 1 days later I will be preaching at Pastor Ronnies church
• Unity as a team (patience, humility, flexibility, grace, etc.)
• Health as well as miracles, both big and "small"
• A supernatural, Jesus like love and compassion for the people of the Philippines (that they would know they are being cared for)