For the past 6 months, they have tried to pull their efforts together to encourage and guide the church planting teams through online communication. Vic Enriquez and Ella revised the training modules to make them easier for online teaching for the Legazpi Team but, as always, poor internet connection has been an issue especially for teams in Palawan and Saranggani. With the Legazpi team, being in the city and having young professionals in the group, they were able to conduct online modules.
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Because community quarantine is not that strict in Bicol, the team has been able to hold 2-3 Bible study groups a week. However, in April COVID cases rose significantly in Bicol so the team reverted to online Bible studies. They did this during the early pandemic days so they were somewhat prepared but they had to realign some of their planned strategies to become conducive for online rather than physical gatherings.
Given the situation the team tried to also take it as a time to enhance themselves by attending webinars and seeing how this could fit into future modules. Because times are changing it was good for them to learn how to adapt and contextualize some of the modules without losing the Biblical principles and mission cycle process of ECPM. The “Emotionally Healthy Women Webinar” certificate course which Ella attended for more than a month would be a great addition in their module on Women’s Ministry. Enhancing Soul Care and Mental Health lessons through webinars will also enable Ella to help the Legazpi team in sharing this to their Bible study groups. She is also trying to contextualize it and help the ECPM staff and board.
Aside from doing the regular updates and consolidating the reports from the teams and staff, Ella has also been doing the layouts and creating narratives for ECPM. She assisted in consolidating the government reports prepared by Vida and converted them to official files. In addition, she is always focused on her assigned church planting teams to keep modules going and keep mentoring and coaching each of the church planters.
Partnership's Influence and StoriesElla says, "I will always be in awe of how the Lord moves young people to serve and answer the Lord’s call. I thank the Lord how the campus ministry in Bicol became the training ground and preparation of the foundation of the church planting in Bicol."
She is also thankful for the opportunity of mentoring the team in Bicol. Mary Joy, previously a member of one of the campus ministry Bible study groups, is now a church planter. ECPM's training benefitted her and she was impressed by the the passion and personal touch in the training. She gives glory to God because the commitment and consistency in the church planting training inspired her to respond to God’s call and this has enabled her to minister to others including her own family. With what she is learning from ECPM, she was able to create her own family Bible study group and through physical and online gathering, was able to apply the basic principles continually. The photo is of her Bible study group with her family.
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Dahl (Marizon) who was one of the campus ministry leaders during the ECPM campus ministry training in Ligao is also thankful at how the Lord weaved her life. After college she started working in Legazpi city where the center of the church planting started. She knew she wanted to serve but how it would happen was the question. The church planting team in Legazpi was the Lord’s answer to her. Aside from the Bible study groups of Mary Joy and Natanael’s students, Dahl holds a Bible study group with her work mates, all young professionals. Together with Tan and Mary Joy’s group, they’ve handled different online Christian growth lessons and physical bible study and gatherings making the groups meet each other.
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The pandemic caused by COVID-19 is a major setback for the whole team. Though discouraged at first, they knew they had to make use of empowering principles from ECPM, personal mentoring and the use of technology they have been gifted with.
Ella is recognised as the most technical person among the staff so she had to help everyone else to consolidate online reports, meetings and narratives including layouts. More time on the computer somehow affected her eyesight. Ella is an extrovert and felt sad to be talking to people through online chat rather that the personal sharing times with them. Having served more on the pastoral care aspect, she tried her best to communicate with them online but it is really a challenge to talk without the “physical” person present.
Her husband helped her to assist the team in conducting online meetings, modules and gatherings. Starting in February they conducted weekend “kamustahan” (from the Tagalog word kamusta – how are you?) with the teams and started with the Palawan team. They had to convert modules for online delivery. They will be trying to create video modules for the teams that would be easily accessed and be easily understood. They intend to record Vic, Marwin and Anthony and develop the videos for the teams’ module followed by sharing and discussion with the trainers.
Health security is a major concern as well for Ella. Before it was not a major issue to go out on misisons and going to "the ends of the earth" but they have had to make health and safety a priority since this will also model and inspire others to follow the protocols.
A major personal challenge for Ella was that her father unexpectedly passed away a few days before her birthday last December. He had a heart attack due to COVID. She had not seen him for 10 months although they regularly talked. This made it more heartbreaking because by the time she was able to see him he could not respond anymore. It was a real challenge to prepare for the wake and cremation at the height of the community quarantine. She says, "I am still sad at times but I try to understand how the Lord journeys with me in each of these events. These pandemic times are very different and major “growing times” with the Lord."
With all the unexpected events she has more reasons to thank the Lord:
- For His blessings and provisions through ECPM.
- For her husband’s work, it is such a big help to have regular emplyoment.
- She is thankful to be able to take part in ministry, in academic training at a seminary and the ability to attend several webinars.
- She is thankful for the mentoring and caring she gets from her home church. She is part of a life group and the media ministry in the church.
- She is thankful for conducting ECPM Campus Ministry trainings before COVID set in which prepared the church planting team in Legazpi.
- She is thankful for good health for both her and her husband and they are praying that they will soon have access to vaccines.
- She is thankful too that they were able to spend bonding times with the ECPM team in their small home last December.
Please pray that she may be able to have an eye check-up and accept the fact that she may be wearing glasses soon.
Please pray for continued protection from COVID-19 and good health for the family. These are the times they don’t want to go near hospitals. She misses being able to get out into nature. "Living in the concrete city of Metro Manila, I try my best to really do self and soul care and schedule more times for prayer and meditation, singing and laughing more, remembering the good breeze and simple nature scenes we see whenever we visit church planting teams."
Please include their preparations and plans in your prayers:
- creating video modules and online “kamustahan”
- please pray for Mental Health and simple soul care sessions that they will conduct to some of the Legazpi Bible study groups and eventually with the ECPM team and board.
Ella is a vibrant, gregarious person and lockdown hasn't been easy for her. As with the other related projects here, we need to continue funding this as is until we can get there and reassess.