2024 was a busy year for mission work and writing. The formal report with details is at this link. We invite you to read the two-page document to see the overall year and our projections of activity for 2025. The ministry objective remains the same: encourage brothers and sisters in Christ and present the Gospel to those that may not know Him, whether it be in the Philippines, other parts of Asia, or in the United States. Teaching biblical creation is a significant part of how we do this. A few glimpses of the last year with comments about 2025 are in this post.
Most of our overseas mission trips have been to the islands that comprise the Philippines, where we have served several Philippine ministries and churches in several provinces. Our efforts started years ago working with children, many of whom are orphans, but the work rapidly expanded to encourage staff, train others to observe the night skies, and teach on biblical creation at the Institute of Foundational learning in Laguna. Since then, we have been to several provinces. In 2023 and 2024 we have had activities at Hallel Ministries on Panay Island.
The image to the left shows a group during a break at a church conference in Iloilo (about an hour from Hallel Ministries, our host for this part of the trip), where we shared on biblical creation. We had taken fossils (remnants of the Genesis Flood), which almost always get attention.
Hallel, about an hour north of Iloilo, is a unique ministry that includes agricultural work and encourages local pastors to work together. The director (and our long-term friend) is Pat Capwell, who continues to have interest in reaching young people with the Gospel. A group of the college students come to this rural ministry to help learn agriculture techniques. Agriculture is the college major for several of these students. The students also provide some help in the ministry gardens. The right image shows them taking a break from the hard work so I could get a picture of them. They also attend meetings on their visits to Hallel. Other younger students participate in some Hallel meetings and get some assistance as they attend local schools. Education costs and fees are a challenge to many poorer students, and Pat seeks to help them as she is able.
We ended our early 2024 mission trip with a period at IFL, where we encouraged staff and orphans. It is hard not to fall in love with our young or older friends at IFL or the local community. Here is one little boy who I have enjoyed getting to know. There were lots of visits to our quarters, times of observing the night skies, and meetings of many types with children and adults.
We are both looking forward to our 2025 to catch up with many of our friends.
At the end of the trip, my wife helped judge the national competition among elementary students. I had a break from the activity, so I was able to watch the dance competitions that included skits, traditional dances, and interpretive dances. The image shows one of the competing traditional dance teams.
While I do most of the teaching, my wife has been a wonderful help in some of the teaching. She also shares women as you can see in the picture. On the 2024 trip we were asked to share as a couple several times. In truth, without her assistance, we could not do what we are doing. We run together.
Our upcoming 2025 trip will be a little different. We will return to several locations where we were before, but we will also be going to Thailand near the end of the trip to help train pastors and church leaders on biblical creation. A US-based ministry (Outreach to Asia Nationals), with whom we have been working in the last 18 months, wanted to have a special session for several teaching pastors from selected Asian nations. So, we will be teaching the subject for four days in the middle of March, before returning to the US.
In preparation for the OTAN meeting, the biblical creation course for high school level children was rewritten and edited for use by trainers representing OTAN. The formal report gives a little more history and detail. It has taken over 800 hours to produce this version of the biblical creation resource. It will also be used in the Philippines.
We are expecting that activity in Asian countries will increase. Some work in the Philippines will continue. Work to make our resources available on the ministry site will also increase, especially as translations of the Third Edition of our biblical creation resource get completed. We hope to see those used by many Asian nationals.
In all of this, we give thanks. God has opened doors for us to be fruitful. If you have been a part, thank you.
Roland Beard, President
CHRISTWORKS MINISTRIES