Praise the Lord for another year of God’s goodness and blessings for our church, as we recently celebrated our church’s anniversary! This year was our first church anniversary in our new building. Looking back on the past year of our church, it truly is amazing how great God’s faithfulness has been to our church. We first started construction work in May 2023, and 10 months later, we officially held our first church service in the new building despite the ongoing construction. It has been 9 months since we have had services in our new church building. During the early phases of construction work, the Philippines experienced the worst nationwide drought in the last 25 years during the rainy season, which runs from June to November. It seems the weather is now making up for lost time, as the typhoons have nearly doubled for this rainy season. It appears that God held back the typhoons during our construction work, and now that most of our church building is fully enclosed with doors and windows, they have come back. Through the continued support and extra love offerings from partnering churches, we have continued with our church construction. Please continue praying; we need about $18,000 to complete our church building fully.
Not only are we continuing to reach our town of La Castellana, but we are also expanding our influence and reach into another town called Toboso, which is 64-mile, 2½-hour drive across the mountains. We recently had a commissioning service, where we laid hands on and prayed for Joenil Paslon, our first-ever, homegrown missionary sent out from our church. Please pray for this young man as he starts a mission work in Toboso, a town of over 43,000. After 2 months of soul winning and making personal contacts and relationships, 13 of us had the privilege to take a missions trip there and help him in his first official church service. Pray for him, as you can see in the picture that he has no church building—but that hasn’t stopped him from starting a mission work! There were 67 in the first church service, with souls saved! I personally discipled this young man several years ago and supported him as he went to Bible college. Now to see him fulfilling the calling of God on his life to be a missionary and start a mission work is truly remarkable. I thank God that I got to play a part in his life.
Edward and Franco are now five years old and two years old. Edward is now in kindergarten at a local Christian school, and Franco is as rambunctious as ever. As you can see from the picture here, he had a little accident in the third week of November; he broke his leg and got some wounds on his foot. The injuries on his foot were severe enough that he needed surgery to remove the dead skin and some body tissue to ensure that it wouldn’t get infected. Please pray for his speedy recovery so he can return to his usual busybody-self. The doctor said it would take about two months for his leg and foot to heal fully. This incident is the first significant health concern we have ever had in our family.
Please also pray for us, as we are planning to take a short, two-month furlough back to the States so that we can attend my brother’s wedding in June 2025. Pray for the financial needs for all four of us to take this trip.
I (Jesus) will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it,
Ian and Czarinna Vincent
