Raising up a child

Yes, we do have a lot of young children here in Lucban though I am referring to the many new/young Christians that we’ve encountered over the past week. Since the opening of the student centre, there has been a significant growth in the number of students coming and many have since turned to Christ and been baptised. There are also quite a few frequent members/ visitors at the centre who have yet to put their trust in Christ and follow him. As a result, many of our bible teachings are focused on discipleship and growing as Christians. Looking back at our university life, one never knew how God would use that experience of struggling through difficulties and growing in Christ, but now in Lucban, it is clear that God taught us an important lesson in our respective university life such that we could be used as a tool to share our lives with them and participate in God’s purposes in building them up.

More about the bible studies

Each week, between the 3 of us on the team, we take 4-5 bible studies between us at different boarding houses with both Christians and non-believers. These opportunities would be unheard of in the UK or Australia and God has been blessing these home groups. At each of the bible studies, the students always enthusiastically congregate in the hallway or sitting room waiting to learn God’s words. In one of the boarding houses, because of the tight spaces, they chose to stand for an hour so that they all could learn the Word. Even though some of them may not fully understand when we teach the bible in English, but we continue to pray that the Holy Spirit would enlighten them and bring them to Jesus.

Aside from these home bible studies, short bible studies take place in the student centre every day! As we mentioned in one of the previous entries, about 40-50 students visit the centre each day. Many of these would have been non-Christians and the student worker – Anne, faithfully teaches and evangelises to the students. Every time we go to the centre on our breaks from teaching, 4 or 5 students would be sitting round the table with ate Anne (in case you don’t know, ate is a sign of respect for older female in Tagalog. Kuya – for older men), either studying about the salvation brought to us by Jesus or looking at teachings about how to live such good lives among the pagans that though they may accuse [them] of doing wrong, they may see [their] good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:12)