Update from BHW Partnership Facilitator 

Recent Events

Activities

ECPM training staff, Vida, Ella, Vic and Marwin have been studying, attending webinars and courses and taking this time to revise modules and add new ones since they currently cannot travel to the church planting or leadership training locations. Three new webinar modules have been developed.

The training of campus teams has been affected by COVID because the team cannot travel to the various campuses. However, they have developed online training which, while adequate, is nowhere near as effective.  

Programmes

The Ligao Campus Ministry Team in Ligao Community College and Bicol University finished their training in March 2019. Members of this campus team are now current church planters, Natanael and Marizon. BHW is supporting this team (PHI05).

Aramaywan Campus Ministry Team (Palawan) ministered to Aramaywan High School. It began in May 2018 and continued until 2019 but had problems with members of the youth. It was halted as advised by the elders of the church and instead the youth leader and campus ministry team leader, Jopjop, occasionally joined the church planters in training and ministering to the youth in Aborlan instead. 

Maitum Campus Ministry Team (Saranggani, Mindanao) started in October 2018 and began to train the youth ministering in Maitum High School. Training included handling and leading the first ever youth camp in Maitum. They followed up with other camps into 2019 until the pandemic hit. In normal circumstances, when they have camps, Ella first trains them and helps them prepare the curriculum, helps them with handling Bible study groups, devotions and how to facilitate the camp. Then Vic arrives during camp to speak on the first day, Marwin and Vida arrive the second until the last day to speak and finish off including evaluation with the youth team.  

Two key youth leaders are Jop Jop from Aramaywan, Palawan and Angel from Maitum, Saranggani. Angel has lead the youth group in Saranggani and tried her best to maintain the youth ministry. Currently, she is in college taking nursing and still leading the youth in Maitum.  

Impact of COVID  

They were preparing for teams in San Miguel Bulacan and in Ipilan or Aramaywan in Palawan but after meeting them in January 2020 the Taal volcano erupted and then the pandemic hit. These new teams have therefore been put on hold until they are able to travel again. 

Schooling is now all online although there are lot of youth having problems with equipment and connectivity. They are struggling to connect with some of the young people since they had to adjust to online learning.

Ella has prepared a mental wellness lesson which she started online in August 2021. She has used it for the team in Legazpi and they will be offering this to youth groups in Palawan and Saranggani, Mindanao. This will help them maintain discipleship with them and will be the jump off point to establish the next campus ministry teams once travelling restrictions are lifted. They hope this will be in the next 6 months. This lesson will also be used for ECPM staff and board members as a way of strengthening the mental wellbeing of everyone in ECPM.

Ideas for the Future

They want to try to create a virtual fellowship with church planters from different areas to share encouragement and inspiring stories with each other. They think, at this time with travel being so limited, that sharing stories is something that will help the Filipino church planters. 

There are three new major modules ready to be launched:
1) Emotionally healthy women (women’s ministry for church planting),
2) Simply the story (sharing the Bible through cultures the most practical way)
3) You and your wellness (a pastoral care program for church planters, ECPM staff and youth)

They plan to take each month at a time as they hold regular virtual meetings and prayer times. They do this so as not to get sidetrack with schedules and discuss updates with teams. Each team member will be responsible for a team.   

Current Issues and Challenges

The inability to travel has made a huge impact. However, they have saved on costs so this will help once they are able to travel again.  

Poor internet is affecting the delivery of training to some of the young people and this makes it hard to keep them engaged. 

Prayer and Praise Points

Please pray for wisdom as to how they could start their online fellowship with the campus ministry teams by starting a wellness webinar. They were able to save funds for this and would be supporting this activity through connectivity allowances. This is their main target now.

Please also pray that they will be able to maintain their wellbeing as they feel sad due to not being able to go to church planting areas and fear for their health. By the Lord’s grace, they continue to live with hope and be thankful and laugh together, especially during meetings. Please pray that they will be able to support each other and remain healthy. 

Pray for Angel and the youth in Maitum that they may maintain the discipleship and training with the team. (Photo is of Angel Ampodia together with the youth leaders who attended the first training of Campus Ministry.) 

Comments

Once the impact of the pandemic is over, this would be a good partnership to evaluate although it probably requires a visit to do that.