Family updates

Well, I finally finished them. 18 revised lessons. When I put together our training manual for church planting six years ago, it represented our best practices at that time. That was six years ago. Our missionaries around the globe are getting better at understanding how to simplify church panting so it’s more reproducible and sustainable. We are seeing God honor those who focus on His priorities for the church – evangelism and spiritual growth.

I saw a statistic the other day that shows how our mission board is sharpening its understanding of how God can multiply His church. In the 70’s, Southern Baptist annual church growth rate worldwide was about 4.5%. During the 80’s, about 5.5%, and the 90’s, about 5%. But as IMB missionaries have began implementing what we call CPM (Church Planting Movement) we’ve seen an annual growth rate of over 20% since 2000. That’s worth a pizza and ice cream!

At some point, I’ll try to explain CPM, but for now, I’ll catch up on some family news. Let’s see, Jonathan’s birthday, May 11, went well. Me and the girls fixed a big meal with lots of sweet stuff. We had a couple of family friends over and watched a movie. Jonathan keeps up pretty good with his school work (although he hurries thru it too quickly), and continues to consume about three books a week.

Martha doesn’t keep up as well with her school work (but she is very careful and thorough with all her work). She just finished a three week oil painting class and believes she has found a new hobby to go with her poetry and keyboard practice. Although she misses her friends, she is very glad to be back in the Philippines.

Hannah has just finished two college distance-learning courses thru Liberty University and feels she did well on her English AP exam, bringing her college credit total to about 38 semester hours. She flew to Manila last week on her own and spent several days with a family friend and a missionary friend. On her return trip to the U.S. the first of August, she’s planning a three-day layover in Hong Kong with the same family friend.

Sara has a job. Starting in June, Sara will start a short-term job at Neiman Marcus's catalog department, working on their winter catalog. She's nervous, as I was when I started my first job. But I know she will do well. She made all A's again this semester and has only 2 more classes to finish her Associates degree in Graphic Commuication. I'm real proud of her. We think David is still around, but we're not sure because he doesn't write us often enough. (Do you see this, David!) But we know that, from David, no news is good news, so we are choosing to believe he's doing alright.

May 19th marked my 4th year of NED (No Evidence of Disease). My ultrasound and other tests came back clear. I continue to be very grateful to the IMB for allowing us to return. Every Friday I’m conducting CPM leadership training for five of our pastors. Please pray for Lito, Danny, Atong, Eliu, Leonin, as well as Lilly, as they plant new churches in needy areas. The weather has been rainy and muddy. The flies and mosquitoes are out. But I’m so glad to be back in the front lines of the Lord’s work. Thank you, Lord Jesus.