Thank you for your continued prayers and support as we keep pressing on here in Dumaguete City. God has been working on us here as we continue working with and through Him. Having been in the same place now for more than 12 years, it is a joy to see the lives, which are being lived for God, that would be much different if it was not for our coming, your prayers, and God’s faithfulness. One of my joys now is seeing those whom we have helped to win, train, and marry, having children of their own—our nursery is overflowing.
Our soul winning has been great as we go out several times a week. Our Thursday evening soul winning has been especially fruitful, as our workers are getting better at following up with their converts and getting them to church to follow in baptism. So far this year, just in our public services, we’ve seen 199 public professions, with 128 of those being baptized. It is still exciting to see the baptistery waters stirred. Our school ministry is back in full swing; in fact, we now have permission from the superintendent of schools in our city to enter any of the schools with our values curriculum. We just added a new school this week to the schools where we already teach the children weekly. Recently, one student at a school pulled out one of our church tracts and showed it to Bro. Emirson Ubas, telling him he wanted to come to our church, after recognizing our church logo on his shirt.
One of the fruits that has come out of the pandemic, is our online radio. Prior to the pandemic, we were working with Missionary Rick Martin to establish an FM station here in Dumaguete City. That was put on hold during the pandemic. Rather than waste the time, I decided that we could start training our workers and helping our church family by starting an online-only station to train those who would be radio hosts. I used my years of having learned computer programming to develop an app for our church to use for their listening. Soon that app included the Bible, Bible-reading schedules, our discipleship program, church media, soul-winning tools, etc. I’ve seen the impact it has had on our people, especially being able to connect with them daily through the radio. Besides my morning radio program with our listeners, we have had a great time with our Saturday evening “Prayer Waves,” where our families gather around the radio to submit prayer requests and two of our men lead in prayer over the radio. It is exciting to know so many of our members are praying, and we are seeing the results of prayer on Sundays.
I have been working on making what we are doing usable by other stations and churches. At the same time, Bro. Martin realized the help it could be for future stations to begin with an online station and has asked me to help get other stations online with our app. Bro. Gene Sharp was recently here in the Philippines, and we met and talked about what I have been working on to help all of the Christian radio stations here in the Philippines. He produced a video about it, which you can watch by using the QR code in this letter. In recent days, I’ve helped get the stations in Iloilo and in Parañaque, Metro Manila, broadcasting online through their apps and have other stations lined up to get online soon. Please be in prayer, as I believe that many will be reached with the Gospel, and church members edified, by this tool in combination with the FM stations.
Please also be in prayer, as we are still moving toward getting our FM tower and station set up for the Dumaguete area. We have the potential of reaching more than 370,000 people from the place we are contemplating placing a tower.
We are especially excited about our upcoming Youth Rally, July 18-20. It has been several years now since we were able to host other churches. Already we have several churches lined up to join us in bringing their youth this year, and our young people are excited. Our Youth Rallies are packed with preaching and have been very effective. Our theme for this year’s rally is “With God and Grit.”
We lose another child to Hyles-Anderson College later this year. We are grateful for the opportunity our children have to attend our alma mater and thankful for their surrender and faithfulness to serve our Lord. Please pray for Delaney as she prepares to start this new chapter in her life.
We have another staff wedding coming up in June; this will be our third wedding between existing staff members. Bro. Paolo Gomez, who is our church pianist and oversees much of our media, will be marrying Jennifer Baldosano, who helps my wife with the 35 students in our homeschool ministry. Another of our staff couples just had their first child. We are excited about these children who will be growing up in Godly homes.
Please continue to pray for us as we labor here. Pray for the Williams family, whom we trust will be joining us here before this year ends, and also for Bro. Scott Christiansen, as he will be taking a short furlough soon. These are busy days as we look forward to the Lord’s return; may we all stay faithful to His coming.
That all the world may know,
Randy DeMoville