October 2005
Dear Friends,
When it rains it pours! Literally! We’ve not been able to go out for the last few days—the weather has been torrential. But that’s not all the “pouring” that’s been going on! God is growing His Kingdom and privileging us with a chance to be a part of it! Things have been heating up at Village of Hope! We’ve acquired the neighboring 2˝ hectares (about 6 Ľ acres) giving us road access and a spot for our school, church, and sport’s complex. We’ve also begun taking our staff to visit other children’s homes in the Philippines to get ideas and build excitement for what we hope to become. And we have been getting a lot more personal time with the kids lately, which is always a highlight in life. A few of the kids needed some new dress clothes—we’d already given them play clothes. We dug into the boxes of everything that we shipped. Here’s what became of the kids:
They’ve got new clothes, smiles, a family, and Jesus. Now all we need to give them is a new house! Back row (left-to-right): Juvany (14), Jenny (13), Celso Ramos, Reme Ramos Front Row: Romero (7), Gina (12), Mila (10), Joey Ramos (12) Village of Hope will include 20 homes for 10 children each, a school, a church, play grounds and a sports facility. |
Every Monday night our living room doubles as the Maranatha Bible College Outreach Team Reporting Room. We get the outreach team leaders together and let them report on great things that happened over the weekend, pray for each other, and share problems so we can work on solutions together as a group. We also use at as an opportunity to teach them new skills and ideas in leading ministries and people. And of course, every meeting is a prayer and worship meeting, as well.
We try to teach something every meeting. This week Jean taught on Spiritual Warfare from the book of Daniel—now that we’re seeing many baptisms we’re also seeing new spiritual opposition. Mike taught on building relationships by accepting people and meeting their needs. |
Renato Flores shared his vision for the La Union outreach. The children there love to go and hear Bible stories. He realized that the parents stand in the back of the group to monitor what their kids are being taught. His goal is reach the parents through his children’s ministry. |
Outreach Team Leader meetings always start and end with student-led worship and prayer. Ricky Yungod. Is an excellent worship leader. He and his wife Esmy ride a small scooter through several miles of very steep and rocky roads to get to the hills of Danao every week! |
Our Outreach Teams also asked us to acquire some tents for the times their ministries keep them away overnight. We prayed about it and started looking. Suddenly, a shop just a few miles from MBC had a huge selection of two and three man tents that were sturdier and less expensive than anything we could find in the city (prayer does things!). We bought seven tents. We set two up inside our home so that people could see them. We weren’t even thinking about the fact that the VOH kids were scheduled to sleep over that night (the kids stay with us Friday and Saturday nights). Guess where they wanted to sleep?!? They had a blast in the tents! It was like a field trip for them! They dumped out the toy box and started making beds for the stuffed toys and finding PJ’s for the dolls and playing house and it was so much fun to watch. We often hear them giggle, but we’ve never heard them have so much fun before! Guess what their bed will be next weekend! The Outreach Teams appreciate the tents, too, but we’ve yet to hear them giggle anywhere near as much as the kids did!
We are also doing well. We want to thank everyone who prayed, called, wrote, and sent gifts while Mike was in the hospital. Recovery was a tough road for both of us, but God’s grace and your friendship carried us through. Mike feels almost 100% again, and Jean is well on the road to recovery from emotional rollercoaster she went through during the ordeal. We’re back in full swing and excited to live out the Adventure God has given us.
Mike and Jean Propp
Missionaries to the Philippines
“You may trust the Lord too little but you can never trust Him too much.” --Hudson Taylor
www.kingdomadventures.org