After 4 1/2 months I am finally back home. I flew into Austin December 9th at 8 pm. It is great to be home.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for me while I was gone. God listens to the prayers of His people. It helped me make it through this time and it made a big impact in the work we were doing. The last month went very well. It was a good time of wrapping up and resolution for all of us there. We got baptise three more ladies. That was a great pleasure. Our last night on the island we had a going away party and around 90 people showed up. It was nice to see how much the community had adopted us and wanted to send us off. We were up to the wee hours of the morning with our closer friends. I got to sleep around midnight but then we were up at 4 to get everything out of the house and taken down to the boat. There was a group of about 20 that got up with us at 4 and saw us off at the boat. There were quite a few tears amidst all the goodbyes. It was encouraging to the see the impact we have had and that we will be missed.

It is good to be home, but I won't forget what God has done and taught me. It has been a long hard road but filled with God's grace and provision for me. He is always faithful and has been there for me every step of the way.

But His mission for the world is not over. Please continue to pray for the people of the world who still need to know the love of Jesus Christ! We are God's tools to help reconcile the earth to Himself.... Don't ever forget!!!

Paulo (right) and one of his friends at our second baptism

Let me tell you about my friend Paulo. Paulo is 12 years old and started attending one of our Bible studies about 1 1/2 months ago. He was real eager to learn from the very start. He told us that all the stories and everything he was learning from us he was going and teaching to his friends at school. After he started passing on his newly acquired knowledge his friends labeled him apostle paulo.

He was faithful to attend every time he could and really seemed to understand what we were trying to get across. After about three weeks of him attending, passing it on too his friends and inviting his friends to join us also his friends told him they could see a change. They confessed to him when he first began sharing with them that they were all talking about him behind his back, but now they could tell it was something serious and important. So now we have several middle school aged boys that come to learn about the Bible and how Jesus wants them to live.

I am down to one month left here. It has been a crazy journey here.
God is alive and doing work. Unfortunately so is the devil. There are a lot of spiritual strongholds in the Philippines and very much on the island we are working on. Here are some strong points we could use MUCH prayer on.
1. Witchcraft - It is culturally acceptable to go to a witch doctor for healing. We have about three in our village. They don't find anything wrong with it. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)
2. Alcohol - I would say the majority of the men on our island are alcoholics. There is just not much to do so they all turn to drinking. It is a major problem. They usually start around 14. (Ephesians 5:17-18)
3. Suicide - It apperently is not common for the Philippines, but we have overwhelming account of suicide or attempted from our island. It is strange and definately something spiritual. Many of the families have been affected by it.
4. Homosexuality - This is a major stronghold in all of SE asia and it is here. We have been able to share with several guys in this lifestyle. It is something incredibly hard to break out of. (Romans 1:24-27)
5. Parenting - Every single person I have talked to has scars from their parents. And while being here I have observed two things, neglect and abuse. I have yet to see true discipline administered correctly. (Proverbs 22:6)

These are all major problems and spiritual stronghold I have seen that you could all pray against.

It is hard for me to stay focused. I miss home and am ready to be back. So pray for me to finish the work I was sent here for. We still have time to see God do more.

Thanks for all the support!

Hey I have been trying to add some more active snapshots of my life here with some videos I have taken. I have uploaded them on youtube and you guys can check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/jare222?feature=mhum

Just some better visuals of how things look for me!

Keep up the prayers, God hears and answers everyday!

Hey friends,

We are at our halfway point now. Crazy how things progress. Anyways a lot has still been taking place. The week after we had all of our baptisms was pretty hard. The people who chose to be obedient started to hear a lot of feedback from other people in the village. Not so much focused at us but more that those people were just trying to act holy to impress us. Just a lot of gossip and comments from their own families and other people. We know that this all just spiritual warfare and there is usually always backlash when people make a stand for Jesus. But pray that they would stand firm under this pressure and it would only bring them closer to their savior.

This past week we took a little 3 day retreat with all of us missionaries how in this area. It was Jeff and Kim (the permanent missionaries here) Ronnie and Savannah (both part of the journeyman program, 2 years in the field, post college, they are doing college ministry), Ernest and Cecil (our two Filippino team leaders), Hannah (another semester person who stays in city and does college ministry with Ronnie and Savannah), then me, Dave, and Joey. So we had a good little retreat. We went to a small resort on another island. Nice beach, good food and beautiful scenery. It was a great time to recharge and evaluate for upcoming two months.

Well as always please please please continue to pray that God would move

Our group after baptism

Joanne about to be baptised by Cecil

Me baptising Morlan

Praise session on the beach

Night time bible study in our home