This photo set shows my wife, Veruschka, arriving at her site and my daughter, Shylla’s second night preaching and some photos from Sabbath. Shylla has about 20 girls that follow her around at the site and she faithfully practices her sermon several times each day with her 12 year old translator.  They really preach it!  Last night Shylla made a three part appeal and had every person on their feet, then she lead a trio in singing “Holy, Holy, Holy!’ to close the meetings.  I had no idea that they had planned to do that at the end. Shylla had 138 attending her site last night!  Attendance doubled from the first night to the second.

This morning all the pastors were talking about the inspiration these two girls are.  One leader told me, “Our children can do this too! We need to talk seriously about equipping all the young people in the Philippines to ‘Share Him.’  We see that young people are attracted to the message when it is delivered by kids their own age as Shylla’s has many of our young people, who wouldn’t be there if an older person were doing the presentation.”

After training about 60 people this Sunday. Lunch was a real reunion for many of us who pioneered putting the culturally sensitive graphics on DVD’s. Denzel McNeilus, Duane McKey, Benny Moore, and I reflected on what’s happened these past 9 years and how Don Gray’s vision brought us all together, (more than 20,000 people have been trained and equipped to meetings internationally and 11 new Churches a day need to be built to hold the people being baptized by “Share Him” alone!) and we talked about what’s next. 

Plans are underway to manufacture I-pods in China for $25-$50 which can be updated with flash memory–saving DVD duplication costs which don’t allow modifications to be saved. 

It usually takes Maranatha several weeks to build a church and the process is often filled with delays, lack of materials, and project inefficiencies equal much wasted money and efforts.  I saw a plan and pictures of steel materials on a pallet that 3 people can bolt together in one day to create a 24×36 village church, which is expandable, and only weighs 1450 pounds! Need a bigger church? Order two pallets of building materials and find 3 more people.  Each palette can be shipped anywhere in the world and erected for $5000!  What’s missing from the plans, is important as what is there.  We learned in India in 2001 that if we designed and built the entire church and handed them the keys, they didn’t have ownership of what was built and donated.  So the 10 foot high basic church structure, has a roof

and all the metal studs for the walls and spaces for windows, but the wall material is not included.  The local members can add the walls and use local materials such as bamboo in the tropics, bricks or plaster in others, or in Mongolia they can stack hay bales up and spray them with concrete for insulation. If they want a taller church, they can build and prepare a five foot foundation and set the 10 foot high metal studs on top, for a 15 foot high ceiling.

We heard that 1553 people were during baptized during Don Schneider’s meetings. 

Sabbath afternoon people at Shylla’s site went house to house in a Jeepney, handing out invitations with Shylla’s picture on it. We went along, but didn’t go to any homes as my other daughter, Cassia, was exhausted and had what she called a “heat stroke”, so we went back to the hotel and cooled off in the pool and got lots of water into her. She was better by the evening meeting.

The leaders are enjoying Veruschka’s preaching style and messages.  She had everyone praising God with lifted hands and even had them jumping up and down, and crying.  Her site is in a welding shop that was cleared for our meetings. They are building a new church about 100 meters away.

The women really run things in this country we’re noticing.  The men just sit around.  So I’m fitting in pretty good. Ha! Not sitting around at all.  The girls are getting along great and we’re in a very secure hotel. The girls are always together and with a team member.  I’m shooting lots of stills and some video so you can see our girls in action.

Shylla’s preaching on Daniel 2 tonight.  I met her translator’s teacher today, and she is coming to the site on Sabbath to see the girls.  Alessia, my step-daughter, and Cassia are slightly jealous of the attention she’s getting because she’s up front, and they are behind the scenes We’ve given them the opportunity to speak, and share their testimonies, and they did a great job on Sabbath. Neither one wants to take a night and speak, even though Shylla has offered.

Shylla’s site is about 7 KM or 10 minutes away and Veruschka’s site is about 1 hour and a half away or 50 KM away.  

Thanks for keeping all of these meetings in your prayers