May 14-30th, Eric headed up to Manila to meet the American team coming to the Philippines. The team officially then headed another 35 minute flight north of Manila to an beautiful area called Bicol. This started the 2006 Sports Ambassadors trip to the Philippines.
This year was unique planning and strategy! This was three ministries working together to help encourage, equip, edify, and evangelization. The three ministers were 1.) Sports Ambassadors - being the short term Americans that came for a few weeks playing and sharing the Gospel. 2.) Summer Team Evangelism Program (STEP)- These are short term summer teams that consist of some Americans but this year primarily Filipino's doing there own mission trip which was exciting to see.
3.) Bayanihan Church Planting (Church Planting Coaching Network) - This is a network of 12 pastors trying to plant churches in areas that have no Evangelical Churches.
So, This year they put all three working together. The Coaching Network is a 12 month meeting, teaching, and encouragain pastors to plant new healthy churches. Well, on the fifth month which was May, the topic is getting or start making new contacts to start Bible Studies, and in the long run to plant a church. Well, that's where Sports Ambassadors came into play. We were able to playing over 15 games with crowds sometimes as big as over 2500 people and through sharing basketball we were also able to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. So the pastors that were in the network were given numberous names of contacts that were interested either more information, wanting to accept Jesus Christ as the Lord, or to start attending a Bible study. Sports Ambassadors were able to work directly with 6 to 8 local pastors that were all wanting to plant churchs in areas without a Evangelical Church.
That leaves what we called steppers or the Summer Team Evangelism Program. Where do they play a role in all this partnership and coming together. STEPers will lead the charge to follow up the responses to the Gospel. The STEPers will and current are partnering with local churches in helping the local pastors with the follow work and visiting those who indicated they received Christ or wanted a Bible study. The Bible studies that will be opened will be continued by the local lay workers to whom STEPers partnered with until the time when the attendees will form a new church or fellowship. We're praying that many souls will be harvested and many churches planted for God's kingdom this way! They are and will be working until the end of June! Just to try to paint the picture a little more clearly of this idea. Sometimes Sports Ambassadors comes to a little village or help out a pastor playing two games in his area with crowds of say 500 at one game and 1,000 at the other. Well, the response we would average would probably be about 150-200 games. Try to give a small local pastor that has maybe 9 to 20 members currently at his church and we turn around and hand him 150 to 200 names to follow. Needless to say this could be overwhelming to some if not most pastors! The STEPers are there to help encourage, and do some of the field work of meeting, visiting, and connecting with the people!
Some of the Trip highlights:
1. This year was a different kind of trip for me...being on the other side of sort of leading the trip, sort of in charge, I helped setup this trip, and so I really did not feel like an American coming to a country to help. It was more like, it was my country and I had to keep all the connections happy and going. Such as the pastors to the american team and etc.
2. It was encouraging to truly see all the E's being filled
encourage - I saw 8 encourage pastors to see Americans coming and helping them out, and knowing that still would have more help with the STEPers after we left. I also saw many of Sports Ambassadors players encouraged in their faith!
equip - I saw that the local church was getting more help and learning more about following through the STEPers.
edify - I saw many of the STEPers, players, and pastors being edified through Christ like Fellowship! Seeing guys stand up and share there testimony for the first time ever in front of crowds of 500 or more!
evangelization - I saw the team evanglize over 15 games, and even the players one were able to go and visit some of the homes of local Filipino's house and share the Gospel with them in more one on one or group setting!
Overall, it was a great trip, that all went very well, and the Lord Saw us through it the whole way!
