Manila Monthly: A Filipina Debut, A Savings Cooperative, and Social Work Students

September 16, 2016

As with my first two months here in June and July, this past August has been another full month of ministry, church visits, and discernment as I continue to settle back into my role with Companion With the Poor. In addition to a one week trip to Thailand to fellowship and pray with 30 other Global missionaries with International Ministries (one of my partner organizations in the US), and more work on the book Journeying With the Poor, I was also able to visit another 15 churches with my team as part of our survey of our 40 CWTP churches. For my reflection this month, I want to share three experiences that jumped out to me during our church visits.

A Filipina Debut

Two weekends ago, my team visited our old area that we finished up last December before starting our church survey project. We attended a debut (18th Birthday Party) in the community of one of the girls at the church that our team had led to Christ. The best part for me was to hear the MC (Master of Ceremonies), who happened to be the sister-in-law of the birthday celebrant, share how excited she was that the girl from our church had become a Christian and was walking with the Lord. Though our team had helped plant the seed of faith in the girl’s heart, God is using her sister-in-law, who lives in a different part of the city, to encourage her and mentor her in the faith! What a joy it was for me to see this in person through the prayers and excitement of the MC during the whole Birthday celebration, and the witness that both the girl and her sister-in-law were being to their friends and family!

A Savings Cooperative

Another experience I had this past month came while visiting one of our newer communities in a part of the city where there is still no water and electricity (similar to the community I lived in in 2013). During this visit I got to be part of a meeting with one of our team leaders who has helped organize 30 women in the community to form a savings and business cooperative to help them save some money and generate some additional income for their families. As has also been the case with our other team leaders that I've seen in action over the past few months, this area’s team leader’s level of knowledge in savings cooperatives and expertise in organizing the community (this is the 4th church he has helped plant with CWTP) really encouraged me and showed me first hand the impact of our ministry.

Social Work Students

Finally, I have been encouraged this past month by 30 Filipino Social Work students from a local university who have divided up between 3 of our 12 teams to get fieldwork hours for their program. Their presence in our communities reminds me of when I was a Sociology student at North Central College. It was during this time that I jumped deeper into serving the poor through fieldwork at a homeless shelter on Chicago's west side. I continue to pray that some of these Filipino students might also commit their lives to serving the poor and even maybe one day work with CWTP!

Salamat Po! (Thank You!)

Thanks for all your prayers and support that allows me to be here and serving in the capacity that I am right now in the Philippines. I continue to pray that the Lord blesses you as well in your families, jobs, churches, and ministries!

Prayers

- Pray for our community, CWTP, as we continue to look for a new office building to use for our office staff, meetings, prayer, hospitality, and even worship time as an organization. We had to move out of our old office last December, so have been renting a small room in a church for the time being. With our organization still growing, we know we need a building that will accommodate us into the next few years, so we can continue being a blessing to Metro-Manila and beyond.

- Pray for our team of 11 CWTP missionaries that continues to prepare and plan for our trip to New York and the US this coming October. The next update I write you may be coming from the US!

- Pray for all of our missionaries and their families, our partner pastors and churches, and all of our ministry partners (like yourself) that continue to support our ministry. We are so blessed to journey with each other in this work!

For more information on my ministry, feel free to e-mail me at pjrollet@gmail.com.

Checks can be sent to Mission Ministries Philippines, c/o Paul Rollet, P.O. Box 6546, Santa Ana, CA 92706.

You can also now GIVE ONLINE  at http://www.internationalministries.org/teams/854-rollet.