Kadayawan Sports Festival

Kadayawan is the festival of festivals. There is a horticulture festival, a sports festival, booths for pasalubong (souvenirs), and lots of cultural dances. Eric was able to take part in the sports festival by playing on the mayor's basketball team in the tournament. On Thursday, August 17, was the championship game. Eric's team came in 4th out of 6 teams. One team that was in the tournament was Manny Pacquiao's warriors. Manny Pacquiao is a VERY famous boxer in the Philippines and especially in Mindanao because he is from General Santos City. GenSan, as it is referred to, is on the coast just west of Davao. Well last night Manny Pacquiao, or Pacman as he is affectionately called, actually played on his team. Eric and Tara were able to stand right beside Pacman (he is very short like most Filipinos). We also watched him play. The crowd went crazy every time he even touched the ball. The crowd was amazing. Filipinos love their basketball but especially when Pacman is there. The gym holds probably 2,500 in seats and there was probably well over 3,000 inside with hundreds more waiting outside to try to get in.

Praises

PRAISE THE LORD!!! We are continuing to sell things although it has slowed down a bit but still get some people interested. Please continue to pray that we will sell everything. Also we believe we have someone to take our place. Someone came on Saturday and looked at the place and before leaving said they were interested. Thank you for all of your prayers. We greatly appreciate them.

Praise

As soon as we got back from our trip to Boracay and even somewhat before, we started preparing for our return back to the states. This involves selling all of our stuff here. We had a very long list that Tara had to squeeze onto one page of stuff that we were selling. Praise to God though after only 2 hours of the list being posted in a couple of different places we have already had about HALF of our stuff spoken for. And some more things going to be looked at. One more big thing is we would like to find someone to take the place we have been staying in order to help our landlord out. Please continue to pray for this as we are supposed to have someone coming to look at it as well. Thank you for all of your prayers.

Rest and Relaxation

At the end of July into August, we were able to spend a few days in Boracay for rest after Eric's trip and for his birthday. Boracay is a pretty touristy island in the Visayas. Again, Visayas are the islands in the middle of the country. Boracay is known for their beautiful beaches, one of the world's best supposedly. It was a great time for us to relax and spend some time together without any distractions. Eric would like to thank everyone for the birthday cards and emails. He really appreciates them all.

Cebu trip highlights!

We first want to apologize for not blogging in while. We have been busy, and Eric did not get back to Davao until Aug. Though, he had a great trip starting in Cebue city then traveling to a small but beautiful Bantayan Island and ending the tour in Bogo, Cebu!



Some of the highlights of this trip were!

1.) The great hospitality of the Chinese church and community from the start of the trip they were blessing us with so much!

2.) This was his first time in the part of the Philippines which is call Visayas which is a lot of islands in the middle part of the Philippines. The big city called Cebu City, the queen capital of the Visayas. History would tell us that this is the place where Magellan together with his forces landed and conquered the island bringing Roman Catholicism along with the Spanish friars. This also is the current result of the island's present 98% Roman Catholic. So this is a very much needed area of sharing the Gospel!

3.) Bantayan Island which has less than 2 percent evangelical presence. But, the people were so welcoming especially the churches. This one pastor told us that they were getting so much persecution they were about to commit suicide, but since the planning our trip it was much encouragement. Especially when we thanked and stood up publicly thanking the pastor for inviting this American basketball team to share the gospel in front of their whole community! Needless, to say the pastor seemed very encouraged and a completely new spirit by the time we left! God is good all the time!

4.) This out of my three trips here in the Philippines, this has been probably the best crowd of people, the responses, and the encouragment that we saw with all the pastors, and some of the local ministries that helped schedule the games for this trip.

5.) Lastly, some of the connections, contacts, and ministries that were formed from this trip was truly God working! It was encouraging from future sport ministry partners to the Evange cube seminar that will be coming to Davao City now due to the connections and contacts from this trip!