Final Report – January/Mar 2025 Mission Trip by Roland and Faylene Beard.
Introduction.
The second half of the January to March 2025 mission trip begins with our arrival at the Institute for Foundational Learning (IFL) on February 21. The report for the first half of the trip is a previous post on the www.cwm4him.org website.
Laguna and Cavite, Philippines.
Our first event at IFL in Laguna, after our arrival and greetings with friends, was to speak at a meeting of young people who were working in the local community. The two-hour discussion was about their long-term goals as we discussed the wisdom of including God in decision-making and direction. We talked in real terms about challenges, relationships, and money in a biblical context. During this time we got to hear some of the results of seed we had laid in earlier years. They had not forgotten who we were and some things we had said or done.
Within days, we had attended the IFL church service, spoken at community Bible studies, and presented a “Chapel Hour” talk for the students of IFL Christian Academy. By the time we had our first meeting with the director of IFL, we could positively comment on the health and freshness we sensed. 
We continued to meet with youth during school events, staff members, and several of the growing children who are close to us. Most of our messages in group settings were on keeping fresh in a relationship with God and choosing to make God part of real situations in their lives.
While not a set of formal events, our most important meetings were with individual staff members and children in our quarters. This is where important personal issues and ministry, as in past visits, often occur. There were more than 10 of these meetings, lasting from a few minutes to hours.
One special meeting, held at the request of one of the children’s homes, included the two social workers (also our friends) and several children for dinner, talk, and prayer. We were honored to be part of all these encounters.
While the ministry at IFL is still in transition with new leadership, reduced staff, and reduced finances, their identity as a community church and a hub for activity among a federation of elementary schools seems to be developing in a positive manner. The number of children in the children’s homes has decreased, but the leadership expressed a desire to meet increasing social service requirements from the province to have more.
During our stay in Laguna we also visited a group of believers in an Evangelical Baptist church in Los Banos, where we had previously invested time and effort with a group of believers who observe the heavens as they share about the value of a biblical view of creation. We left them with additional resources, a repaired telescope, and encouragement to share with a stronger sense of outreach for their church and the local community.
Another church group in Cavite (a small city near Manila) invited us to conduct a 3-day seminar on biblical creation near the end of our stay in Laguna. 
Following a pattern of talks and discussions that were used in seminar events in Iloilo, the event proved a success. Approximately 50 people attended, and nearly all of them also attended an evening of observing the heavens. After preaching at the church on Sunday, the last seminar session included a break-out discussion with subgroups, where members and church leaders discussed how they might employ biblical creation material in their local church, nearby schools, and youth groups.
The closing week at IFL was important as we met with the pastor and director about what we observed, gave them a report of events in which we were involved, and made recommendations for the future. By that time we had boxed many things to send to other places and reduce our ‘footprint’ to a couple of bins, knowing that we would probably not return to the same quarters again or be staying quite as long. The building with our quarters and an adjacent building are old, in dire need of repair, and might be abandoned in the next year. We delivered a report on their condition earlier in the trip to the director, who received subsequent information that our assessment was correct. They are prayerfully considering what to do.
We left IFL on good terms, leaving in their hands the responsibility for any requirements for us to visit them in the future (probably in early 2026). Our last week also gave us opportunity to finish preparing for the important trip to Thailand, where we would be teaching pastors the contents of the Third Edition, A Study of God’s Creation Filled with Purpose, Direction, and Consequence.
Thailand.
The trip to Thailand was for the purpose of training a group of pastors and church leaders from eight Asian nations who work with OTAN. OTAN (otan.org online), a US-based ministry, is especially dedicated to training pastors in nations that are generally closed to the Gospel or are suffering persecution. The director of OTAN, at our request, presented several of the lessons in the Third Edition along with us. This was the first conference of this kind that OTAN had scheduled, and it was designed to jump start the use of the material in future training events in the nations that were represented. OTAN and a church in Thailand did an outstanding job hosting the conference.
Our 800 hours to develop the material paid off. Upon our arrival, OTAN had the Third Edition ready for attendees and had prepared an ability to have simultaneous recording and translation of the talks. They had already translated the Third Edition into half of the native languages of the nations that were represented. We prepared addendum material with additional resources and exercises that pastors could employ. With material we had sent to OTAN in advance, the OTAN staff had also prepared boxes of example fossils for each nation’s representatives to go along with the written resources. Each morning and afternoon session began with a couple worship songs, and different national representatives were led each of those. The family from the host country, Thailand, are shown.
We taught for three and a half days with our brothers and sisters, whom we had lifted in prayer for months. All indications of the results were positive from the Director of OTAN and several attendees. As we often repeated, a key purpose of the material is to train others to present and teach a biblical view, beginning with those first critical chapters of Genesis, with a primary aim of reaching younger generations, whose questions we have heard many times. Further, the material underlines the importance and authority of the Bible in a world that is taught an entirely different naturalistic and evolutionary world view, which disrespects the Bible’s authority.
The last day of this event closed with a review of extra resources and a discussion among the attendees to formulate methods and plans for using the material in their home nations as they trained others. While we do not know how the conference/seminar will affect our future work, we have hints that new tasks are around the corner.
Closing.
As we do for every mission trip, we had meetings with our local hosts regarding what we did, but we also invite their input after the events. We will be sending our hosts at Hallel, IFL, and OTAN a written review of our meetings with them. We invite them to comment. From our point of view, we have accomplished more than we expected in the last two months. Three hosts have already stated intentions to hold events in early 2026. We continue to look for opportunities to teach, train, and love those who can teach others.
These mission trips are always full of opportunities to meet with brothers and sisters. Our prayers for those in Asia, including the Philippines, have not ceased. Friends have asked about the effects from the recent earthquake in Southeast Asia, which has impacted the areas where some of the pastors live who attended the OTAN event. Some were undoubtedly affected, but we don’t have specific information as yet.
Thank you for your prayers and support,
By His grace,
Roland and Faylene Beard
