Park Road Church Blog

Greetings Warriors,

As I sit at my computer at 4am Sunday morning scanning the all bad news articles... I think to myself...Jesus is coming soon!  Are we ready???

Well I hope this will be a bit of a refreshment to you if you take the time to read the adventures of us who live by faith and not by sight. 
We have the Gospel lets share the good news!

I thank God for His provision this month and for those who sacrificial give to our mission here, the people we minister to are blessed as are we and in turn so are you!  Thank you for partnering with us in the Great Commission to Go and preach the Gospel to all the creatures of the earth.  We are small and weak but Christ our King is Big and Strong!

We've had a number of activities this month and it's not over yet, we've used up all our resources and so has our church by generously preparing meals for our volunteers, and by giving in special offerings for ministry.  We're blessed to have a supportive church here and in Canada.  Thank you!

Glory to God we had a successful 3 day training camp with our youth and they became official members of our NGO WELLOFLIFE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INC. we have 24 members now.  Please visit our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=574693046#/pages/WELLOFLIFE-COMMUNITY-DEVELOPMENT-INC/71483791655?ref=mf  you don't have to set up an account to view the 1,100 pictures we've posted of our work here since last July 2008 that you may have contributed to through your prayers and finances.

During this camp we taught about the importance of child evangelism and how to shift an existing children's program into a CHE "Community Health Evangelism" program teaching 50% physical and 50% spiritual lessons.  We selected a committee among our youth volunteers to oversee the Children's CHE programs, and divided the 20 youth into departments such as hygiene, nutrition, good manners, first aid, and prevention.  We placed 4 people in a group and they were given one physical and one spiritual lesson to practice and teach.  We also prepared a drama for each group.  This strategy gave the opportunity for all to share even the very shy ones, I'm intentionally stretching these young people and breaking them out of their shells.  When we had our first camp last year I asked one girl to explain something and she was so shy she cried, we praise God as she taught for her first time this week and is praying in a group setting...she did good teaching at the start but noticed people were watching her and could not finish her lesson, she was helped by another youth.  She will do better next time we thank God for the change in her life, she is only grade 6.

After the 3 day training camp I took them and our Pastor to the mountain to stretch our legs for a 3 hour (12 kilometer) walk up and down the mountain interior.  We reached our cold destination Campogon and the young people ate and went to work teaching their lessons to the children.  The fog was so thick there it was like we were in the clouds with Jesus, we could not see what was outside the small church there and everyone was shivering cold!  At night we had a powerful time of worship and sang for hours, then we proceeded to the church and our Pastor preached on Acts 1:8 and encouraged the Pastor in Campogon who is only 18 years old.  After the preaching we prayed for those in the community and on our team who have a calling upon their lives and want to serve God faithfully.  We slept or at least tried to sleep as many were too cold and not used to sleeping on hard bamboo slat floors.  In the morning I taught some organic/sustainable agriculture practices and gave the community a bunch of free seeds I was able to secure from the Department of Agriculture Philippines and other sources.  The young people taught more physical and spiritual lessons like basic first aid, how to make oral re-hydration solution, proper nutrition, God created with words, John the Baptist - repentance, prayer etc.

We rested one day and were back at it again.  We started our week long Children's CHE Club at the elementary school with the theme "Clean Me, Clean Community".  We didn't want to have another VBS that's only for church kids, so we invited the unchurched kids from the local school.  We gave 308 parent consent forms and had an attendance of 62 the first and last day and about 50 the other days, the kids were grade 1 up to grade 6.  It is summer break now until June.  This program gave us much joy and I was so blessed as I watched our young people minister love to these abused physically/sexually/mentally children.  The joy of the LORD was our strength!  The young people put a lot of effort and heart into this program, I stayed up late many nights working on their lesson plans but they took the paper and made it come to life!  We had dramas everyday "The Adventures of Nak Nak the CHE" the kids loved these problem posing dramas as they set the stage for the days topic.  We split the kids into two groups by grade and taught the lessons, played games and had fun.  The school teacher on duty was amassed how attentive the children were listening to the facilitators.  We ran out of money the week before so things were tight but another organization and church mates helped out with snacks and give away treats for the children.  Christ was exalted and the children were blessed!  We have follow up for the older kids every Thursday to do community projects with the kids.  I plan to buy the volunteers ice cream when I get some money.

I got a sunburn in our garden today as I harvested a pail of peanuts we planted 3 months ago.  I have been eating eggplant I grew in our garden twice a day sometimes, it's wonderful to have a supply of food in our garden when our fridge is empty!  The young people told the Pastor's wife they were sick of vegetables everyday from our camp and outreach so the church pooled their resources and cooked a different meat dish for us each day last week...God provides!

Monday and Tuesday we have a Literacy Training Workshop, I've invited a top linguistics graduate to conduct a workshop on teaching adults and children how to read and write.  We are excited for this so we can have a literacy club in our multipurpose training center (after we renovate), free to the community.  Please pray many will attend this workshop and that God will provide the expenses.

Next Saturday we have a soap making seminar so we can learn how to cut cost by making our own soap and teach it as a livelihood so others can make a profit.

Thanks for your love, prayers, support, and thoughts.  May God continue to enrich your lives!  We want to hear from you!

Love Jeffrey, Lydia & Josiah Smith