Missions mobilization from the Philippines is what I live and breath here on a daily basis.  We are praying for a massive movement of missionaries from the Philippines to the unreached peoples in the world and Lord-willing in the very near future.  I can only imagine what a force of hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Filipino believers taking the gospel around the world would look like.  What kind of ground would be taken from Satan? How much more would God's Kingdom be established and furthered on this earth.  It is what we missions mobilizers bleed and pray for expectantly and excitedly.  But honestly, sometimes it is easy to get discouraged.  While the thought of multitudes flocking out in the name of Jesus is an amazing thought, we can lose site of the goal when people are hesitant to support raise, or teams/team members fall through at the last minute.  Vision can also be lost in the monotony of daily office work and meetings.  But I PRAISE GOD so much, because he reminds us and adds fuel to the fire of the vision that he has placed inside of his Children.  This happened to me during the concert last Saturday.

About 4 hours into the concert during a time of quieter contemplative music, I took the opportunity to step back for a second and look around the stadium.  I started to think about all of the work put in by past missionaries and cross-cultural workers sent to the Philippines, and this was the reward. Thousands upon thousands of Filipinos passionately worshiping God.  A picture that I am sure many missionaries to the Philippines never lived to see.  Then I started to think of what is next for the Philippines.  Where will God take this country?  What will he accomplish through Filipino believers?

Suddenly the illustration came to mind of a pop (soda for all you americans) bottle shaken up violently and opened.  Almost all of us have experience with this happening, and it is usually not a very pleasant experience.  Right now, I see the state of Filipino missions mobilization as being in the midst of the shaking stage, and I believe that myself, other missionaries, pastors, and people sent to aid in the mobilization movement are responsible to do the shaking.  So what does shaking look like in practical terms?  It looks like preaching and teaching on the importance of missions, the state of the gospel and world evangelism today, and ultimately the urgent urgent need for people to say "YES!" and follow where God leads them, whether it is to pray for missions and it's workers, financially support missionaries, or to go themselves.  It looks like meeting with Filipino believers over a cup of coffee and discovering where God is leading them and then helping them to discover what part God would have them play in His' global missions movement.  It looks like sending out Short Term Teams to unreached peoples in order for Filipino believers to see the missions field first hand.

In the past year since I arrived on the field I have seen more and more of the Filipino church being shaken up and awakening to the call of missions.  As this shaking grows more and more violent, I look forward to that sovereignly appointed time by God when we will the cap taken of that bottle and a rushing torrent of Filipinos exploding into all the world, making it sticky with the God's love and the saving, freeing gospel of Jesus Christ.

But there is still a lot of work to do.  The biggest barrier to the Filipino missions mobilization movement is the big mountain of support raising.  Many are willing and excited to go cross-cultural as missionaries but struggle with the thought and reality of support raising.  Until now, we as an organization are doing our best to equip Filipino missionaries and ministry workers to support raising and giving advice, consultation, ideas, and encouragement to help those in the difficult phase of support raising to reach the field.  I am, however, realizing that we need to go one step backward and remind believers of their source.  The biggest component and only way that support raising will be successful is through faith.  God is ultimately the one who provides and is fully capable and willing to provide and we know of his amazing track record of providing for his workers.  I believe the task of mobilizer in a large part, is going to be to remind Filipino believers and candidates for missions of who the source of their support is, of who their source of provision is.  This reminders need to be constant as it can be so easy for candidates to lose sight of their source and focus on the mountain.  When we keep our eyes on the source and truly trust, we see amazing things and ultimately God will not only show his faithfulness, but will also strengthen the faith of his workers and ministers in preparation for what he will task them to do in their ministries.

This revelation/reminder was for me refreshing, reenergizing and a good refocusing on why I am here and what my purpose is.  I know that God has gigantic plans for Filipino Christians, far more than we can ask or imagine and I pray that we would see the reality of this more and more soon.  Join with us in expectantly praying for a massive mobilization movement from the Philippines and let's continue to reflect and delight on what God is doing!

First, to catch you all up: This past couple of days I had some time to myself in Bangkok resting and reconnecting with God.  During this time God revealed a lot to me, things he wants me to change in my own life, attitudes I need to deal with, and the direction that he has for me not only with PSC but in life ministry outside of the mission.  I also had a time of reflecting over this past year (I will have been in the Philippines for a year on October 21^st) and all I could do was give God glory and praise for what he has allowed me to experience, witness, and for everything that he is done in and through my life.  I can honestly say that I never expected any of this to happen in the Philippines, and this first year has been the highlight of my life thus far for sure!  One of the very special memories from that time happened only a few days ago while ministering with the Thailand team.

Many of you read my short blog about Amee, the Thai tribal girl who is 13 years old and has no hearing.  Not only did she not have any hearing, but she had no knowledge of sign language, and neither did anyone from her village.  She had not been able to go to school because the teachers did not know how to teach her or how to communicate with her.  The only thing words that she can utter are one-two-three in Thai (neung-song-sam) and as she strained to count, my heart broke for her instantly.  This is a girl who is incredibly intelligent, beautiful, kind, and yet for 13 years she has had no one to talk, no one to confide in, and no one to confide in her.  Sure she has gotten along so far with the basics by gesturing and playing cherades with her family & friends, but it is so hard to act out what you are going through inside, problems and struggles, joys and euphoria.  Like I eluded to in the last post, all of this began to change for her when our team arrived just a few days ago, including a teacher of the hearing impaired back in Manila.  When the village heard that we had a member who could teach the deaf they brought Amee to us and I could see instantly how excited and joyful this girl was to have someone who knew how to help her, to give her the gift of communication.  Someone who could understand her and had a heart for people with her kind of disability.  What made this experience so much more powerful to me was to see the youth of the village leave their English classes in order to learn sign so that they too could communicate with Amee.  Like WOW, what must that mean for a girl, who has struggled with a form of isolation her whole life, to not only learn how to communicate but to also have people eager to communicate with her?  One special feature about someone that cannot speak or hear is the fact that they communicate with their face more so than others. As Amee was teaching her fellow youth in the village the signs that she had learned I could clearly see her joy as her face glowed with eyes big and a gigantic smile when they would make a sign correctly and when they themselves got excited.

I will hold on to this experience for the rest of my life .  I praise God so much for allowing me to witness this because now I see truly the importance of what I am doing in the Philippines. You see, Jodee (our team member who is teaching Amy) is preparing to return to Thailand has a full time missionary with her husband and children. This trip is an exposure for her into Thai culture, ministry, and the needs of the people.  She will have the opportunity to continue to teach Amee and build a relationship with this girl when they arrive on the field, all with the goal of sharing the gospel and see this girl having a relationship with God.  This is why we send out short term teams, so that God’s people can catch the vision of the need for his kingdom in our dark, lost world, and to see how God can use their giftings, abilities, and passions to share his love with those who don’t know him.  As a mobilizer, I now see more than ever the importance of my role in all of this, and now, as our plane descends into Manila, I am more excited than ever to continue our work of training up and sending out Filipinos!

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)

We now call this property the PSC-SEND Centre. We still feature the guesthouse and now just late last week, PSC has moved our head office operations in Manila to this location. We look forward to God blessing and using the PSC-SEND Centre in strategic ways of mobilizing God's people in Philippines who will engage unreached peoples establishing reproducing churches among them.

The guesthouse at the PSC-SEND Centre is under new management. Please join us in prayer that God will fill to capacity our rooms to serve missionaries and Christians who need a temporary place to stay while in Manila.  For more guesthouse information, including room rates, you can e-mail guesthouse@pscsend.org.

Many if not all are actively seeking the Lord's will in their futures and their involvement in missions.  As I watch them serve God with their gifts and allow his love to flow through them to the many different nationalities here, I cannot help but wonder what a world filled with Filipino missionaries would look like, and wait anxiously, anticipating that day to happen soon.  

Please pray for this team as they continue ministering, that God would give them the strength to carry on and keep on loving, and that they would clearly see his leading on their lives and find out where they fit in his big picture.  

Faith Academy Manila and Mindanao Staff Needs List (April 2011)

• Boarding Home Parents
• Curriculum Coordinator
• Librarian

Teachers:

• Bible
• Elementary Teachers
• English
• ESL
• Industrial Arts
• Korean Language Arts
• Korean Civics
• Math
• Science
• PE - Girls
• Social Studies/Geography
• Spanish
• Special Ed
• Technology Integration Specialist

While in Thailand, the team will be involved in a wide variety of ministries from medical outreaches, prayer walks, teaching english, children's ministry, agriculture, and more.  For a few who are feeling God's calling to full time missions, they look forward to seeing where God leads and how this trip will impact their future.  

It has been amazing to here their stories of how God has provided for them, to the point where they were all able to purchase flights from Manila to Thailand this week.  But the support raising is definitely not over yet.  The team still needs to raise the funds for the expenses in country as well as for ministry supplies.  This includes food, accomodations, transportation, medical supplies, etc.  You can partner with them financially by giving through this website (or by mail) and designating your gift to "PSC STM - BCCP Thailand."

We also ask for your prayers as many have not yet received their passports and will need them by the departure date, and for the growth and unity of the team as they set out to serve God among the unreached.

You can find out more information by checking out our Philippine Sending Council website at www.pscsend.org!

The VOICE Board of Trustees has appointed Jess Espina as the first Filipino Director of VOICE Philippines!  We believe the Lord has led in this, especially when we hear Jess's testimony -- how he took an early retirement about 6 years ago (at age 45) to have more time for the Lord's work through the local church; how the Lord blessed his efforts with an entrepreneurial group; how the Lord granted his prayer to be allowed to attend the Lausanne Evangelism Congress in Capetown in October '10; how he was challenged by his former pastor who was also at Lausanne to be open to full-time ministry; how he was unfairly relieved of his managerial role just days after returning from Capetown; how he was able to accept that without rancor; how he "happened" to receive my text message within an hour of that event inviting him to the VOICE office dedication.

Jess has been a corporate member of VOICE for 2 years and he sensed that God was leading him into something. Then in early February, at the suggestion of a church friend who had been the speaker at our VOICE retreat, I approached him to ask if he would allow his name to be presented to the Search Committee. He prayed about it and also sought counsel from his pastor and fellow elders who affirmed this direction for him. The VOICE Board was unanimous in accepting Jess for the position.

By the way, we've known Jess and his wife Janet since the early 90's as we go to the same church. They have three children, ages 8-15. Today we had Jess & Janet join us for lunch to meet the staff. VOICE now occupies part of the former SEND office, and Jess & Janet used to come to that building in the mid-90's to attend a mid-week Bible study in our apartment!

Did I say "Praise God??” Yes, we rejoice in this provision at just the right time. The appointment is effective May 1, but orientation to the ministry will begin immediately as time permits. Pray for both Jess and I as we prepare for this transfer of responsibility.

Jake Leyenaar