Team Indo-Phil Update: Exciting Times for Excited PeopleGod surely has been good to us as we labor in the Philippines. Let me just quickly share with you some of what He has been doing through us at International Baptist Church in Dumaguete City.

The Philippines is still in pandemic mode, but things are slowly returning to normal. We have, at least in our church, gone back to normal, with full services, including children’s Sunday school and children’s services. With some of the relaxing of restrictions, we planned a Vacation Bible School and a Youth Rally. Soon afterward, though, they announced that the public schools would be going back to face-to-face classes. Yes, the Philippines has not had face-to-face classes throughout the pandemic until just recently. We thought we would have to postpone our VBS and Youth Rally, but then they announced a week-and-a-half window where the teachers would be involved with elections and there would be no classes. We jumped at the opportunity and held a week of VBS. More than 800 children took part throughout the 20 different locations where we held daily meetings. By the end of the week, 675 souls had believed on Jesus Christ for salvation.

The next week, we held our Youth Rally, with the theme, “Established.” It could also have been called “re-Established,” as we tried to help our young people hold to the decisions they had previously made. Many great decisions came out of this event. Please pray for our youth, as the Devil hurt a lot of them during the pandemic time. We are working to recapture some of them for Christ.

On June 4, our church had a great tract-distribution day, “Go Forth on June 4th.” We went into every barangay (“section”) of Dumaguete City with tracts. By the end of the day, our church members had passed out, person to person, more than 11,428 Gospel tracts. Please pray that we will see much fruit come out of the great effort on that day.

This Sunday, June 12, is Philippine Independence Day, and we are thankful for the freedom we do have here to preach the Gospel. We will also, on this Sunday, hold two graduations in our afternoon service. Our homeschooling ministry, CHAPEL, will have seven high school students graduate; all seven plan to start Bible college this August. We will also have three of our Hyles-Anderson College of the Philippines students getting their diplomas this Sunday afternoon. Please pray for these graduates as they look to how God will use them going forward.

My family leaves this Wednesday, June 15, for a quick trip back to the U.S. so that we can return and start afresh our immigration status. We will be in California, Georgia, and Indiana during our six-week stay. Please pray for our travel, and pray that we can have a smooth reentry and quickly get reestablished in the work here. There is so much to do before Jesus comes back, and we are running out of time.

Thank you for your faithful prayer and support. We pray that you can visit us some day in Dumaguete City; we believe you would be blessed.

That all the world may know,

Randy DeMoville