Dear Praying Friends,

January marked 6 years of service for our family in the Philippines.
In February, we held a Hearts Fellowship for the young people. We had 102 young people come out for this activity and several made professions of faith. Considering that our regular youth group is around 20, we were so happy with all the visitors that our teens brought!

In January, we moved our church wide soul winning time to Sunday afternoon. We have around 30 people each week going out on visitation. The average work week here is 6 days a week and many people really wanted to go soul winning, but could not join any of our Saturday times. It has been a real blessing to the church since many people are able to bring their visitors directly to church for the afternoon service.

In two of the mountain areas close to our church, we have seen tremendous fruit. We visited one area and the grandmother of the family told us, “We are Catholic and too old to change, but the children are not. It would be good if they could learn the Bible.” We now hold a Neighborhood Bible class on their property every Saturday. For our Sunday services, we are bringing around 30 children and young people from this area. The last two weeks, a few parents have also visited. The second mountain area is where we have our weekly teaching ministry in the public high school. Because of our connection with the teens in this area, we have seen many visitors come to church. We are praying for a great harvest of souls from these areas.

We also have a group going to a mountain area one hour away from the church every Sunday afternoon and holding services. We have worked with these people in Tabunok for 4 years. In January, we decided to start holding services in the mountain instead of bringing them to the city for church. What growth we have already seen! Last Sunday, we had over 60 people there for the service all crowded into a very small house! This week, we signed a 5 year rental contract on a small piece of land. Construction also started this week on the building. The building will just be made of bamboo and coconut lumber and the men of the church are the ones building it. The auditorium should hold around 60 people and the children will meet underneath the auditorium floor for their Sunday school class. Our first mission church has officially begun!

In January, a dear church member passed away in a military plane crash here in the Philippines. The church member was an aide to a two star general and the tragedy drew national attention from the media. I accompanied the family to the airport when her remains arrived in Cebu. We held three services at the funeral home and spoke at the graveside. Because the funeral was broadcasted, many people remarked that they had seen me on national TV! Much of the family is still lost and they asked how much my services would cost for the funeral. Our church members assured them that I would not want any money because my services were done out of love. This was a huge testimony to the extended family and we pray that the gospel will touch many of their lives.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!    
    

Missionary Travis Lewis