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!
