Dear Church Family,
It has been a very eventful summer for our family. We’ve enjoyed two camp meetings, a beautiful wedding, an amazing family vacation in Indonesia, and now are gearing up for an exciting evangelistic campaign in Manila, Philippines. I saw Eric Flickinger yesterday and he shared how he enjoyed a warm welcome and good time with all of you in Greeneville. Whenever we are away like this we are reminded of how blessed we are to have Greeneville as our church family. We miss and love you and look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. But first, here is a little update with some pictures of what’s happening on our side of the world.
As mentioned, our family just completed a trip to Indonesia where we visited Bali & Lombok and some of the small Gili Islands off of Lombok. Being that we were already going to be traveling to the Philippines for the mission trip, we decided that it would make sense to visit a nearby country and because of the strength of the US dollar compared to the Indonesian Rupiah and the much cheaper prices for accommodations and food there, we elected to visit Indonesia. We enjoyed a great family vacation and saw many beautiful places both on land and underwater via a snorkel and mask. I have never been in a predominantly Hindu area before. Bali is mostly Hindu while Lombok is predominantly Muslim. It was interesting to watch their faithful worship practices. The Balinese people were very sweet and we felt extremely safe in this foreign land. In Lombok we heard prayers and chants projected across the island via loudspeakers as they practiced their worship. Here are a few pictures from our trip. We will be sharing more pictures and stories when we share an AYA on our mission trip to the Philippines later this year.
On Wednesday we flew to Manila where we will be until our flight back on July 29. We are 12 hours ahead of the time in Greeneville. Thankfully we have been adjusted to this time for several weeks now after having adjusted over vacation. IIW is doing a great job of coordinating and communicating with us about the details of the trip though as with any mission trip, one must be flexible as last minute changes can and do occur. We met yesterday with the mayor and the IIW team to go over plans for the two week prophecy series set to begin this weekend. We received a very warm welcome from the church leadership. The mayor evidently has a great appreciation for the Adventist church and wanted to warmly welcome us in person. One of the team members invited him to attend his seminar. Some of us found out that we are scheduled to actually begin on Saturday night instead of Friday, so Tina and I will have to make some slight adjustments to our messages. I learned that I will have a team of youth working with me at my sight as I understand it. I heard that the college church here was looking for a speaker in the morning, so I volunteered and am going to preach there for the Sabbath worship service since my meetings don’t begin until Saturday night. We are in the Central Luzon conference where they are launching 506 campaigns simultaneously this weekend. The goal of the three conferences in the Philippines is to have 50,000 baptisms. IIW is supplying 47 speakers for the effort.
Here are a few pictures from our time here in the Philippines so far.
In the news:
- Pastor Alex will be speaking this Sabbat h!
- Dennis Silva will be presenting for AYA with this week with a feature called, “The Old Fashioned Way.” AYA is at 8pm.
- VBS is set to begin Sunday, July 22 at 2pm. Registration forms are in the church foyer.
- Just a reminder that the church campout at Cades Cove is set for July 27-29. Make sure you have your reservations made via the national park web site. Contact Pastor Alex with any questions.
Blessings as you prepare for the Sabbath! Thank you for your prayers as we prepare to share the 3 Angels messages here in the Philippines.
In His Service,
Pastor Jeremy
The Greeneville Grapevine 