A Quick Update!

Thank you so much for your prayers! We are still working on getting the paperwork in order for our visas, but seem to be on the right track. God has been faithful to answer your prayers in strengthening our prayer lives and in teaching us about Filipino culture. We spent an evening at a Filipino festival enjoying music and trying new foods. One woman we met even spoke the language that we will be learning once we get to the Philippines and had been to the area we are going to.

Time has gone by very quickly as we are over halfway through our time of orientation! This next week we will be going to New York City to meet people from all over the world and tell them about the Bible and who Jesus is. Please pray for us that we will be bold in sharing the gospel and that people would be willing to hear and believe it.

Also, please pray that we will finish our last few weeks of orientation well. We would be thrilled to hop on a plane tomorrow but we know that there is still much for us to learn here!

Orientation

Hello all,

Joe and I have started orientation and have been in classes for a week. It's been super fun reconnecting with friends we made a few months ago and we've gotten to spend a lot of time with them so far. We've also made a lot of new friends from all over the US. The people are great and the food is pretty good so we're grateful to be here for the next couple of months.

In our sessions, we have been repeatedly been learning about the importance of prayer. So we would like to update all of you on prayer requests we have for our time here at orientation:

• Getting our visas for our time overseas
• That our personal prayer lives would be strengthened so that we would rely on God for all of our needs
• That we would learn more about the culture of the people group we are going to be living among

We're thankful for you following along with us and your partnership in prayer. We hope to update you as we move closer to journeying to the Philippines!

Elizabeth

Hello! Welcome to our blog!

If you are reading this, you probably know a little about our upcoming trip to Eastern Samar, Philippines. This blog will be our main form of communication to everyone during our time in the Philippines. Check back here periodically, we will update it as often as possible but internet may not always be available for us. Here are some details about what we'll be doing and experiencing while we are there.

We will be going to minister to the Waray-Waray people who live in remote river villages on the island of Eastern Samar. Our goal will be to evangelize as well as disciple young believers in efforts to grow the church there. We will be in the Philippines by October 1st and for the first three months we will live on the island of Leyte in the city of Tacloban in order to learn the Waray language. We will then move to a town called Dolores in Eastern Samar and begin working there.

Things you can pray for us while we are in preparation to leave:

• Pray as we prepare to move out of our apartment and say goodbyes to family and friends.
• We start a 2 month training in Virginia on July 20th. Please pray for that time to be fruitful in our spiritual growth and equip us well for our time in Eastern Samar.
• Pray for the Waray-Waray people that the gospel would continue to transform hearts and that disciples would be made.

Thank you for visiting our blog! We hope you will be able to follow along us as we journey to the other side of the world!

Joe and Elizabeth