Dear prayer partners,
Thank you for praying for Lea and I over the last week. God has undertaken for us in wonderful ways. Everything went well for Lea in Manila with all her regular activities. God blessed me and the folks we visited abundantly on my trip to Mindanao. It was definitely a well worthwhile trip.
I was able to visit all our personnel on Mindanao and spend a considerable amount of time with each discussing relevant issue with each, encouraging each other in the Lord and in prayer. I travelled with Bill H, a regional leader and we travelled by road, by air and on foot. We travelled in missionaries vehicles, with SIL in their plane and in a variety of public vehicles. The hike out of the last tribe was a challenge for me. One of the photos shows looking down into a valley with some houses at the bottom. That was part of the hike out. After the hike we travelled in the bus show with all the cargo and the another bus after that. Quite a day for someone who spends most of his time in an office or in meetings.
Each of our tribal works that we visited have established tribal Churches with Elders and the missionaries continue to teach and all are involved in translation of the Scriptures and various other Bible helps. Translated Bible comics are being used quite a bit for communicating truth to the children of believers.
We are really encouraged. God is doing wonderful things in the tribes, in believers lives and in the lives of missionaries as well.
Your brother and sister in Christ,
Ross & Lea
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Ross & Lea
Our Testimony
Ross;
I was born in 1950 in Childers Queensland. My parents were Bible believing Christians and I received a good Christian upbringing, being taught the Bible and attending Church consistently. In my early teens I began to rebel against my parents and God, even though according to my parents I had become a Christian when I was seven. I do not believe I was saved at that time. It was all about what I did, not about what Christ had done for me. There was no evidence to suggest I was a Christian and I had no relationship with God. I thought God did not love me and had rejected me, and so I began to hate God and all Christians with a devilish passion. My mind had been blinded by Satan, so that I did not believe the truth about God and His love for me. I believed I was on my way to hell with no hope and so I decided I would live it up in this life and became involved in all sorts of wickedness and drunkenness. It was during this time that I met Lea.
Lea;
I was born in Maryborough in 1955. My parents were very moral and good living people; however, they were not born again Christians. It seems like I always had a desire to know God and in my childlike searching I had many times had discussions about God with a catholic friend of mine. When I was 13 yr old I asked my parents if I could be christened and as a result was christened. This did not give me peace but I then believed I had done all I could do and I lived what I believed was an acceptable life to God. At the age of 15 I started going out with Ross, at 16 we were engaged, 17 married and at 18 I had our first child.
Together;
Ross told his family never to speak to Lea about Christian things. Ross hated Christians and God and showed it in much of his behaviour because he believed the lie of Satan that God had rejected him. However, Lea began to notice how the Church was a central part of Ross’s family’s life, and she begun to ask Ross questions about their beliefs. At one point Ross told Lea that Christians were going to heaven, but that he and Lea were going to hell. He told her that he would help her to hear what the Bible taught about salvation through Jesus Christ. He said he could not be saved because God had rejected him, but maybe she could and so he would help her to be saved. They listened to Gospel messages on tape, went to open-air Gospel meetings and some church services in the hope that Lea “would get saved”. God in His Mercy and Grace worked in both of their lives through listening to the preaching of the Word and in 1974 both of them trusted Christ as their Saviour on the same night. The difference between previous times and now was that now I was trusting in what Christ had done for me, not on what I had done to receive Christ. It was not about me accepting Christ, but God accepting Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf, and me trusting entirely on Christ’s sacrifice of Himself for me. Christ died for my sin and God's justice was satisfied, and therefore I am not required by God to die for my own sins. Christ paid it all.
Since that wonderful time we have been involved in most areas of local Church activities including Sunday school teacher and superintendent, youth group leaders, cell group leaders, street witnessing, Bible teaching, preaching and church leadership (deacon and elder) and missionaries.
In spite of Lea’s chronic ill health and financial hardships at times, God by His Grace has enabled us to serve Him in full time Christian ministry for about 23 years and for the last 18 years have been with New Tribes Mission. We can testify to the Lord’s faithfulness to us over this time in many, many ways. In 1991 we went to the Philippines as missionaries with New Tribes Mission. God has directed and re-directed our lives in many ways to bring us to where we are today, serving Him in Manila. We have full assurance that we are where God wants us, doing what He has prepared for us to do for His Glory.
God has blessed us with 4 children & two grandchildren. We have one married daughter with 2 daughters, one married son and identical twin sons.
The only reason we consider our ministries in Manila are worth the separation from our family, friends and country is that we know God has called us here for the purpose that tribal people will hear and understand the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise God that is happening on an almost daily basis. Christ is building His Church among the tribes of the Philippines. Thank you for your wonderful partnership in this awesome job of reaching the ethnic minority tribes with the liberating Gospel of Jesus.
Peters version of the Great Commission
1 Peter 2v9 “For you have been chosen by God Himself - you are priests of the King, you are holy and pure, you are God’s very own - all this so that you may show to others God’s wonderful character and how He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light”.
By Grace we are saved through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ & His sacrifice of Himself for us.