Paden's in the Philippines

February Update

2012-02-26T15:56:00.011-08:00

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Ps. 73:25-26

We have some exciting news to share for those who haven't heard yet.

This summer we are expecting a new member of the Paden Family to arrive!! Yes, that's right, I'm pregnant!!

We are very excited and the kids can't wait until their little brother or sister arrives. I'm 16 weeks along right now and everything so far is going well. We found a good hospital and wonderful doctor who has delivered many other missionary babies born here in the Philippines.

It's my job to update the blog, so I apologize for the delay, only recently have I been feeling better as the morning sickness subsides. The due date is August 9th.

Family Update:

Besides the good news we received in December about the baby, we have had a lot of other milestones in our family. See pictures below.

Josiah turned 4 years old right before Christmas.

He loves Cars, so this is his Lighting pinata.

At the airport! We traveled to Cebu (another island down south) for Gilmer's youngest brother's wedding.

We celebrated our 11th Anniversary on Jan 6th in Cebu.

Cute kids all dressed up for the wedding.

The Paden Family. All the siblings haven't been together in almost 10 years! Three of Gilmer's brothers and his sister work overseas, so family get-togethers are few and far between.

After the wedding we had a nice time at the beach for a family reunion. Here are some of the cousins playing together.

Gilmer and his Dad.

Here is almost all the grandchildren on the Paden side of the family.

Josiah's first day of school! After our trip, Josiah started preschool two times a week. He loves it, can you tell!

Caleb celebrated his 8th Birthday at a water park on Jan 15th. One of the nice things about having a hot Christmas season is being able to swim in January.

Ministry Update:

The next few months are busy ones for PSC as we gear up to send short term teams this coming summer (April and May). Gilmer and his team will also be traveling in May to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar in order to set-up the next year's teams. This year there are 4 teams going out and they hope to send out at least 7 next year.

Tomorrow and Wednesday we also have a big event in order to promote the work of PSC. Please be praying for that to be a success as we need to let more churches here know what we are doing and partner with them.

Below are picture updates of ministry events during the last new months.

Gilmer traveled to Leyte in the fall to speak and share about PSC with an interested church. For those of you who know your history this is the spot of General MacArthur's return to the Philippines in WWII.

Before Christmas the kids and I (Gilmer was on his trip) were able to help in an outreach with our church. Here is Caleb with a lady who was so happy for Caleb to give her a gift for Christmas that she was crying. She was so cute we had to take a picture with her!

This is fellow missionary, Roseanne, at the outreach. We were able to bless those not only in the nursing home but also about 20 mentally and physically handicapped children as well.

In January, PSC had a couple big training classes. This one is called MOP (Member Orientation Program), it lasted 2 weeks and these people are raising support now and ready to go to the field as missionaries.

It was exciting to see all these Filipino missionaries ready to serve around the world. Some of the countries where they are going are: Thailand, China, Japan, and Taiwan. As well as down south to the Muslim part of the Philippines.

The MOP group with their trainers and facilitators. Unfortunately Gilmer was not able to be there that day.

Thank you for reading our update and for your continued prayers and support. We are privileged to be partners with you in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Please remember to read our prayer requests to the right side of this blog.

So Others Might Know,

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah Paden

SEND International, PSC

One Year and Counting

2011-10-19T17:58:00.001-07:00

"I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth."

Ps. 121:1

I can't help but think of that verse when I look at this picture!

We have officially been back in the Philippines for over a year now and I can honestly say that our help undoubtedly comes from the Lord. Not only has He provided for us through churches and supporters every month, but He has been with us every step of the way. Despite adjustments, hurts, triumphs, changes, troubles, and everything in-between, we are privileged to know that we are where God wants us to be.

Thanks for your prayers and support. I hope that this update explains a little about what we have been doing these last few busy months. Lots going on, and I think it's more fun to see first hand through these pictures.

Please also see the praises and prayer requests to the right. Hope you have a great fall season.

Gilmer's parents came for a visit at the end of July. Along with a nice visit they were able to have medical tests taken to check on their health. All is well.

Our dog had 4 puppies right as the kids went back to school in August. The kids have had so much fun playing with them, ok me too.

Although this is Gilmer's new bike, he lets me ride it sometimes when he's not using it. I'm trying not to look like a white lady here so I can reduce the staring- works pretty good. Having the motorcycle has drastically reduced the travel time for Gilmer, which is great, but please still pray for safety as driving in Manila is always crazy.

We had our first PSC retreat/conference at the beginning of October. It's nice to finally have the whole team here working together.

This is a little blurry but the only picture we have with some students from a Bible school who are going on short term trips this October. There are 5 teams going out to 5 different places here in the Philippines. These students are mission majors, so this is a vital time for them to have first hand experience on the mission field.

Gilmer and the others in the short term department have been busy teaching, training, and setting up these teams. Please pray for them, they leave Saturday the 22nd for 10 days.

Here is the location of one of the teams. This is on the island of Mindoro in a Mangyan (the indigenous peoples from there) settlement area. Gilmer was able to travel there in September to set-up this team. They are very excited to have any help they can get.

As well as the teams from the Bible School going out, there is a team right now in Thailand. This is one of the ladies from our church here in Manila as they send her out on her missions trip. You can click on the PSC website on the side bar to see more updates about that team if you would like. Really neat things are happening there through that small team.

During the kids school break in October we were able to visit some friends of ours who live in Mt. Province, up north. It took us 13 hours to drive there from Manila. Here are the kids with their good friends.

Although we didn't get to go to the famous Banaue Rice Terraces (it used to be one of the 7 natural wonders of the world) because of all the typhoons that we have been having, we still were able to see a lot of similar rice terraces in Mt. Province.

Look closer at the rocks you see there, they are actually coffins placed inside this burial cave. It was really interesting learning about the culture of the Igorot people from the North. No new coffins are placed here but they are still very traditional people.

Gilmer thought it was neat getting pictures of pine trees with rice patties in the back ground. The Igorot people can be compared to the Native Americans of the US. One of the differences though is that they still have most of their traditional land.

Don't try to eat anything when you travel up here! It was the windiest roads ever! Six straight hours of going up, up, up.

Last but not least, I thought that we would show you one of our favorite fruits, Rambutan.

Thanks for reading,

The Paden Family

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah

Serving in the Philippines

July Update

2011-07-10T23:21:00.001-07:00

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Zephaniah 3:17

Dear Friends,

Here are some pictures from this summer. I wish I had more time to write but with the kids home all day these days I can't find much time to sit down and write.

Things are going well here in Manila. We had a couple whole weeks of rain, which is hard for this Arizona girl to get use to! The kids will start school again in a couple weeks, Gilmer is hard at work recruiting and training, and I am holding down the fort!

Thanks for your prayers and support. We love you all!

This is some team members from our short term Baguio team, with the girls from the area, who spent three weeks in Mindanao on their missions trip.

They worked with the kids in the area doing day camps, teaching "Values."

They also worked with young people from the college that needed some tutoring help.

Thought it was about time I posted a picture of some Filipino food!! Yum!

The youth are staying connected with these kids, even though they are home now, through facebook and texting. There are a lot of benefits to this technical age we live in.

Working with the kids, doing a craft.

This is a picture from our family vacation we took in June to the beach. Just thought it was funny how many people they could fit on that little boat!

Daddy and Nhaya! How cute :)

On the boat going to the beach! We all had so much fun.

Our PSC (Philippine Sending Council) office has officially moved to a bigger location and we are helping to clean the place up for a Saturday work day.

Look the kids even enjoyed helping as we scrubbed the walls.

Nhaya went to her first camp! Five whole days away from home! Yes we all survived and she had a great time.

Celebrating the 4th of July with some short term Navigators who we took to Faith Academy for a BBQ! No fireworks though :(

Remember to look to the right for prayer requests!!

Serving Him,

The Paden's

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah

SEND Int'l, Philippine Sending Council (PSC)

May 2011

2011-05-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Matt. 9:37-38

This team leaves Friday for Mindanao to help serve with fellow SEND missionaries. They return May 28th. Gilmer will accompany them down there and after they are settled he will make his way to some other functions in Mindanao. Please be in prayer with us for this team of young people who desire to serve God in this way. They are an encouragement to all of us working with PSC as we see some fruit for all the hard work during the last months.

There is also another team going to Thailand that will leave on May 14th. If you want more information about those teams you can click on the link to our new PSC website. They also have more pictures, stories, and a monthly prayer calendar you can print and use during your prayer.

http://pscofsend.wordpress.com/

This is Josiah and I with the girls from the team yesterday at lunch during training.

On The Home Front

IT'S HOT HERE!!!! Philippine summer has arrived and I am ready for it to leave again! The houses here aren't airconditioned so going indoors is not any relief from this humid heat. Most people do have room airconditioners in some rooms but using them is like pulling teeth since the price of electricity is so high. I hope we survive until rainy season :0

The last few months have been busy as Gilmer has had more and more training to do and responsibilities with PSC. The kids are doing well in school and looking forward to our summer vacation time. We have also had quite a few visitors staying with us which keeps me busy as well.

Nhaya had her 9th Birthday on April 19th!!

Track and Field Day at the kids school. Look at Caleb go!!

This is Josiah and Dewani. She stayed with us for 3 weeks in April. She is a friend from Baguio City. If you look back she was in our blog before when we left Baguio the first time.

Nhaya during Track and Field Day

This is Nhaya's first swim meet. She did so great!

March Prayer Update

2011-03-09T05:13:00.000-08:00

Gilmer was at one of the Bible Schools/Seminaries here in Manila when one of the students came up to him. He asked him what PSC was all about, and Gilmer explained that we are a mission organization designed to send out Filipinos as missionaries all over the world. After talking for a while with him, since he was so excited about it, Gilmer asked him what he was studying and the guy said to be a missionary. The problem was that he had never even been on the mission field!

You see that is what we are doing here in the Philippines. Our desire is to take young people on short term missions trips in order for them to have a chance not only to serve God during that trip, but to see if God might be calling "them" to be missionaries. In the States right now there are hundreds of options if you are wanting to go on a missions trip but here in the Philippines there are only a handful of organizations that offer this kind of opportunity.

Please continue to pray with us as we work to make that vision a reality. Even now there are 3-4 teams in the works for this Philippine summer (April and May). One local, down to Mindanao, and the others want to go to Thailand. These are all from different churches and PSC is working with them to train, set-up, and facilitate all that is required to makes these trips possible.

AT HOME

Things are going well in our daily life. Much like you, we are busy with school and homework and some extracurricular activities. People ask different questions all the time about life here in the Philippines. Well... we live much like we did in the States. Our house is comfortable enough and we have been blessed to find a house with a big yard for the kids and the dogs to play. We have a cat, a turtle, and a hamster too. Last week we were even able to install hot water heaters on the wall in the shower so we could have hot showers! Needless to say, this is not how all of the country lives, or even most. At the same time though we feel like we have to be able to be comfortable enough here to be able to stay a LONG time. Four years without a hot shower would be a very long time for me! Which is how I finally talked Gilmer into having them installed! :) So next time you think of us over here know that, no, we are not camping, and yes, we do have a refrigerator and even a microwave! Even if we do have many modern conveniences life here is still drastically different.

I would say that daily living is harder and more stressful for us here than in the States. I guess because we have become use to the conveniences and ease of life that most Americans might not realize they have. After telling story after story to my Mom she said, "Why don't you write some of those things in your blog so others can get a feel of what's different there." So I will attempt to do just that.

Butiki
In our house there are these little lizards that live on the walls and come out at night to catch bugs. Since it's a hot climate we never close our windows and even if we did the house would be far from airtight. We do have screens on the windows to try to keep out the mosquitos but the houses here are certainly not bug proof (or lizard proof). Anyways, we hardly notice our little lizard friends anymore. They make little clicking sounds that are kind of strange until you get use to it. The Butiki are a part of everyday life for the Filipinos. They even make up stories and songs about them.

Fun Driving Stories

When driving in the Philippines you must remember to flash your lights and/or honk your horn when you are changing lanes, turning, etc. This is not offensive or rude here, it's just how everyone drives.

For example. On my way home from taking the kids to school everyday I have to turn left to get to our street. If I waited for a clear road, like you would when turning left in the States, I would never actually get home! So what you do is, flash your lights at on-coming traffic, then stick your nose out into the traffic, then they stop and you can go through!

This is also true for the intersection close to our house. The light is broken. If there is not a policeman directing traffic, you just wait for a minute and then you flash your lights and go ahead and inch out into on-coming traffic. They will eventually stop (especially when you gets your nose in front of their car) and you can move on to conquer the next lane! Now you might be thinking this is no big deal since it must be a small intersection, but this interestion has at least 3 lanes of traffic coming from all directions. I'll just let you imagine the mess it looks like sometimes :)

According to Wikipedia Manila is the most densely populated city in the World. At first I had a hard time believing that but it's according to land mass as well, and I have no trouble believing that looking at how big this city is. So as you can guess living with the 20 million other people in such a small space can be kind of hard at times!! They even have a thing called coding that is enforced so there are not as many cars on the streets everyday. Meaning, depending on the last number of your license plate, you can't drive one day of the week during rush hour traffic. Our "no drive day" is Wednesday so we can't drive into town until after 10am on that day and must not drive after 2pm. Sometimes we don't make it or forget and get a ticket! Deciding about what car to buy has a lot to do with what "no drive day" it has.

On one of the kids vacation days from school we visited Taal Volcano.

Here we are with one of our fellow PSC missionaries on International Day at school. Can you guess what country we are representing?

Remember we use to live in Baguio City doing church planting? Well we did and we still drive the 8 hours up there sometimes to be with them. Here we are at Family Camp with them in February. Hint- we are at the top.

Caleb and Josiah are singing for us with all the other children at camp.

During Family Camp with the church we were blessed to see new members baptized! Here they are before the baptism.

Nhaya singing during her chapel at school. Each class presents a program during the Friday chapels.

This is Caleb's class doing their presentation for Chapel. No, he's not wearing a dress, he's one of Noah's sons.

Since I don't have pictures of Gilmer traveling around and presenting the ministry and training groups for their short term trips, I added this photo of him with Nhaya and Josiah for fun.

Thanks for reading, praying, encouraging, supporting, and just being a blessing to our family.

In His Service,

The Paden Family

P.S. Please remember to read our praises and prayer requests on the right hand side. Also if you would like to keep up with us more frequently we are on facebook and we would love to be your friend.

Jan 2011 Update

2011-01-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

" Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom"

Ps. 145:3

Dear Friends,

We hope that your new year in 2011 is going great so far. It’s been a while since we have been able to update our blog. Sorry about that! Things here in the Philippines have been very busy as we try to accomplish a little more everyday of the huge task ahead. That includes adjusting to life here, unpacking, traveling, school work, normal life things, and starting our ministry. Don’t worry though we are all doing well and God has been faithful to see us through this crazy time.

Again I will attempt to explain the last couple months with pictures and just add captions on the bottom. On the side bar are our praises and some prayer requests for the coming months. Thank you all for your faithful support, prayers, concern, and encouragement! Without it we could not be serving here in the Philippines.

We love to hear from you so please let us know how we can pray for you too!!

Serving Him,

The Paden Family

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah

Coconut!! Yummy. You can only drink the green ones, just in case you were wondering.

At the end of October we were able to travel 8 hours north to visit our former team/church. This is where we worked before we came back to the States. Baguio City! It was so nice seeing all our friends there. Here I am with some of the ladies in the church.

Gilmer was able to preach. Then they had a potluck for us! Unfortunatly we will not be able to visit there often since it's so far away and our ministry keeps us busy here in Manila. We are hoping to send another team from that church down to Mindanao again for another missions trip.

Celebrating Thanksgiving with the whole PSC team at the Guest House.

Caleb with his teacher after their Thanksgiving performance. So cute!

Having fun at school.

November we were busy finding a house. Once we did it took a long time to fix it up and get it ready to live in. We also had to find furniture and everything for our house. We were able to move in on Dec. 7. Here I am painting the kitchen.

Where's Nhaya? Can you find Nhaya in this picture of her class? She's right in the middle with a headband on.

The beginning of December we were able to participate in an outreach from our church. With the cooperation of the teachers in a school outside of Manila needy children were picked to join this outreach. It's called Share a Toy, Give Joy. Our kids enjoyed helping to pass out gift to these needy kids.

Here's some of the kids that were picked to receive gifts.

Gilmer shared the Gospel message and meaning of Christmas with them in Tagalog.

We used a basketball court in the middle of a community (barangay). Almost all communities have their own basketball court since it's the national sport.

Meet Dingdong. He was one of our Christmas guests along with Gilmer's brother and Trent (a new missionary). We have been praying for Dingdong who we meet a couple months ago. He recently accepted Christ after Gilmer shared with him. This is him opening his first Christmas present ever. What a blessing to be a part of his life.

This is almost the whole Paden Family! Only Gilmer's sister and her husband and 2 grandkids are missing. After Christmas we traveled down to Mindanao to visit Gilmer's family over New Years. The New Year celebration is kind of like Thanksgiving in the States. Everyone goes home to be with family.

This is almost all the Paden grandkids. Only two granddaughters are missing.

This is Gilmer's Mom.

Still plenty of room right? You can see 5 or 6 people on a motorcycle here in Mindanao! Don't worry he's not going fast!

While we were visiting Gilmer's family he had the chance to preach in his native tongue, Visayan. Did you know there are between 120 and 175 languages here in the Philippines.

For New Years Day the whole family took boats to a small beach off the coast for the day.

The Paden brother doing some funny pose! All the brother haven't been together since I've known Gilmer. Way over 10 years ago!

Yuck! Gilmer eating balut! That's a fertilized duck egg. Be happy it's not a closer picture where you can see the beak and feathers.

This is in the mountains close to his parents house.

Very nice mountain view.

Caleb turned 7 years old on Jan. 15th. We went and had dinner at Pizza Hut. Josiah also turned 3 on Dec. 20th but for some reason we are not able to find his pictures :(

October Update

2010-10-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Faithful Partners,

WE MADE IT!!!!!

For those of you who might not follow Facebook this might be news to you.

We flew in on Thursday night late (Oct. 14th) here in the Philippines (Thurs. morning in the States). The flights went well and the kids did a great job! All our bags arrived safely and we have been trying to adjust to the time difference. The kids were waking up at 3am for a week thinking it was time to play!

After less than 2 weeks here, we were already able to find a car and a possible house. That's very fast for Manila, considering it can usually take a month or more to find those things.

We would like to thank all of you who have been praying for us. It has been a very busy time for our family and yet we have seen how God has taken care of all our needs and continues to bless us!

Night out with the girls before we left! My sister Aimee from Colorado was also able to be there. Then there's my sister Shawna and my Mom (LaRee).

One last lake trip with Nana and Papa before we had to go. Probably not going to be skiing for a while!

Josiah saying "Goodbye" to one of his cousins.

Traveling!! Notice Josiah's carseat is strapped on to my carry-on. That thing was a lifesaver!

Passing the time at the airport. They are watching a movie.

Saying Hi to Nana and Papa!

Here we go!!

A nice rainbow by the kids school!

First day of school at Faith Academy in Manila! They started last Thursday and did great! Well Josiah didn't start school but he wanted to be matching :)

That's all for now. Remember our prayer and praise section is to the right hand side!

Serving Him,
The Paden Family
(Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah)

This is a video of us driving (well we're not driving, our Director, Pastor James, is driving) here in Manila. So many of you ask what things are like here and this is one way to let you see for yourself. (you will need to pause the music on the right to watch this)

September Update

2010-09-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

Dear Family, Friends, and Supporters,

Good news!!! We are 100% supported and have our tickets to go back to the Philippines! We fly out on October 13th.

We are very excited to see this finally happening and we want to thank all of you for your support and prayers during our Home Service in the States this past year. We want to praise God that He has provided through His people even during this time of recession in our economy.

It has been really nice being home for a while and we are going to dearly miss all our family and friends here in the States. I was talking to Nhaya and Caleb this morning and they were wondering if it’s ok to be sad and happy at the same time! I said. “Yes, because that’s how we all feel...”

We will post more about our ministry in the Philippines when we get there and it starts to take shape better. For right now though be please be praying for all the adjustments coming and to get settled well. For more praises and prayer requests please see the side bar.

In August Nhaya and Caleb went back to school. Nhaya's in 3rd grade now and Caleb is in 1st.

This last month we've been busy visiting different churches and speaking about our ministry. Here we are with a family from a Filipino Church in Phoenix. Gilmer went to High School with this lady and she was able to find him on Facebook!

We spoke at a church that was only five miles away from our favorite camping spot. So here we are camping for the last time before we head back!

Josiah loved camping! Mostly the dirt I think!

Thanks again for reading.

Blessings,

The Paden Family

August Update

2010-08-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know that many of you are very busy and don’t really have a lot of time to read a whole long update. So after talking to many of our friends and supporters I will attempt to do this blog with pictures. Everyone likes pictures and you can just read the captions and find out what’s going on for us. Let me know how you like it!

Our first picture has to be of a historic event! This was Gilmer's first 4th of July as an American Citizen!!! He said he was very proud to be able to celebrate this holiday with a whole new meaning.

Also in July Gilmer flew to San Diego to speak at some Filipino churches and see supporters. He drove over to Bakersfield on Sunday morning to preach at our supporting Filipino church there.

On the 15th of July we left for our long 3 week plus road trip. Our first stop was to see my sister in Colorado Springs and to meet their newest addition to the family, Ellie!

Here is Caleb with Aimee and Sam's son Noah. He's a proud new Big Brother!

After leaving Colorado we drove for a few days to reach Ohio. This is the kids getting out some energy at a rest stop along the way. We forgot to take pictures in Ohio but we were there visiting one of our new supporting churches and great friends the Schwennings.

From Ohio we drove into Canada and Gilmer was so happy to be able to use his US Passport for the first time. Here we are at a Children's Museum in London, Ontario, Canada.

We were visiting my "old" friends from our Bible School days. Amanda Luth, whose house we were staying at and Kate Appleby who flew in from Australia for a visit! It was so great to spend a little time with them!

Nhaya enjoying some time with Kate.

From Canada we went to our SEND International Conference in Holland, Michigan. Here we are with our new boss, Pastor James and his wife Helen. He is the director of PCS (Philipine Sending Council), the branch of SEND that we are going back to the Philippines with.

We were able to see some friends we served in the Philippines with. This is Nancy the old Guest House Manager. I say old only because they are selling the Guest House in Manila, not because of her age!! Just needed to be clear :) Next time I'll use the word previous!

The first night of the conference we had a party celebrating the work in the Philippines for the last 65 years. They have closed the receiving area as of June. This is a picture of some of the missionaries that have served there throughout the years!

While in Holland we were SO very blessed to stay at our friends from Tucson's parents house. Did you get that? It was so nice to not have to be in a hotel during our week there! This is a picture of the kids playing in their front yard.

We can't even begin to tell you how blessed we were by the hospitality of God's people during our trip! Here is a picture if Nhaya with another one of our hosts in Grand Rapids, MI.

The purpose of our trip was not only to see old friends but to also share about our heart to work with the Filipinos and what we will be doing there. Here's a picture of Gilmer sharing for our friends in Grand Rapids.

This is most of the team that came from Grand Rapids to work in Baguio City, Philippines last year. Gilmer worked with them for about two weeks. It was very nice to see them again for a mini reunion.

Before we left Grand Rapids they took us to ride horses. Here's Nhaya riding by herself!

This is Caleb getting a little lesson about how to ride.

After riding horses we were off to Chicago, IL. Some of our friends live there and we were able to meet their new son, Obed. Megan and Oscar were both in our wedding years ago!

It was so nice to see them and spend a good visit catching up. Here we are at the Zoo in Chicago.

Leaving Chicago we went to Indiana to visit some of Gilmer's classmate from his Bible School days, way back in 1988!

We were also able to share with them a short presentation and here's the kids after sitting through that. Ready to play I think!

This is Molly and her husband Joel. Molly was a short term missionary with us in Baguio two years ago. We were able to have lunch with them on our way home.

Jim and Darleen have known Gilmer for years, even longer than me! We stayed with them in Missouri, on our way home. What great friends, sorry we missed you Darleen!

It was great catching up with another friend from TMI (Teen Missions International) and my Bible School days, Genny.

They live in Missouri also. We haven't seen her for more than 10 years and look at all the new additions!

Our last leg of the trip brought us to New Mexico, where another one of our close friends live, Jill and her 3 kids. We were happy to have some "real" Mexican food again.

So that is the summary of last road trip before returning to the Philippines. We hope to be able to update you again soon with the news of the dates we will be returning! Again thank you for your prayers and support during our Home Service. Remember that we now post the Praise and Prayer Requests on the side bar to the right.

Gratefully Serving With You,

Gilmer and Julie Paden

June Prayer Letter

2010-06-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

"I lift my eyes to the hills-where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth."

Ps. 121: 1-2

“When are you guys leaving?” That’s the big question right now and the one we hear the most from anyone who knows about our journey. Unfortunately, the answer is that we don’t know for sure at this time. This is not only difficult for others to hear but it also makes planning nearly impossible. The reason we don’t have a definite time frame is because we need to be 100% supported before we can purchase plane tickets. The good news is that we are already at 84% of our monthly support and 40% of our outgoing need. For those of you who are visual people see the graph below.

Our goal right now is be back in the Philippines, Lord willing, by the end of August so that we can have the kids start school on time. We would hate to transfer them in the middle of the year since we have already moved 5 times in 4 years. All we can do is trust that God will provide in “His” timing not ours.Therefore, we ask you to pray about YOUR part in sending us back to minister to the Filipino people. Is God calling you to partner with us? Right now our biggest need is for faithful monthly/quarterly/yearly supporters.

Exciting and Encouraging Stories
About a week after we mailed out our latest Newsletter we received a call from a lady that we had met years ago. We asked her if we could share her story with you because we think that it is so encouraging to see God’s hand in our everyday lives. Sometimes we forget that others need to hear these stories as well.
This lady had attended a service that we spoke at years ago, we have not been back to that church since, and we met her only briefly. She signed up to receive our Newsletters but we really haven’t had any contact with her for years. She was about to receive an inheritance and had been praying about where she would give the tithe. The same day that she received the check in the mail for her inheritance was the same day that she also received our Newsletter. After reading our Newsletter she felt God call her to support us with the money she received!! She felt God had answered her prayers in a way that she knew for sure she was giving it to the right place. It was $11,500. WOW!
How humbled we are to be trusted with stories like these of God not only answering our prayers for the support we need to minister in the Philippines but answering that woman's prayer as well for where she should give her gift!
Road Trip
We plan to drive this July up to Michigan for our SEND Conference and to visit friends along the way. Please be praying for safe travels as well as good contacts made. If you live in one of the States on our way and would like to meet with us please let us know. We would love to see you and set up times to share about our ministry and what we will be doing when we go back to the Philippines.
Thank you for reading our blog and for your faithfulness in praying for us!! We really can’t do any of this alone, we are just a part of the body of Christ and we all must work together to accomplish His goals. Thank you for your part!!
Serving Him,
The Paden’s
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah
SEND Philippines

Like Gilmer's shirt?

Nhaya dancing the Jitterbug at her performance

Caleb graduating from Kindergarten

2010-02-05T20:30:00.001-08:00

Just another beautiful sunset in the desert.

We haven't seen snow in over 3 years! The kids were so excited, that's Josiah's smile by-the-way. "Cheese!"

The WHOLE family together! Priceless!!!

Hi Everyone!!!

Hope this last Christmas and New Years season was great! I know, that greeting is a little late but we are still trying to catch up from all the excitement and busyness during that time. Two of our kids birthdays are thrown in there as well as our Anniversary too!! Needless to say we are hoping things will slow done a little.

Life continues to fly right on by as we prepare to head back to the Philippines, Lord willing, this summer. We have been doing a lot of speaking to small groups and churches. We were excited to share with a youth group this week about missions and the Philippines and we look forward to many more opportunities like that coming up soon. I guess this would be a good time remind you that if you would like us to come and share with a group you are in, please just let us know. Our schedule is filling up but we would hate to miss meeting with you before we go back.

Praises:

-As of last month Gilmer is officially an American citizen!!! Praise God for answered prayers!!!

-For a great holiday season with family and friends!! You appreciate it more when you have missed it for 3 years.

-For another year of marriage and for another year for both the boys. They both had a recent birthday. Josiah is now 2 and Caleb is now 6 years old. Oh and we have had 9 years of wedded bliss! :)

-So many chances to share our ministry as we've had many speaking engagements. It's so encouraging to meet new people and see those who have faithfully prayed for and supported us!

Prayer Requests:

-Gilmer needs to start working part-time until our support level is raised. Please being praying for wisdom as he splits his time between work and his "work" support raising. Those of you who have done it know it's a full-time job by it's self.

-Please pray with us that others might be called to join our team of supporters. We are currently about 60% supported.

-Wisdom and guidance for everyday choices in our relationship with Christ, raising our kids, having a healthy marriage, the ministries God has put us in, etc.

Thank you all for taking time to read a little bit about what's going on in our lives. Your prayers and support mean so much to us.

Serving Him,

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah Paden

I Cor. 15:58

November Prayer Letter

2009-11-25T15:17:00.000-08:00

(With some classmates at Nhaya's Field trip for school.)

(Having fun learning about being a Fire Fighter!!)

(Gilmer was able to travel to Florida to speak at some of our supporting churches. This youth group here has been supporters the whole time (thanks guys!). )

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!

Thanksgiving celebration is definitely one of our favorites. We celebrated our last three Thanksgivings in the Philippines. No, we didn’t use chicken, we actually had turkey but it was warmer compare to here (we even used an electric fan to keep cool). We are excited this year to have it in the cooler US. It is amazing to notice that you can actually celebrate this event wherever you are in the world, turkey or not, as long as we focus our attention on the object of our celebration and that is God’s faithfulness to us.

(Dressing up for the Harvest Festival at our church.)

What are we thankful for?

Nhaya and Caleb are enjoying their studies, growing so fast. They are also having a great time getting connected at our church in Tucson. They are both in AWANA and are having a blast. Nhaya is involved in children’s choir too. She loves it. Josiah, well, he follows us around. We can understand almost everything he says. He will turn 2 years old next month. He is very funny boy.

Julie is busy taking care of us kids-haha, me included! She is involved in the MOPS ministry and is having fun with that. She has a heart for the mothers especially the new moms. I praise the Lord for my wife and her passion to serve the Lord and others. She is also the tech in the family. She has done a lot to help with media. I ( Gilmer) just use it, and people think I did it! So if you see any of our great media tools in our presentation that is all Julie right there. There is a reason why I don’t have a hammer close to the computer.

I am having a great time getting involved with the men’s ministries. I am also involved with the choir in our church. I know it is not a big deal but it is for me because it is my first time to be in a choir. Fun! I am also having a great time spending time with my family. I am working on getting my US citizenship. I am having fun studying the history of the United States of America. I just hope I can remember it all come time to take the test. I have an immigration appointment on Dec.15, 2009 (which is a praise that it went so fast and everything seems in order). I am getting nervous!

In the past few months we had been speaking at churches and youth groups about our ministry in the Philippines. We thank the Lord for the opportunity to talk about God’s faithfulness in the past. We also thank the Lord for the chance to tell people about what we feel God’s calling us to in the future. It’s exciting. Lord willing we will be back in the Philippines in June next year.

(Having some fun picking apples and pumpkins!!)

Praises

-For an awesome transition with our family. We are finally over the sickness too, praise God for health.

-Praise God, He provided us with vehicles, place to live and for our daily needs.

-Praise God for our family and for our friends.

-Thank God for our prayer and financial partners. We are currently 56% supported. Praise the Lord.

-Praise God for a speedy US citizenship process.

Prayer Needs.

-For our kids, that they will continue to enjoy their time here and that they will grow in loving the Lord.

-For Julie and I. Wisdom as we deal with our kids, that our kids will see our Love for God and our love for them.

-MOPS, for Julie to be very effective in ministering to the ladies, wisdom and strength as she deals with her husband and kids.

-Pray for the rest of our 44% support to be provided, new contacts, and those that might feel God wanting them to partner with us.

-Pray for my US Citizenship appointment this coming December 15, 2009. Pray for wisdom as I study for the test.

We hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!!! Thanks for your prayers and support.

(Looking at the Mountains from our back porch.)

Blessings,

Gilmer and Julie Paden

Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah too

2009-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

(Looking down at Tucson, where we live now.)

We’re Here!!!

Yeah, we’ve been “home” for about a month now. It’s been filled with joyful reunions, unpacking (again!), busyness, heat, and many others.

We are so thankful to the Lord for providing all we needed. I know we shouldn’t worry but it was hard not to as we looked at what moving back to the States would be like. We had no house, car, furniture, school for the kids, etc. We are so happy to say that all of that has been taken care of and we are feeling more and more settled everyday!! Praise God.

What’s the plan?

Many of you have been asking about our plans while we are here and how long that will be. I’ll try to outline a little for you without going into great detail. Yes, we are planning on going back to the Philippines with SEND. Yes, they are closing their base there but we will go back with the Filipino part of SEND called Philippine Sending Council (PSC). The difference is they are not run by missionaries but rather Filipino’s that want to help send their fellow countrymen out as missionaries. Our job will be to help train, equip, and encourage those who have a heart to serve God. After formerly working for years with Teen Missions International- training youth, we are excited to get back into leading, organizing missions trip, and training the youth of the Philippines. (More details to follow!)

We are planning on being here in Tucson until we can make it back to the Philippines, Lord willing, by June of 2010.

What are you going to do until then?

Well, we are officially on “Home Service.” Which means we are still supported missionaries, we are just serving right now here in the States. Some of the jobs we will be working on while we are here are obtaining Gilmer’s America citizenship, sharing with our supporting churches and individuals about the last 3 years, getting involved with our sending church, spending time with family and friends, allowing our children to be part of American culture, raising the rest of the support needed to go back, and sharing about SEND and their work.

Along those lines, please let us know if you would like us to come and visit with you. We would love to share about what we have been doing and what is to come when we go back!

As always we want to thank you for your partnership through support, prayers, and encouragement!

Praises and Prayer Requests are listed below, after the pictures:

These are some of the wonderful ladies that came and helped us pack our house in the Philippines. We're getting ready for a yard sale in this picture. We had to sell many of our things just because there was not enough space to save everything until we came back.

Gilmer saying goodbye to the youth at their last meeting with him. He's the one laying down in the front!

It was hard to say goodbye to some close friends knowing that we wont be going back there to live. When we do go back to the Philippines we will be living in Manila (8 hours from here).

Before we flew out of Manila we had some time to visit with Gilmer's parents and family. This is Gilmer's Dad playing with Josiah.

And this is Gilmer's Mom. Grandpa and Grandma in the Philippines are Lolo and Lola.

Airports!! This is just one of the many we visited on our way home. We are in Japan here.

The day after we arrived in Tucson we drove to the Lake for a fun family reunion and vacation time. Here's some of us as we enjoy the lake.

In front of our new house. We moved in the week before school started. We are so excited to tell you that everything we needed while we are here in Tucson the Lord provided. Most through family, friends, and supporters like you!!! Thanks so much;)

Nhaya and Caleb in front of their new school on the first day. Nhaya is in 2nd Grade now and Caleb just started Kindergarten. They love it and are adjusting really well.

Praises:

-For finding a house close to our church, a van we can use for the family, furniture and everything we needed to set up house here! We have been so blessed!

-That the kids are adjusting well to their new country and school. They love their teachers and we live right down the street, so we can walk.

-That we were able to see our family and spend some time with them on vacation right when we arrived.

Prayer Requests:

-For Gilmer’s citizenship paperwork and interview to be processed quickly. We filed it last week.

-That God will provide others that want to be a part of the work in the Philippines through prayer and financial support (we can’t go back until we are 100% supported).

-For continued adjustments and meaningful time with family and friends during the next 9 months.

Thanks for reading and being a part of our lives!!!!

May God bless you and yours,

The Paden Family

(Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah)

Update on youth from missions trip!!!

2009-09-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

Top (left to right) Sarah, Elish, Deo, Francis

Bottom, Doray, PJ, Gilmer, Froi, and Tintin.

"Let’s dream dreams tonight," I said one day. The youth group did just that.

Off they went to Mindanao for three weeks a few months later after their first missions trip, they are living their dreams!!

I think dreams are about changes, and changes come in all forms! I think the greatest change of all is a changed life.

Here are some of those changed lives because of living out dreams.

Francis,

Has steeped out in faith to minister to the youth of his community through sports. He is also deeply involved in the church ministry leading bible study and teaching kids.

Deo,

He is now serving the Lord by working in the youth group and teaching kids. He is also trying to finish high school now (he dropped out years ago) and wants to someday be a missionary!

Froi,

He has been involved in the church before the trip, now dong it in the different level. He wants to be in a full-time ministry. Now he is one of the guys that is doing the sports ministry reaching the youth in their community,

PG,

He was hardly involved in the church before the trip down to Mindanao. Now he is studying in Bible School, preparing to be a missionary or a youth worker.

Tintin,

Is busy taking care of short termers that come from the US to the church, she is also involved in teaching Bible classes in public schools, leading the youth ministry and doing a lot of bible studies.

Doray,

Wants to be a missionary, the trip was a confirmation. She will be going to Bible School this year. Right now she is involved in running the youth ministry and teaching the Bible classes in public schools.

Sarah,

She is in college. She is actively involved in the youth ministry, music, teaching and organizing.

Elish,

Is in college and vey active with the music ministry and also involve with the youth group. She wants to be a missionary and the summer trip was a great experience for her.

Thank you for your involvement in these youths lives!

In His Service,

Gilmer Paden

June Prayer Letter

2009-06-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

On the refrigerator we have a cute picture hanging up that Nhaya drew a couple weeks ago. It has a drawing of the beach, fish, palm trees, and our whole family. At the top in big letters it says, “I love the Pilippines.” She almost got the spelling right even! When she gave it to me she said, “Mommy, I’m really going to miss the Philippines!”

It’s been a hard last few months. With trying to make plans to come back to the States, packing and selling our things, finishing up the ministries we are working in, and trying to say goodbye to friends we made here!

We have been having trouble with our email and found out that many of you didn’t know that we had to come back earlier than planned. I guess that some of you didn’t receive our last prayer update. We are sorry about that and if you just scroll down you can see our last prayer update explaining why we have to leave early.

We know you’re busy, so we thank you for continuing to read these updates and praying for us. In the next few months we have many, many things that we would ask you to remember in your prayers.

I know we should write some thoughts about our time here in the Philippines, what it has meant to us, and what we have learned. Right now though, during this stressful time, I just don’t think I could do it justice. So in our next update we will write more about our time here. For now I will keep this short and focus on details and upcoming events.

One thing real quick though, that I can say is, we will surely miss all of the friends we made here in the short year and 5 months that we lived in Baguio City! They have been such a blessing to us and we have learned more from them than, I think, than they learned from us. They had a goodbye party for us last Sunday and many of the youth and friends got up and sang the song “Thank You” by Ray Bolts. If you know that song then you will know what a significance it had for us and we couldn’t help but being touched beyond words! Also Nhaya’s friend, Diwane, got up and sang a song that she made up. The words accounting when Nhaya told her that she needed to leave, and ending with, “Why can’t you stay! Why can’t she stay!” After that she was crying so hard she couldn’t finish her song. And I have to admit many of us were crying too!

Prayer Requests:

-We still have tons to do before we leave. Please pray for wisdom and peace as we go through this stressful time. Also please pray we find people to buy our things, especially our car.

-Please pray for the kids (and our) adjustments as we say goodbye to the Philippines and move back to Arizona. Of course they have mixed feelings of being happy to go home and sad to leave!

-As soon as we get back we need to file for Gilmer’s citizenship. Please pray for fast possessing, we can’t go back to the Philippines until he has his American citizenship. Also we can’t go back until we are fully supported. As you know we are coming home early because we are under supported, so please pray for more contacts and those who might feel God leading them to support us and the work here in the Philippines.

-Please pray for us on July 26th (the 25th for those in the States) as we travel with 3 small kids! Josiah will be a challenge, as he is too young to understand that he needs to stay sitting. The longest flight is 14 hours!

-We still don’t have a house when we get back to Tucson, a car, or know where the kids will go to school. Please pray for all those things as it gets closer for us to return home.

Praises:

-We thank God for our time in the Philippines, especially Baguio!

-We thank God for all of you that made it possible to work here though your support and prayers.

-We praise God for the details that are coming into place. We have our plane tickets, moving truck lined up, a place to stay while we pack the house, and many friends who have been helping us get ready to go.

-We praise God for the good health the last few weeks, please pray for continues health. A few weeks ago we were all sick at one time or another and I even got an Amoeba from some food I ate! (Not a fun experience!!)

We hope that all of you have a great 4th of July with family and friends. We hope to see many of you soon.

Blessings,

Julie (for the whole Paden Gang)
SEND Philippines
gilmerandjulie@gmail.com

Gilmer playing the gongs at this Birthday party.

Josiah smiling for you!

Mountain dancing at our goodbye party

Nhaya and Diwane after she sang her song

2009-04-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plan to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 29:11-12

We have been thinking a lot about these verses as we went through this last week…

Last Monday our area director came up to Baguio City for a meeting with us. We knew that this must be important news, as it’s a 7 hour bus trip to come here from Manila. The short of it is; we were told that we must leave a year early for our home service. This means that we would be coming home this summer sometime.

Of course this was not in our plans! We still have another year and more before we were suppose to be finished, but due to our low support level the council here has asked that we go back early and try to raise the support needed.

(Many missionaries in the past use to stay overseas for 4 years at a time and then 1 year in their home country. SEND still works that way mostly and that’s why we still had another year.)

We are saddened at the fact that we must leave our ministries that we have been working with a year early. It comes as a shock to our friends we are working with here. We have some great Filipino Christians that we know will do a great job continuing what has been started. God has a plan, even if we don’t understand it (Jer. 29:11)!

We would like to ask that you would keep us, and those we will be leaving behind, in your prayers. We have so much to do before we can be ready to go, packing, selling things, handing over ministries, making plans for when we return- housing, car, etc. It seems a bit overwhelming at times. Of course on the other side we are very excited to see everyone in the States, don’t feel like we don’t want to come home, it’s just hard under the circumstances.

SO WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING?

On to lighter news now!

We are excited to tell you that as we speak Gilmer is on his way down south to Mindanao, with a group of our youth from our church, on their first missions trip. They will be there for 3 weeks working among the Muslims in that area. As I’m sure you know, Mindanao has a very big population of Muslims and the area that they are going to is a very needy one. It has been so neat seeing these youth excited about serving God and trusting Him to provide what they need. Many were very worried about being able to go due to finances, but the Lord provided- and even some of you helped make that possible! Thanks! It will be a very new experience for them since most have not traveled far from here, their first airplane trip should be exciting!

Here's Gilmer with the team during their commissioning service last Sunday.

Yes, that means that I am home with the kids. Nhaya is still in school, since hers is on the American schedule, so we couldn’t go with them. I’m sure we’ll be fine as the church ladies will take good care of us, making sure to help me when I need it.

MINISTRIES

Youth- Other than the missions trip, it has been going well. Even those youth that were not able to attend the missions trip have learned so much by watching how God has made it all possible.

Women’s – Our WOW (Women of the Word) group has been great. We changed the time and a lot more ladies are able to make it. Last month it was triple it was before! We also have started working with the women from the local battered women’s shelter, they come to the WOW meetings, and said they loved being with us and sharing- even just a little of what they have been through. Please pray for the ladies of the church to really have a heart for these girls (most are very young, under 16) they said that they don’t know how to help them or what to do. It’s a little uncomfortable for them both! It’s my prayer that they can just be open arms that will huge them and show them the love of Christ.

At our last trip to the Orphanage we feed them lunch!

Orphanage- We have been able to go to the orphanage twice since our last update, and we go again Saturday. There was a short term group here from Michigan that came for a couple week in March and they were able to raise some money for things that were needed. With the team, we fixed and painted their play ground and bought them some much needed sleeping pads. We also do a little program for the kids, some crafts, and snacks or lunch each time.

It kind of breaks our hearts going, just seeing little children with no one to love them. This orphanage is only for small children, the oldest being 8 years old but most are under 5 years old. Since we started going, 4 months ago, there have been 3 new newborns that have been abandoned add to the numbers. There are 27 children in all, I think.

Again this is a brand new ministry, please pray that it will be continued even after we leave and that those from our church will have a heart for these kids. Adoption is very rare here in the Philippines, as are foster families. The overall mentality here is, “look after your own.” With the poverty you find in a 3rd world country, almost everyone is helping their own family in some way, making it hard for most to see the needs of others not part of their family, like these kids in the orphanage.

FAMILY

Here's the kids with their friends at our Easter picnic in the park.

Our family is doing great. We just finished a week of vacation during holy week, and we were able to have some fun family times before Gilmer had to leave. Nhaya will be turning 7 on Sunday and is ecstatic! Caleb is getting excited about starting school and having fun playing with his friends from the church that are his age. Josiah is walking everywhere and trying to climb on everything. He still doesn’t say much other than “shoes” and “hello.” But I’m sure that will change pretty soon.

Other prayer requests

-Please keep our future plans in your prayers. With the closing of the field here in Manila we are trying to ask God what’s next for us. There are some opportunities to continue serving in the Philippines. So please pray that we will know what God wants us to do. We kind of need to make plans soon in order to figure out if we will need to sell everything or if we can store most of if for when we return.

-Please be praying that God will provide the support we need. We understand that these are hard times for those in the States too. We can only trust that God will provide if He wants us to return.

-As soon as we get back we need to be working on Gilmer getting his US citizenship. This is one of the things that we will need to complete before we can go back overseas.

In March my friend (Kate Appleby) from Bible School came for 3 weeks to visit. It was so nice having her here, she was a huge help during a very busy time. Thanks Kate!

We can’t thank you enough for your prayers, support, and encouragement during our time in the Philippines! Thanks for partnering with us to serve the Filipinos. We couldn’t have done it alone. May God bless each of you for your service to Him.

In His Service,
Gilmer and Julie Paden
(Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah too)
SEND Philippines

February Update

2009-02-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Family, Friends, and Prayer Partners,

Greetings from the Philippines!! We hope this finds all of you well in this New Year 2009.

Below is a list of our praises and prayer requests, but first we would like to show you some pictures! Hopefully you can get a better “picture” of what we are doing and life here. Just scroll down to see the prayer and praise section.

Thank you all for keeping up with us and for your prayers and support! It’s wonderful to have a great team of people like you who care about and support what we are doing here in the Philippines.

Ministry

Gilmer’s main job is to work with the Youth. This includes both High School (there is no junior high here) and College groups. This is one of his Men’s Bible Studies that he does once a week.

Some of the youth at a youth group meeting.

Nhaya and Caleb got to go along with Daddy and the youth, while passing out Christmas Baskets (ok yellow bags!) to some poorer areas we are working in. The tradition in the Philippines is for different groups to go Caroling at houses during the Christmas season, and then the house gives money to the Carolers. What the youth did was sing to the houses and then give them gifts! This came as a shock to those who received the “baskets.” What a great way to show Christ to others during the Christmas Season.

The area was a bit precarious for walking. Caleb is enjoying a ride on one of the youth guys backs!

Singing for one of the houses.

As you know, our Church, including Gilmer, are involved in teaching the VOICE (Values, Orientation, in the Classroom, Education) program in some public schools here. VOICE is recognized by the government and uses the Bible as its text book! We use it as a way to be involved in these kid’s lives and this is some of the youth sharing with students after class.

This is our WOW (Women of the Word- yes, the ladies here liked the name from my home church so much they named if after them) group as we sing for the Christmas party. It has been difficult to encourage women to come to WOW since they are so busy working and caring for their families. Almost all Filipinas have to work to help support their families. So please pray with us, as we change the timing, and hope that it will allow more women to come.

I Love this one! We had a graduation for the VOICE kids as a way for inviting them and their parents to church. This really captures the Mountain People’s spirit and culture. These are the VOICE kids doing a dance they prepared for the occasion. The boys play the gongs and the girls dance. By the way, what the boys are wearing is called a “Bahag” the traditional mountain dress and before the girls would have been topless.

Gilmer also helps with the music ministry as you see here. We were at a baptism where 7 new believers were able to be baptized.

Here are some pictures from the government orphanage we visited in January.

This boy, at first, was very naughty and wouldn’t speak to us, what a wonderful change hu?

Nhaya with her new found friends.

This woman was an orphan herself and now works here at this government facility. She can’t speak but I don’t think this baby cares! He just needs someone to hold him.

Open up!

Gilmer with one of the babies. There was also a new arrival that was found in the city park. He was only 6 weeks and very small! Please keep these kids in your prayers. We plan to go back again and try to get the youth involved to see the needs in their own country.

Family

Josiah is such a joy to our family! He is growing so fast, in fact he just learned to walk this last month.

He celebrated his 1st birthday last December 20th. Both Nhaya and Caleb love having a little brother and it’s their goal in life to make him laugh!

One of the advantages to Christmas in the tropics is that you can go to the beach during Christmas break. Here's the kids are holding a sea cucumber they found.

Nhaya is loving school, although she still struggles with obeying the rules, and is doing great academically. She will be 7 years old this April. Here she is with her only girl classmates.

Caleb just turned 5 last month and is doing great. He is so funny and loves bugs of all shapes and sizes. He is waiting for this August when he can go to school like his sister.

Some crazy missionaries after Thanksgiving Dinner!!

Praises

-For another year here in the Philippines, it’s now been 2 ½ years. God has really taught us some great things and we pray that He has used us in the lives of the Filipino’s here.

-We finally, after almost 3 months, had water come to our house!! We never thought running water meant so much to us, but living without it has really made us thankful for the little things. (Yes, we do have a big water tank but... ran out every 3 days and had to order big trucks to come fill it up. Which sometimes can take a whole day.)

-We are thankful that our family is finally well! At least one of the members of our family has been sick since the middle of November. Please pray that we will stay healthy. Which is one of the reasons that you have not heard from us in a very long time.

Prayer Requests

-We hate to start off with finances but this is one of our major areas we need prayer for. Our support has been down for quite some time now. Even though we sometimes struggle with worry or doubt we know that He is in control and is the one who provides for us.

Please pray for more monthly supporters, even during this hard time in the States. Our area counsel here has asked us to aggressively work on this or maybe even go back to the States before our term is finished due to the deficiency. If you feel lead to support us in this way I will attach a promise form with the email.

-The ministries that we are both involved in, as you saw above. Gilmer and the youth are also planning on taking a short term missions trip down south, to the Muslim areas in Mindanao, for 3 weeks during April and May. This is a huge deal for these kids. So please pray for all the details to be worked out and that they have a successful trip. Unfortunately, Nhaya still has school so the kids and I will have to stay here, you can pray for us too!

-Gilmer will also have to travel to the States this summer due to his green card problem so please pray for wisdom as to how long and when he should be gone.

-For us spiritually to learn and grow to have more faith/ trust in Christ. You might not automatically pray that way for missionaries but we are just people like all of you who have struggles and ups and downs too.

-SEND Philippines made some huge changes last month for this area of the world. This has big implications for us and what our future might hold. Please be praying with us as we decide where God might want us to work. (I will also attach the letter from the SEND counsel for you.)

Please feel free to share this link with others you think might be interested in our ministry.

God bless all of you and thanks for reading and praying,

The Paden Family
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah
SEND Philippines
I Cor 15:58

November Prayer Letter

2008-11-11T05:20:00.000-08:00

Just a few Experiences

Once, shopping with my friend in Manila I bought something from a Filipina at her stand. She gave me a good price since I was the first customer of the day, but what she did with the money I gave her was the interesting part. She proceeded to take my money and fan/touch all of her products that she was selling and mumble something.

I said to my friend, “Did you see what she did?”

She didn’t notice, but as we watched her I explained that the vendor was blessing the rest of her things so that she would have good luck in selling many items and getting rid of any bad spirits.

This also happened when I was pregnant and I was able to get good prices on many things because pregnant ladies must be good luck!

Spiritism is a very real part of everyday life in the Philippines. Even though it is considered to be a Christian country because of Catholicism, the Filipinos as a whole believe very strongly in spirits and the influences that they have on everyday life.

Another example- one day when we were taking an evening walk, while I was pregnant, this lady told us to hurry and get home. I was wondering why she said this, as it was the only nice time to walk since it wasn’t hot. My language teacher explained to me that she was referring to a spirit that she believed could harm and even take the baby of a pregnant lady if outdoors past dark.

Even watching the TV shows (which portrays people being transformed into other creatures and spirits) will confirm that the beliefs in these things many times control the lives of the people in this country- mainly through fear.

I am just scratching the surface here, even after being in the Philippines for more than two years as to the differences in core beliefs between Westerners and Filipino’s (I don’t want to say Asians because I don’t have enough experiences with other Asian cultures but I do know many are very similar to the Philippines). I don’t want to go into the whole history lesson on why things are this way, but I do want to paint a better picture for you as to what we are dealing with on a day to day basis. Understanding how the people think that you are trying to reach, is maybe, the first step to being able to share with them.

General Update

We are all doing fine here. We just got home from a 4 day SEND Annual Conference followed by a few days at the beach for a much needed vacation. Now it’s back to the busy schedule and day to day life.

Gilmer is very busy keeping up with the youth and college groups- and all that involves. Plus, he is helping teach the Bible classes in schools and sometimes with the music at our church on Sundays. He enjoys all of these things but sometimes the needs are hard to balance with family time as well. There just seems to be endless needs and its hard not to want to do it all yourself. The youth group is growing and we even had a day picnic at the beach with them last month (see picture below). They are planning on visiting an orphanage this December and we are hoping that it will help them see the needs of their own people.

I am continuing to plan the women’s fellowship which they named WOW (Women of the Word) after my home church’s women’s group- they just liked it so much. We meet monthly and I am hearing great things from the ladies that come. It is a much needed chance for them to grow together, have fun, encourage each other, and share each others burdens (for which there are many).

Kids Corner

The kids are doing great. Thank you for those that prayed for Nhaya. She is doing great at school and making friends now. She comes home saying, “Mommy I am friends with everyone at school now!” She loves to learn and although she still has a hard time with some things overall she is doing well.

Caleb is enjoying being a boy and playing with the many bugs we have around here. He even picked up this HUGE dead spider the other day and tried to scare his Mommy with it. (It worked too- cause I hate them!) He will be 5 in January and is looking forward to going to Kindergarten to be BIG like his sister.

Josiah is 10 months now and crawling all over the place. He is pulling up on all the furniture and is such a happy baby. The teenage girls at church just love him (since he’s white I think) and many of them have put their pictures with him on their Facebook. Many times I have to look around at church to find him because he just loves to go with everyone.

Prayer and Praises

Praise

-For our safe travels and the time with fellow SENDers and a family vacation (see picture below).

-For the different ministries that we are involved in and the way God is able to use us to reach the Filipino’s

-Nhaya was able to make friends and is doing well in school.

-His provision and all of you who pray for and support us! We are so blessed to have people who have a heart for the Philippines behind us and making it possible to be here.

Prayer

-To be able to balance ministry needs and schedules with family needs. We are new at this crazy schedule of Gilmer being gone most evenings and are working to find something that works well for our family.

-For continued growth and direction in the different ministries that we are both involved in. It is our desire to train the Filipinos to reach each other and not to be dependant on us as missionaries.

-Support. Our monthly support levels have been quite low and we are in need of more than $1,000 a month. This is for different reasons- inflation, a new family member, rising medical costs, and many supporters than are not able to continue supporting.

To be honest this has been a big burden on us so pray that we will trust God to provide all that we need. He already knows it!

Gilmer will be working on contacting some individuals and churches that seemed interested in what we are doing, so please pray for him as he includes that in his daily schedule.

Again, thank you for reading this prayer letter and keeping up with what, and how, we are doing. We pray that your time this month with family and friends for Thanksgiving would be wonderful. We also will celebrate and I was even able to find a turkey and bring it back from Manila with us!

In His Service,
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb and Josiah Paden
I Cor. 15:58
SEND Philippines

Lunch with the Youth at the beach, notice the native, no plates or forks, style.

Playing a game at youth group.

Fishmen at the beach.

On our vacation at the beach.

Josiah is getting so big! And cute too!

The WOW (Women's fellowship) group had a yard sale to raise money for our building project at our church. They raised 17,000 peso's ($350.), which is a lot here.

Last month Gilmer's parents were able to come for a visit and meet Josiah for the first time.

September Prayer Letter

2008-09-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

(see bottom of letter for pictures)

Hello from the very rainy Philippine Islands. We have been back now for about a month and are still trying to settle in! Thank you all so much for your prayers as we traveled back. The flight back was SO much better as the kids were able to get some sleep on that long 12 hour flight to Hong Kong. Thank you also for your patience for us writing an update, we feel like life is going 100MPH and we are just holding on trying to keep up the pace.

Our time in the States was great. It was so nice to see our family, (old and new members!) friends, and supporters. We were so blessed by people who gave of their time, houses, cars, etc- while we were back. It’s not always easy coming back to no car and no house but we felt that God provided all that we needed through His people and even some that we didn’t know.

We were only in the States for a short 2 months (that seemed to fly by) and are sorry that we did not get to see more of you guys. We did have a chance to visit different churches almost every Sunday though and share a little bit about what we have been doing here in the Philippines.

Speaking of the Philippines- we are as excited as ever to get back and be in full swing of ministry now. This really is the first time that we can fully concentrate on what we felt called to do here. Before was language school, having a baby, recovery, moving, working on paperwork back to the States, then our trip home. Now that we have all that taken care of, we are excited how God will use us here. Not saying that He has not been using us and teaching us things that we needed all along but especially Gilmer, feels excited to start working full-time with the youth and other things that are a real need here.

Just to give you a quick glance. We were able to hold our first ever (in this church) High School youth program last Friday night. We had about 35 youth and for many it was their first time in church. Three of them even accepted Christ for the first time. Also during the week Gilmer will be teaching Bible in the public schools. This program is called VOICE (Values Orientation In Classroom Education), then in the evenings also being involved in teaching some Bible Studies. I, besides taking care of my kids, am organizing our Women’s Fellowship and helping Gilmer with the youth when I can.

Kids Korner
The kids are doing fine, they were excited to be “home” and see all their toys and pets. Nhaya started 1st grade right when we got back, she likes it but is having some trouble socially- making friends and things. She does great with the academic part though and is having fun learning to paint and do crafts. The other Filipino schools don’t do much of that- and this is a missionary school so they have an American curriculum.

Caleb is home with me and Josiah and is trying to learn his ABC’s, which he has absolutely no desire to do! Playing in mud and getting dirty is his joy.

Josiah is now almost 9 months and is still such a good baby. He is just now learning to crawl and has the inchworm move mastered. He has 4 teeth now and loves to play with his older brother and sister.

We also have 9 puppies (who can go under this section since they are as much work as kids) and we have been busy taking care of them since we got home. Now we just need to find good homes for them- which is hard to do here. The rest of the world does not seem to have the same idea about pets as Westerners (which includes Americans) have.

I would love to just write all that we have been doing and make this prayer letter 4 pages long but this is already way over due and I know many of you are so busy that 4 pages might not ever get read. So to keep it short I will go right into our prayer and praises-

Praises-For a safe trip to and from the States. We had a great time and were so blessed by those we were able to see.
-For all the youth that came last Friday, especially the 3 that accepted Christ. We also have some great help from our College Group that seem to have a heart to reach the High School.
-That the kids are doing well and getting adjusted to the new (yet again) schedule. Also that we were able to find Nhaya a good school to go to. You can check it out if you want, here is the link http://www.christianacademybaguio.org/home

Prayer Requests-Gilmer and Nhaya are sick right now. Please pray for them to get better soon and that the rest of the family will not get sick. It has been raining and cold since we arrived and that doesn’t help all the sicknesses going around. We have not seen the sun for 4 days in a row! We have had 9 typhoons (hurricanes) so far this year and usually the season does not end until October.
-Nhaya to make some friends at school and do better socially.
-The Youth work and also our Women’s ministry, along with Gilmer’s VOCIE program in the schools.
-SEND International has made some changes to their Purpose Statement and we went down to Manila last weekend to have a meeting on what that means for our field. We have a conference in October and will discuss it more. But please pray for wisdom and guidance for all as we strive to follow where we feel the Lord is leading us.
-Please pray for more supporters, those of you who do support- THANK YOU. We know that times are tough in the States right now and that also seems to be affecting what people can continue to give. We were able to share with some new people while we were back so Lord willing maybe some feel called to partner with us to reach the Filipinos.
-My sister Jessica seems to be in some really bad trouble (of her own making) right now and could use our prayers.

Thank you all so much for reading our update and keeping us in your prayers. We surely need them here on the front line of so many of Satan’s strongholds. Next time I will write about some Filipino experiences and culture so you can get a better idea of what we deal with everyday. We would love to hear from you also so please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can pray for you too!

Love to all of you,
The Paden’s
(Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah)

P.S. Just looking at our last post I feel like I need to tell those of who don’t know, how we got back into the States… We were very nervous going, thinking that maybe they could stop us or send Gilmer back to the Philippines if they didn’t except our explanation, etc. Well, praise God that we did get back ok. The flight was awful since they separated us on the long 12 hour flight, but we survived to be held in immigration at LAX (in California) for 3 hours (which made us miss our next flight to Tucson). We didn’t write about it when we got to the States because we were so frustrated and didn’t want to come across to strong. Let’s just say we have never been treated as badly as we were during those 3 hours and hope that we never will again. They were not even willing to let either one of us finish a sentence let alone explain what happened. Then when it was all said and done all they could have done was give us a fine, which they ended up waving anyways. All this to say that now Gilmer will need to make a quick trip back to the States again next year, so this same thing will not happen again and we will not have trouble obtaining his citizenship in 2 years when we are home for our home service. Again we do praise God for not more trouble than we had, we were expecting the worst just to be prepared. Thank you all for praying for us during that stressful and uncertain time.

Since a picture is worth a 1,000 words- here are just a few from our trip.

Yeah, we were able to celebrate the 4th of July with family and friends and see some fireworks.

Nhaya and Caleb were so excited to spend some time with their cousins. These are two of the four.

Nhaya was also able to have a princess birthday party with some of her friends.

We took a family vacation to the Grand Canyon.

It was so nice to be there for my Grandma's birthday.

With My sister Aimee and her family in Colorado

Girls night out.

My sister Shawna and her daughter Autumn

My parents, at the airport as we are getting ready to leave.

Now a few since being back in the Philippines

The 9 puppies that we came home to. Cute but a ton of work.

This is the new work to expand our church building. We are out growing it!

One of the classrooms that Gilmer is working in teaching the Bible.

Our first High School meeting. Gilmer is in the back just hard to see.

This is the team of people we work with at the church (CBCF- Cordillera Bible Christian Fellowship). There are 5 missionaries, including us, plus members of the church.

June Prayer Update

2008-06-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Update on US Trip

As of a couple days ago we now have tickets to travel to the States! We are scheduled to leave on June 18th and return to the Philippines August 14th. As you can imagine we are very excited but at the same time still a little hesitant. Let me explain why.

We bought tickets based on what the man at the Embassy said but we still have no documented proof that everything will go as he said and as we hope. So, we are taking every step possible to be ready for whatever situation might come up during our travels. We have called the Homeland Security again (and have a funny- long- but funny story about that!) and tried to get anymore information about our problem based on the fact that Mr. Lee from the Embassy said we can just board the plane.

As of now we will still plan to go but we need all of your prayers for everything to work out. We can not be fully relaxed until we are through immigration in the States and on a plane to Tucson! This is a very stressful time for us as we have all the preparations for the trip, scheduling speaking engagements, and still dealing with the fact that Gilmer could not allowed to enter the States. We will continue to do all we can to prepare and not stop calling and talking to anyone that might be able to help us until we get on the plane.

I will keep this short and just list our prayer needs and praises. We do hope to see many of you while we are back (Lord willing!). We will be in Arizona almost the whole time with a short trip to Colorado. We are sorry that we can not travel more to see every one of our supporting churches but it is just not as easy now with 3 kids.

Praises:

- That we were able to get plane tickets at a reasonable price so soon.

- That we were able to find someone to stay in our house for most of the time we are gone to take care of the animals. (Also, here in the Philippines you don’t want to leave a house vacant.)

- For Julie’s first Women’s Fellowship and planning meeting that she was able to help start last month. The women are so craving this kind of ministry and we are excited to see how the Lord will use it.

- Gilmer was able to start training the leadership of the youth group that he now leads. They have some great things planned.

Prayer:

- Gilmer’s paperwork issues still are not solved and won’t be until we get to the States and they let us past immigration.

- Preparations for our two month trip to the States and many chances to share what we have been doing in the Philippines these last two years.

- For more people who feel led to partner with us financially and prayerfully. We are in need of more supporters due to a number of different circumstances and are required to raise additional funds. Example- the fall of US Dollar, a new addition to the family, increase in medical insurance premiums, and a number of supporters who had to stop their giving.

- For people here to take our places in the ministries that have so recently been started.

- For us to find a school for Nhaya.

Thank you all for taking the time to read our updates and remember us in prayer and/or financial support. We pray for God’s guidance for all of you, our friends, as you also seek to follow Him.

Fellow Labors,

The Paden’s

Nhaya and Caleb with our team leader Mike Ballast at Nhaya's ballet recital

Nhaya was so excited for her dance, she also has a new hair cut!

Women on our Planning Team for the new women's ministry meetings

Leading the planning meeting

Josiah is getting big and is now 5 months

Exciting News

2008-05-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone,

We have some really exciting news! Thank you all for your prayers for us concerning Gilmer's papers to get back to the States. We said in the last email that we hoped somehow God would be glorified by our situation and we believe that He was today. Let me try and recap what happened at the Embassy this morning...

We went early and waited in line at the Homeland Security window, after talking to the man there he referred us to the US Border Safety (or something like that) since they are the ones that control the transportation Letter we were told to get. The security guard there said to wait outside, and when they came into office they would call us by who came first (there was a big stack of papers). Since we also needed to get Josiah's SSS number (Social Security) we did that while we waited. After that was taken care of, we were waiting outside and I went to check to see if there were seeing people yet, which they weren't. Gilmer, by then, had made friends with another guard inside and he asked Gilmer what we were waiting for. That guard (since they were friends of course!) told a secretary, who asked us about our situation. We explained a little and then said, "but don't we need to wait outside?" She said "No, no, come on in!" So we did! And met the American man in charge who took one look at Gilmer's Green Card, listening to a little of our problems, then proceeded to say. "But your Green Card is not expired!" "We know," we told him, "but they have told us that we can't get back without this re-entry permit." He then told us that we were fine and could travel whenever we want, we didn't even need this Transportation Letter. He even gave us his name and told us to have them call him if there were any problems. He apologized for the way we were treated on the phone (they have been very rude to us all the different times we called) and explained a little more about the whole situation. Which, by the way, would be too long to write here.

So altogether we were there only 2 1/2 hours and were able to really see how God just put us in the exact right spot to talk to the right person. I think we would still be waiting there had it not been for that "chance" meeting! We are now working on a schedule for going back to the States, getting tickets, taking care of our ministries while we are gone, etc.

We hope that through our story you might be able to see how God answers prayers and is faithful in all situations. We are sure that there were some reasons that we were delayed in our plans, and though we might never know for sure, (we can guess a few already) we are always excited to see how God can work out things that seem impossible to us! Again thank you for your prayers on our behalf, we hope that this might encourage you in your own situation to trust and wait on God to work out whatever you might be facing (and we are all facing something, right?).

We will keep you updated on when the exact dates we will be back in the States will be. Please remember that we would love to share with you in person about what we do here when we come back. So let us know if you what to schedule us to come and share with you and/or a group. We will have at least 4 weeks to do just that!

Your Partners in Christ,
The Paden's
(Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah)

P.S. Oh yes, Nhaya! We are not back yet (we leaving in the morning) but many of you said you were praying for her too. She is having so much fun that she hardly has time to talk to us on the phone! It sounds like she's having a great time.

Urgent Manila Trip

2008-05-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Praying Friends,

We have a urgent prayer request that we would like to share with you.

If you have been reading our updates you know of the problems that we have been having with Gilmer's paperwork to get back to the States. Things right now continue to look grim. We spoke to an Immigration Officer last Friday and, according to her, there is no hope that the re-entry permit will be reissued. This comes as a shock to us considering we have spoken to 3 other Immigration Officers that said to just wait. They did not say that there was no chance. She also told us that the only thing we could do is ask the Embassy to give us a Transportation Letter. We had not heard about this letter before even though we asked them repeatedly to let us know if there was anything else we could do.

So feeling like we need to exhaust all our options, and at least find out if there is anything the Embassy can do, we are headed for Manila in the morning. We could not send this out earlier due to a typhoon that passed close to us and caused us to be stuck in the house for 2 days with no power for half that time. Thankfully there was no damage, just a lot of clean-up.

Nhaya will stay here with one of the girls from the church since her ballet recital is on Saturday and she can't miss her practices!

Please pray for us, (and Nhaya) as we travel (6 hours)
- that we can talk to the right people at the Embassy, we will go on Wednesday morning but for most of you that's Tuesday night.
- that they would look favorably on our situation and help us find a solution
- and for us to have wisdom to know how to proceed if the Embassy can not help us.

We are not sure why we are still here, not being able to get back to the States as we had planned- but God does-and we trust that there is a purpose for all of this. Even during this time of waiting we are encouraged at how God has been using us here. Gilmer is doing some great things with the youth, and excited about working with them, as well as being involved in some weekly Bible Studies for new believers. I was able to help start our first ever Women's Fellowship this last Saturday. It went very well, and I am excited to see these women encouraging each other, learning, and growing together. So we also praise God for all that He has done while we wait and just pray that somehow this situation will bring about glory to Him.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and for partnering with us to reach the Filipino's for Christ.

Serving Him,
The Paden's
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah
I Cor. 15:58

April Prayer Update

2008-04-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

Baguio - our new city!

As you can see Baguio City has a lot of people. It is always very crowed here.

We dressed up in traditional dress with friends when we went sight seeing one day.

In A New City

“There is no way!” said Gilmer when one of the church members at our new church told him he would be wearing the tribal dress called a “bahag.”

Traditionally this clothing is worn by the mountain peoples. One group being the Ifugao. It is just a small piece clothing worn around the waist, almost like a loin cloth, and is to be worn with nothing else underneath!

We had a great time last month as our new church named Cordillera Bible Christian Fellowship welcomed us - complete with a tribal dance, (see pictures below)also when they asked Gilmer to wear the bahag. They made us get up and try the dance too! Even though we looked rather silly, it was fun.

The church members show us part of their culture.

We are glad to be here at our assignment and are excited to see how God will use us to reach these people. There is such a need for Christ here and it is so evident. Every time you turn around you see an idol or a small trinket (necklace, pendant, ornament, etc) in which people worship and honor in hopes of healing from sickness, good fortune, solutions to problems, protection from evil spirits or just for the fact that if they don’t they believe that something bad will happen to them.

There is a perfect example of this right on our street. When we used to walk the kids to school in the mornings and afternoons we would see this life size statue at the start of our street and almost every day there are fresh flowers in front of it as an offering. You can also see from our house the steps up one of the mountains to a famous “grotto” (as they call it here) or statue of Mary. Here is a web site where you can see pictures and read a little bit about it if you want - http://www.cityofpines.com/lourdesgrotto.html. These are evident reminders of why we are here.

Complications to Trip Home

These last months have been ones filled to overflowing as we moved and have been trying to get settled. Some of you might be wonder why we are not in the States yet as we had wanted to be there by now and even set up many speaking engagements at different supporting churches. Well… there are a few different reasons.

One being that it took a very long time to get Josiah’s birth certificate from the Philippine National Statistics Offices. After Gilmer made numerous trips back and forth (having to take an overnight bus to get to Manila), waiting in huge lines all day, being tossed back and forth between different offices, praise the Lord we were able to get it the day before our interview at the US Embassy. Without that we would not have been able to apply for Josiah’s passport, which we were able to do last week and now just wait for it to be sent to our house.

So one problem down, now there’s another one. We are missing a very important piece of paper that allows Gilmer to enter the US (called a reentry permit). We had thought that my Mom had it this whole time, but come to find out it is not the right one (we had to apply for two different ones before we left). She has one but the other one was missing. This is posing a big problem and we have been on the phone to the Homeland Security and the Embassy many different times. Now we wait for an answer. Which they said will take until the end of April.

He needs this paperwork because if he is out of the country for more than a year they cancel his green card – thinking that he no longer wants to be a permanent resident. We knew this and did everything correct but after further discussion with Homeland Security we were able to find out that it was sent to the wrong address, returned, and then- in their words “destroyed.” Since it was sent to the wrong address we were able to talk to one immigration officer that said he would request that it be reissued. It is valid until August so will you pray with us that they reissue it and quickly. If they do not reissue it we are not yet sure what it means for us but it would be very bad. They said we would need to reapply for a new green card (which took 3 years and thousands of dollars to get in the first place but since we are here means that he can’t go back to the US until it goes through).

It just seems to be one thing after another with this trip and we are getting very discouraged about it. We know that God is in control so we will trust that there is a purpose even if we can’t see it now. Please keep us and these things in your prayers though. We need a big miracle to get back any time soon.

You might be asking why we want to come now and not later. Well mostly for the kids school. Their break is from the beginning of April to the beginning of June, if we leave for the American summer (June – August) that could mean the kids missing two months of school. If at all possible we would like it to be a normal school season for them. There is also a family reunion that we were trying to get back for, that can’t be rescheduled, at the end of April. These things are all not really life or death issues but important to us none-the-less. The biggest thing now though, is Gilmer’s paperwork for his Green Card.

Thanks again for your continued prayers,

Julie – for all of us

Nhaya loves being a big sister and helping with her baby brother.

Praises

-For getting settled in our new house, school (which is finished now though until June), church, and ministry team.

-Gilmer’s had the opportunity to do many things with the team here including, teaching Bible studies, preaching, youth ministry, being trained to teach the Bible in public schools next school year, and many others. I was also able to have a preliminary meeting with some of the women of the church about starting a woman’s ministry- my area being starting a Mom’s type Bible Study/ Support Group.

Gilmer's in front playing for the Baptism service last Saturday.

Mike Ballast - our team leader- baptizes new christians from our church.

-The kids are behaving better – thanks for your prayers for them. Maybe all of this is happening just so they might have a chance to get settled a little more before we embark on yet another stressful time of change and travel. Right now they are at VBS (vacation bible school) which is the only reason I have the chance to write this update. :)

-That Josiah is growing, healthy, and SO cute! Also, that we were approved to get his passport and able to get his birth certificate in time (a real miracle!).

-Everyone has been healthy even though there have been some viruses going around.

-For you- our supporters and prayer partners. Without which we would not be able to be here. Thank you all!

-For Nhaya's 6th Birthday coming up this Saturday! She's very excited.

Josiah is 4 months old now and so cute!

Prayer

-Gilmer’s Reentry Permit to be approved quickly and without further problems or complications.

-For travel plans once we do get all the paperwork needed, setting up speaking engagements, plane tickets, a car to use, and someone to stay in our house and take care of our animals while we are gone.

-For Gilmer as he decides about what permanent ministry to be involved in. For open doors in starting new types of ministries if that is where he feels God is leading him.

-For me as I try to balance everything that needs to be done in a day (all of which is harder living here- from cooking to shopping) and three kids. As you can see this prayer letter is way overdue and it’s because of the above reasons. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

-The SEND office in Michigan has told us that due to the raising cost of medical insurance Stateside, a new member of the family (Josiah), some previous supporters that can not support anymore, and the fall of the dollar in exchange to peso’s- we are in need of raising more support. Please pray that God will provide those that wish to partner in His work here in the Philippines through us.

February Prayer Update

2008-02-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Prayer Partners,

These last couple months have been overwhelming for us. Well… as I think about it, this last year and a half while we have been here in language school has been overwhelming. We want to thank you for your part in helping us get through with your prayers. We are only here because we know that this is where God wants us, not because it’s easy. Sometime we have to keep reminding ourselves of this on a particularly hard day.

So much has happened this last month or so that it is hard to recap for you. We had Josiah, got a different car, had our second Christmas away from home, my Mom came to help for a month, we traveled to Baguio looking for a house, Gilmer’s brother left, we started packing to move, went to a team planning retreat, and so many little things I can’t even say.

Needless to say, you get the picture – we have been busy! That is also why we have not been able to update more like we wanted to. We do want to make sure that we say thank you to all who responded when we had the baby. We are sorry that we have not had a chance to reply to each of you individually, but want to make sure that you know how much it means to us that you sent a short note. You might not realize it but it is so refreshing to hear from home and those praying for us. Again thank you.

So having said all that, this month we will keep our prayer letter short and sweet with just prayer and praises. We do look forward to sharing so many more things about the Philippines and our time here with you, but that will have to wait until a later time.

Praise:

Josiah’s birth went well and he is a healthy growing little guy. Julie also healed well and is able to resume normal activity (which is good for the moving part).

We found a house in Baguio (six hours north) that we think will be good for our family for the next couple years and were able to work out the details with the owner (it took a while and we thought that we weren’t going to be able to get that house).

We really like the new team that we are going to be working with. We just got back from a planning retreat and enjoyed getting to know them.

Caleb is ok after he slipped and hit his head on a step at the water slide at the retreat mentioned above. He had to get three stitches. There was a hospital close and we were able to get in and out even though the actually procedure was quite traumatic (maybe for Mommy as much as Caleb!). We are thankful it was not worse.

We were able to get a bigger van to seat all the kids in their car seats. It is also an automatic which is so nice as Baguio is much like the streets in San Francisco, very steep! We still need to sell the other one so please pray for a buyer soon.

Prayer:

For packing and moving this week. We move Friday and still feel like we have so much to get done. Not easy with three kids!

Adjustments in our new city, church, and school. As of now we can’t get to our new house when we move because we aren’t familiar with the city! – Funny yes, but a picture of how clueless we are. We did look at a small school next to our new house that will be good for Nhaya and Caleb during the next two months they have left of school. (Summer break here is April and May). Gilmer will be busy trying to find out where he fits into the team and what ministries are best for him. Right now we think it will mostly be youth work. Julie will be trying to unpack and be a Mommy of three kids.

We are returning to the States in April and May for a short deputation time and also for Gilmer to renew some paperwork for his permanent residence visa (green card). We are excited to be back for a couple months but there is so much work involved in scheduling etc. We would love to share what God has been doing in our lives and that of the Filipinos with you when we are there. Unfortunately since this is a short trip we are only going to be in Arizona, so if you would like us to come and share, please let us know as soon as you can so we can get our schedule down. Here are the dates we will be available:
April 4th - 24th and then May 11th – 18th.

We have a lot of paperwork that needs to be taken care of before we can come back to the States. Josiah needs his passport and citizenship papers worked out. Nhaya needs her passport renewed. All of that requires a lot of work and trips to the American Embassy in Manila. Things like that are not easy in this country. It seems like everything takes at least twice as long to accomplish. For example two weeks ago we went to Manila (which is one hour away) at 9am for a doctor’s appointment and a stop at our SEND office and ended up not coming home until after 8pm. This is due to the traffic, waiting (no appointments allowed), and crowds.

We hope that you and your families are doing well, and until next time, may God bless you.

Your Partners in Reaching the Filipinos,

Gilmer and Julie Paden

New address:
Gilmer and Julie Paden
P.O. Box 1255,
2600 Baguio City
Philippines

Josiah at 6 weeks

My Mom and Gilmer's brother during Caleb's birthday at the mall

Our cute boys!

The kids at Nhaya's school were so excited to see Josiah. See the crowd?

We thought it was so funny how interested they were. This is our new house, it's a duplex so the left side is ours.

Nana (my Mom) and Nhaya. They loved having her here and showing her their life in the Philippines

Nhaya and Caleb at an outreach that we went to in Gilmer's old church planting area. A short term team from Canada was here doing a presentation.

Josiah is here!

2007-12-26T05:48:00.000-08:00

Announcing the long awaited arrival of Josiah Seth Paden!

He was born by c-section on December 20th at 9:35am and was 6 pounds and 18.9 inches long. Everything went well and we were able to go home on the 23rd to spend Christmas at home.

Thank you all for your prayers, we know many of you were concerned. I am up and able to get around just fine (despite a little pain). The kids did well with my Mom (Nana) at our SEND guest house in Manila while we were in the hospital. They are very excited to have a baby brother. Caleb asked yesterday if we get to keep him forever!

We have a busy month ahead of getting ready to move, finding a house, and getting well and rested. We would apriciate your continued prayers for this and will write another prayer update soon.

Blessings,
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Josiah Paden

November 2007

2007-11-22T18:03:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We hope that this finds each of you well and thankful for what God has given each of you. We are so thankful for how God has, not only provided all that we need, but blessed us and answered so many of our prayers. It seems as I read back on our prayer request list that all have been answered above and beyond what we even knew how to ask.

Pregnancy Update

We had a great doctor’s appointment this week! I am now able to be normal again (whatever that means for an 8 month pregnant lady). The baby is growing just fine, and the contractions that I do still have are not affecting anything since I am so far along now. We were even able to get a day for the c-section – December 20th- making it possible for us to be home for Christmas (that is, if there are no complications). Which I’m sure will be so much better for all of us, especially Nhaya and Caleb.

Ministry Update

Bagiuo! That is were we are going to be moving after the baby is born. Praise God for the great trip that Gilmer made to that area. We were able to make a decision, which everyone is happy with, so now we can make plans for moving and ministry opportunities for Gilmer. He is very excited about getting back into full-time ministry after his long Mr. Mom time here during my language school.

This last month he was been able to teach at two Bible Studies for new Christians and had a great time. He was also able to attend a Promise Keepers Philippines conference with the elders of the church that we attend. Then two weeks ago, all of us were able to go to an anniversary service for the church that one of my language teachers is a pastor of. I am happy to report that I understood everything that the missionary sharing had to say in Tagalog! It was a great confirmation for me that I am in fact learning something (of course it helps that he also has an American accent to his Tagalog making it easier for me to understand than native speakers).

Language Update

So speaking of language, I officially have one more week of classes and then I am finished. Of course there is still so much that I don’t know and I will need to continue to practice and improve using the new skills that I have received.

Our first phase of missionary life seems to be coming to an end and we are so excited to start the next and see how God wants to use us in the lives of others.

Family Update

The kids continue to do well here. They have been sick a few times and Caleb had an accident in the pool – jumping on Gilmer’s brothers head- resulting in a broken tooth, which is now missing. Let’s just say that I can really see the difference between boys and girls at this age. All you parents of boys know what I mean when I talk about constantly putting band aides on scratched up knees and telling him to put down the bug that he is playing with (or torturing). He sure is growing up fast and I am glad that I have another baby coming along to hug because Caleb sure has no time in his busy schedule for Mommy to hold him! The Filipinas here love to talk to him and they all call him baby, for example. “Oh, Baby, you’re so cute, how old are you?” To which Caleb will adamantly reply. “I’m not a baby I’m a big boy!”

Nhaya is doing so well in school that she is first in her class for the second time. We are off to another award ceremony on Friday for her to receive it. Which she, and us are very proud of. At home she continues to have trouble with obeying pretty much anything that she doesn’t want to, which on a good day, boils down to at least 5 different talks, time-outs, and sometimes even spankings. Please continue to pray for her and us as we try to teach, train, and have patience with her. It can be very tiring for us at times.

On the other hand she is our social butterfly and loves playing and interacting with anybody. She now understands a lot of Tagalog and is able to answer properly all the simple questions, like how old are you, where do you go to school, do you have siblings, etc. There are about 4 girls in our neighborhood that she can be seen running around with all the time up and down the street. And, I think, the cutest thing to share is that she loves to sing to her little brother still in Mommy’s tummy.

Praises or THANKSGIVING

-Julie and the baby doing so much better! Getting a date for the c-section, and Julie’s Mom being able to come and help.

-Picking a team and having direction on where we are going next.

-Continued provision for our needs and those people that are involved in our ministry through support and/or prayer.

-The successful ending of language school and understanding that Julie now has in the Tagalog language.

Prayer

-Safe delivery with no complications.

-Moving shortly after the baby is born and setting up a new house, school, ministry, etc.

-Our support level has increased and we need to raise more than $800 each month due to a number of things -rising medical costs, the depreciation of the US dollar verses the Philippine Peso, supporters that are unable to fulfill their commitment, and the new baby.

Serving Him,
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, and Baby Paden

P.S. Sorry there are no pictures this time, we will put some on next month.

September Prayer Update

2007-09-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Prayer Partners,

We wanted to send a quick update and tell you how we are doing. Thanks so much for your prayers! We are doing a lot better this month and have felt very supported in prayer for all the things that we are going through as a family.

Pregnancy Update

As of now, after a new doctor and some new medication- I am doing much better! Praise the Lord. I am still having contractions on and off but the new medication is much stronger and has helped so much with making it possible for me to be mobile. I am able to go downstairs a couple times a day and even make dinner most of the time. After being on bed rest for so long even cooking dinner is something to look forward to. Don’t all you busy Mom’s wish you could feel that way!

We were also able to have a very in depth ultra sound, and after being almost positive that we were having a girl, we were so surprised to find out that it’s a BOY! So now all you curious ones can be at rest. So far no names picked out but if you have some suggestions please feel free to send them our way. Everything looked fine on the ultra sound and the baby is bigger than normal, but I wonder though if those are Filipino sizes for babies or American sizes? The ladies here are so much smaller then I am, and in the States I am pretty short!

Due date is January 3rd but with needing a c-section it will be more toward Christmas time. My mom has offered to come for an extended period of time at Christmas (even missing Christmas with the rest of our family) to help us. Which we of course accepted gladly and are excited about her coming!

Ministry and Team Update

We have also seen so many prayers answered in this area of where to go? When to go? How about the timing with the baby?

We were supposed to move December 1st but with the baby and the problems with this pregnancy that was just not possible. The lady who owns the house just said that we can stay as long as we need to.Which is such a praise! So with my mom coming to help with the kids, and packing our house, moving now looks a lot less scary. We also have pretty much chosen a team to go to and are making plans in that direction. Gilmer still wants to take one more trip to visit and with the fact that I am doing better he feels like he finally can.

So again, thanks so much for your prayers and concern for us. What a great God we have who takes care of all our needs and even some wants that we feel silly telling Him about sometimes. What a blessing to be able to share with you what God is doing in our lives and we hope that it is as encouraging to you, as it is to us, to see prayers answered. We hope all is well with each of your families, and as always please feel free to send us any prayer requests or concerns that you might have. Just because we are missionaries doesn’t mean that we are the only ones that need prayer.

Praises

-Julie is doing better and able to be more mobile. The baby is also doing well and growing! Finding a new doctor that is attentive and concerned for us.

-For more of our plans for the future coming together. Being able to stay in this house until after the baby is born, choosing a team, and my Mom coming to help with all the needed packing and kid stuff.

-Noah, my sister Aimee's and brother-in-law Sam’s baby, had to go to the hospital and have a procedure on his eye. It was a little scary for everyone but praise God that he is ok and what was wrong can be fixed without surgery.

-Health "right now" is pretty good. Rainy season (which is now) in the Philippines is like the winter in the States- lots of sicknesses going around. We have all been sick on and off and the kids have had very high fevers. Continue to pray for good health and protection. Nhaya seems to pick things up from school and bring them back for all of us to share!

Prayer

-Continued health for Julie and the baby during these last months. Wisdom for plans for the c-section and what to do about Christmas- if we need to stay in Manila for an extended time or not (we live an hour away).

-Language- Julie still has class everyday, the problem is that she can’t get out much to practice. Prayer for continued understanding and improvement.

-Gilmer’s trip to the team. Wisdom for him about whether or not that is the right place for us. Plans for moving there after the baby is born.

-Nhaya – we continue to have a hard time with her. She is doing well in school but very disobedient in all other area. Wisdom for us in dealing, training, and guiding her.

In His Service,
Gilmer and Julie Paden
I Cor. 15:58

School

“This is the gym at Nhaya’s school. We just wanted to give you an idea of the schools here. She is down there somewhere.”

Award

“Academics are very competitive here, even in kindergarten! All the moms sit around and ask what grade your child got on the exam. Can you believe they have exams so early? Nhaya got first in her class. She is really doing well in school and learning a lot of Tagalog.”

Calebs Shoes

"On a special outing with another missionary friend we were able to go to Bubba Gump’s for lunch. Can you believe that they have that restaurant here?”

Nhaya’s teacher

“This is Nhaya’s teacher. She has four classes a day of 20+ kids in each class. I don’t know how she does it.”

August Prayer Update

2007-08-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Prayer Partners,

Hope all of you have had a great month! I’m sure that many of you are busy preparing for school to start and other things that begin at the start of a new school year. It is the start of something new for us too. We have officially been here for one full year and this is the start of our second. We are excited about all the new things that are going to take place this year and we praise God for helping us through this first year on the field. We know that we could not have made it without all of your continued prayers, so again, thank you for your part in what God is doing with us here in the Philippines.

I’ve been thinking back about one of our first prayer letters when we arrived here and what I quoted in it. I said “When interviewing retired missionaries and those still on the field, almost all said the first year on the field was the hardest of their lives!” I think that we can honestly say that it has been true for us too. We still have so much to learn and adjust to, but we feel better now that the first year is behind us and we are ready to take on the second!

Family Struggles

As many of you know we have been having a hard time these last months. Here is an update on the pregnancy and what we are doing now.

I continue to have problems with this pregnancy and am pretty much on bed rest most of the time. The problem being that I have had contractions since the 2nd month. I am now in the middle of my 5th month and they still have not stopped. With the help of some medicine that tries to stop the contractions I can go downstairs and be with my family (and maybe cook), once a day. I have tried to go places and do a little shopping with Gilmer, but it continues to be hard, so I must mostly stay home. Of course this poses problems all around, both in our own family and in ministry as well. Gilmer has had to take over all of the household stuff and the kids. Not to mention take care of me as well. We are thankful for a friend that comes during the week to help with the chores and cleaning, and just this last week Gilmer’s brother arrived to live with us for awhile. We asked his youngest brother (who is single and not working) if he could come and help Gilmer out with the kids. Both of these have been great blessings during this time. We would appreciate your continued prayers, though. It’s hard enough not being near family and friends (or in your own country) who could offer help and encouragement, but even more so not really knowing what is going on with the pregnancy and why I am having these problems. We have a nice doctor at the best hospital in the Philippines, so we are happy with medical options open to us. Praise God that the last ultrasound showed that the baby is fine and growing right on schedule. You might be able to see my growing stomach in some of the new pictures.

Ministry

Because of these problems with the pregnancy and the need for Gilmer to be home with the kids - since I can’t take care of them - he has had to stop all involvement in ministry at this time. (Of course he is very busy ministering to the needs of his family, which, according to him, has been the hardest thing he has ever had to do.) The good thing is that I am still able to have language class because my teacher is willing to come to my house everyday and work with me, even from my bed most of the time. She has been a great help. This also gives me something to do besides feel unproductive just being in bed.

Praises

That the baby is ok and continues to grow!
For Gilmer’s brother being able to come and help us.

That we have a good doctor and hospital we are comfortable with.

That I can continue to learn the language even if I am on bed rest.

Prayer Requests

For continued safety for the baby, and healing for the pregnancy.

Gilmer as he takes care of the kids and house (not really his cup of tea - but he is doing a great job!). This is also hard on the kids who are not used to Mommy not being as involved as she was before. They are acting up a bit.

What team to choose after language school. We were supposed to move to the new team (which we are still deciding about) in December, but as of now (since the baby is due at the end of December and the impossibility of me moving any time soon) we maybe have to look at other options and postpone going to the new team until after January.

If we do need to stay here longer please pray that the owner of the house we are renting will be open to us staying past the contract date.
For continued spiritual growth and encouragement during this time.

Please feel free to e-mail or call us (contact info is on the blog) if you want more details. We try to keep this short and to the point since we know so many are busy. Again we love to hear from you.

Blessings to all of you,
The Paden’s

Bahay Kubo

These are the traditional houses of the tribal people in the Northern Philippines.

Kitty

Now I am not all alone in my room, this is the new member of our family.

Kids

They are getting so big!

Gilmer and Julie

We were able to go on a much needed weekend trip away from the house a couple weeks ago.

July Prayer Update

2007-07-08T07:05:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

It has been a while since you have heard from us and we apologize for that. The last two months have been hard ones for us, hardly an excuse, we probably needed your prayers more than anything. This is why we want to thank you for your continued prayers and support even when we don’t have the time, or energy to send you an update.

I (Julie) have been having a lot harder time with this pregnancy than the other two. (If you are surprised that I am pregnant you maybe didn’t read the last update!) Since we found out that we were going to have another baby, I have been in bed much of the time. After an initial one week of bed rest, then back and fourth to the doctor, and back in bed… some more, I still continue to have problems. That currently has me, as I write, back in bed yet again. As you can guess this has been hard on all of us. Gilmer has had to do so much more above and beyond (which he is doing a great job of, I might add!) and the kids keep wondering why Mommy has to rest yet again in her room. Our house also has stairs which makes it even more difficult because I can’t go down once I come up and am stuck up here so to speak. Good thing the kid’s legs don’t mind going up and down those stairs all day long to come and visit me. Please just pray with us that this cramping will stop and I can continue with everyday life, and the baby will be safe.

Language school- I still go most of the time, (I did miss a lot of days at first) if I am careful, I can make it and just need to rest in the afternoons. The classes continue to get harder as we work on verbs but even just today in church I was encouraged that I understood almost all of the sermon (of course it helped that the speaker was American and I can understand his accent easier). As long as people speak slowly I really can pick up most of what they are saying. Now as to me speaking fluently, well… there I still need a lot of work.

Julie and one of her language teachers

Gilmer’s Ministry with church planting- That has been a lot harder these last weeks as it is hard for him to leave me alone with the two kids. They did have a VBS for the area that went really well. I think they said that at least 8 kids asked Jesus into their heart for the first time! He also helps many Sundays in the worship team for our church and really enjoys that.

Kids at VBS. Nhaya is there in her pink dress, Caleb is next to her in the second row.

A class at their VBS graduation. Nhaya was able to be a part of the VBS so she is in the back but hard to see.

The Kids- Nhaya has started school. The summer break here is April to June (as those are the hot months) and she started Kinder 2 at the beginning of June. She loves it and is doing really well. This is I think her 4th week and she is getting in trouble a lot less than the first 2 weeks. For those of you that don’t know, Nhaya is our “strongwilled” child and has a harder time than most trying to obey. The teacher is very nice though and willing to work with her, and it seems to be accomplishing its purpose, which is for her to feel more comfortable in Tagalog. Everyday I pick her up she is speaking more and more Tagalog. As she is the only “Americana” in the school, you can imagine how interested the other kids are. We usually have at least a trail of 7 to 8 kids following us everyday after class, and of course everyone in the school seems to know her name (which she loves by the way!) The schools here are very different and need your prayer too. Nhaya’s teacher has 4 classes a day of Kinder 2’s with about 25 kids in each class. She only has about a 40 minute lunch break and classes go until 5pm. This, by the way, is way better than most schools who can have up to 70 kids in one class. That is in Manila though and they have even had to spilt the days up there so some kids go to school in the mornings and some in the afternoons. There just is not enough room to let them stay for the whole day.

SEND is involved in teaching Bible classes at the public schools in Manila and could also use your prayers for further help and training for more people to be involved in this. It’s called VOICE Values Orientation In Classroom Education. Praise God that there can be a light for Him even in the public schools.

Caleb at first did not do well with his sister being gone but has now gotten use to the idea and enjoys his time with Daddy while Nhaya and I are at school. (we have classes at the same time) He is also so excited that “there’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy” that he is telling everyone he meets.

Caleb playing at our house

Nhaya in her uniform on her first day of school

Nhaya's class

Look at her working so hard! She loves the school work.

Praises
-Safety so far with the pregnancy.
-Nhaya starting school and making some friends.
-Caleb’s adjustments to her and Mommy being gone.
-Successfully VBS in the church planting area.
-Good visit with Gilmer’s parents. They came 2 weeks ago and have been a big help to him with the cooking and the kids. It’s nice that they can get to know their grandkids, “apo” in Tagalog, better. They hadn’t ever been to our house as it is a two day boat ride to get here from where they live.
-My sister Shawna had a healthy baby girl in May

Prayer
-Healing for whatever is wrong with this pregnancy. For a return to normal activities and for Gilmer as he takes on so much more with me not being able to help as much.
-Continued understanding and progress in the language and Gilmer in his ministry with the church here.
-We still need to visit one more area and then be deciding what team to join in December after my language school. Pray for wisdom for us to choose the right place that fits what God has gifted us with.
-The heat has not been as bad as it is now rainy season but with that comes humidity, humidity, and more humidity. It still is hard for me at least to get use to living here in this very hot country so please continue to keep our adjustments to life in the Philippines in your prayers. We sure miss home sometimes too but know that God has called us and are grateful that you are joining us in making it possible to be here.

This is one of the teams we could join in December.

We thank God for each of you and pray for you as well. Please let us know if there is anything that we can pray with you or for you about.

Blessings,
The Paden Family

2007-05-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Family, Friends, and Partners,

Greetings from a very, very hot Philippines. I just talked to my parents last night who live up in the mountains, they said it is very hot up there too. They’ve never been that hot before so I guess we are not alone. But the Lord is still good. We praise God for a swimming pool nearby. The kids spend much of their time swimming lately. They love to swim.

LANGUAGE STUDY
Julie is doing great. She has been writing a lot of sentences and stories. Conversation in Tagalog is still a challenge but she is understanding a lot of words now and is using them frequently. In fact, Julie is even correcting me of my usage of words since I only speak and understand simple tagalong. Not understanding and speaking the language is quite frustrating for her but she is making a lot of progress.

MINISTRY
I am still involved with the church planting ministry of the church we go to. It has been hard to find a Bible study contact lately (someone that is interested in studying the Bible at their home). Our ministry is mostly done Sunday afternoons although we will try to extend it on the weekdays. We will have VBS for the kids in our church planting area for three days, this week. They usually have 80 to 100 kids so be praying for the teachers, kids, and for opportunities to minister to the parents.

PRAISES
- We are excited to announce that Julie is pregnant with our third child. We praise God for this gift. The kids are going crazy and are very excited to have another sister or brother. Nhaya always ask us if she can tell anyone about mommy’s baby in her tummy. Caleb wants to have a boy and Nhaya wants to have both. She said she had been praying for a long time and God finally answered her. It is exciting to hear her saying that it was God who gives.
- We praise God for the good health of the whole family. I think our bodies are finally adjusting (except for the heat).
- We also praise God for new friends that we have, they are very good friends.
- We praise God for our family here and abroad who had been great encouragers, friends, and excellent prayer partners.
- And we praise God for our wonderful financial and prayer support. Thank you for partnering with us.

PRAYER REQUEST
- Pray that Julie and the baby will be healthy and safe.
- Pray for the kids as they will be going through another adjustment of having another brother or sister.
- Continue to pray for Julie’s language learning and for my involvement in the church planting ministry.
- We still need to decided where we will go after language school (what team to join), please pray for us as we continue to visit these teams and see where we fit best.
- Nhaya will start school in June. She is going to a local school so we are hoping that she will pick up some of the language. Please pray for this big step. She is very excited since she is so outgoing but just pray that she will be able to make friends and understand.

Again we want to thank you for your continued support in prayer. We praise God that we are being remembered in your prayers. We find comfort in knowing that it is God who brought us here and that He answers our prayers. May you find joy in serving and knowing our Lord Jesus.

In His service,
Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya and Caleb

April Prayer Update

2007-04-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

To Our Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

We hope that this e-mail finds you all well! We have been busy but doing ok here in the Philippines. We continue to plug along in Language School and adjustments, and at the same time travel to different places in order to pick out where we will go this next year.

I will share more about that below, but I really wanted to share with you some very interesting and disturbing information about The Philippines and its people. This is not the first time, of course, for Gilmer to be here at Easter time and I have even been here once years ago, but this year was new for both of us. We have included pictures and you are probably wondering why I would send such gruesome pictures to all of you! The fact is that, this is life here and is not abnormal at all. In some of the pictures you might see the crowd, notice the children of all ages that are there.

Holy Week in The Philippines is probably the most important celebration of the whole year. We were able to experience some of the traditional activities starting with a procession on Wednesday night. It included 60+ floats adorned with flowers that were brought through the town depicting different images of Jesus and Mary. Most of the floats also had a loud speaker blasting the Rosary. Here it is for those of you that don’t know it:

"Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary mother of God. Pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Amen."

The priest walks in front of the procession and sprinkles Holy Water on all the spectators. (He saw me and made sure that I was sprinkled twice!) A tradition here is that the float's foliage then has the power to heal.

On Good Friday we went to a church where they crucify people to a cross. The whole drive we saw people walking on the road carrying crosses or beating themselves with bamboo sticks, like you see in the pictures. They are on their way to different churches where they will lay in front of each of the 12 Stations of the Cross and ask for forgiveness, all while a friend beats them with some kind of rubber whip. These men have made a vow to do this so that God might forgive them of their sins. Or they are thanking Him for answering something they asked from Him. They also think that they are helping Jesus by doing this!

There are a few that have made a vow to crucify themselves to crosses. Only a few places in the Philippines do this and we were at one. (It even made the MSN homepage news when I woke up this morning. I will try to link it for you.)- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17978154/ - This area of central Luzon (the Island where we live and where Manila is) has a very strong historical Catholic faith. I>have heard that leaders in the Catholic Church discourage this form of penance but all the churches are open and many of the leaders in each church are present (even mayors, etc, running for office) though not the priests themselves.

One of the last pictures shows a doorway. Look at the line going into the door (it is a lot longer but we couldn’t fit it in the picture) these people come from all over to wait in line to see an image of Jesus carrying the cross. What they do is bring a handkerchief and rub the statue while they pray to it. The handkerchief then has power to heal them or someone they bring it to, in some way. There are many other beliefs here that are very shocking. Though of course, not all Filipino’s believe them but the majority does.

- There is a little pouch that you pin to the inside of your child’s clothes in order to bring good luck and fend off evil spirits.

- They tie rosaries to their cars, motorcycles, etc. for protection and good luck.

- Some where a necklace with a medallion in the front and one on the back, worn for protection and good luck also.

- If you travel on Good Friday and get hurt, it is likely that you will not be healed for a year.

- Most Filipino’s will not get their heads wet if it is raining. They will put anything they can on their heads to keep the rain from hitting them. Especially for children, they think this will make you very sick (they get quite upset if they see our kids playing in the rain!)

- If you stare at a white person while you are pregnant, your baby might be whiter. Which is the desire for most mothers. To have whiter children.

There is so many more that I can’t even begin to write them, for that matter remember them. And by sharing them I do not wish you to laugh or make light of their strong beliefs in such things. The only reason that I share these with you is so you can have a glimpse of what it is like here and the need for Christ in their lives. Most of the things that you will read about of the Philippines will tell you that it is the only Christian nation in Asia. But what are they meaning when they say Christian? If Filipino’s ask me what kind of missionary I am, I have to say "Born Again." There is big difference between the "Born Again" Christians and the Catholic ones and they all know it too!

This Easter/ Resurrection Sunday as you remember what Christ has done for us. Please also remember that there are millions of people, even in this one small country, who have not heard about the saving Grace of Christ. They live by guilt, as you can see from the pictures, and it is>grace that they should take away from what happened on the Cross! Not the need to do it themselves!

We do struggle sometimes with this new place, life, language, climate, house, etc. But as we reflect on what we have seen only in this short week, we are reminded why we are here! And we want thank all of you, our prayer partners and supporters, for being a part of changing lives here in the Philippines. Please continue to keep us, the Filipino’s, and the work of SEND in your prayers. There is a list below of praises and prayer requests if you would like more information.

Please feel free to drop us an e-mail sometime and tell us how you guys are doing and how we can pray for you too. We care about you all and feel like you know what goes on in our lives but we are missing yours!

Praises:
- In the past month and a half we’ve traveled to two different areas where we could work on church planting teams. They were both quite far but it was great to meet them and see about possibilities for joining a team in December. We have two more to visit still. We need to make a decision by September.

- We were able to attend Gilmer’s brothers wedding in March. Both Nhaya and Caleb were in the wedding and they were so cute! It was a fast trip, but good none-the-less, to be there for important family things that we’ve missed for so many years.

- My language is coming along alright. I have hit some confusing conjugation lately so please include that in your prayers too.

- We have decided to enter Nhaya in Kinder 2 at the public school right next to my school this June, she is turning 5 in a few weeks (that’s the beginning of the new school year). She is so excited and we hope that this will help her make some friends and get some language practice too. She really wants to speak with the other kids around

Prayer Requests:
- For our decision, that’s coming up faster than ever, on what team to join in December. They all seem to need so much help of course>so please pray for wisdom.

- Gilmer’s church planting group at the church we attend. He was involved in a basketball outreach a while ago that went well. They still have almost all women attending the church and it would be great to see some men be reached as well.

- It is now officially summer here and we are feeling it! The heat seems to sap your strength and not to mention your good attitude! Please pray that we can endure and hopefully soon adapt to the heat better.

- Our families- Gilmer’s sister-in-law had a baby last month. She now has 3 boys all under 3 years old and Gilmer’s brother, her husband, is overseas working for another 6 months. (That situation is very common here as their are few jobs that pay well, even many mothers leave there kids and go work for 2 years at a time). Also my sister Shawna is going to have a baby soon, in May.

Blessings,
The Paden Family
(Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, and Caleb)
I. Cor. 15:58

Phone Numbers
Home – 44-766-1325
Julie’s - 927 -398-4085
Gilmer’s - 927-398-4053
Country code is 63.

Mailing address
P.O. Box 1415
QCC PO
Quezon City, 1154
PHILIPPINES