November Update

Psalms 33:20-22

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.
 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
    even as we put our hope in you.

Our PSC Family

November is already here!!! We have so much to share with all of you, I don't even know where to start. If it seems like we dropped off the globe for a while, we are sorry about that. Keeping up with the day to day things are overwhelming enough and unfortunately things that are not basic necessities (like sleep!) get set aside for a while. Thankfully I think we are all adjusting to our new life with four kids. It's much faster passed than before! Adding a infant to the mix of an already busy life requires some adjusting. I'm looking forward to the Christmas break and a little down time.

Let me take you back some months before we get to the recent news. I never had a chance to post about Gilmer's trip to Asia and I would like to do that now. We would like to thank all of you who supported this trip! He traveled to 3 different countries and was able to make many contacts. Here's a short story he wrote about one experience.

Nope, that's not a skirt! It's called a longyi

We took a taxi to one of the ministries we were planning to visit; I got off the taxi with the pastor and headed to his church while the rest of my companions (westerners/white) went back to the hotel. I was invited to speak for 15 minutes.  The service started with singing, a little teaching for the children, then suddenly a policeman came in and started yelling, demanding the pastors to show them the foreigners. This went on for 15 minutes. The pastor’s wife motioned me to not speak. Then another policeman came, demanding the same thing. This went on for almost 45 minutes, finally, after realizing that there were no white people around, and after they were fed, they left. What they didn’t realize was that there was a foreigner- a Filipino/American (me) among the crowd. I was dressed like the nationals; same color as the nationals; looking like the nationals -but a foreigner all the same. 

What an experience it was! I found out that the pastor had been trying to secure permits for a couple of weeks to allow his friends (the foreigners) to visit one of the villages, but they refused to give him any. Thus the incident. I went back to my hotel that day with so many things on my mind. I was able to experience just a little taste of what the persecuted church looks like. I was  only there less than four hours. I watched these believers go back to worship after the police visit. I asked my friend if I could do anything, he said, “Send help, help reach our people, help us train our people.” In other words send missionaries. That was an authentic request. My heart ached for them. Something has to be done.

Based on this experience I am more and more convinced that the Filipinos have awesome opportunities in reaching Asia for Christ. They not only have the looks of Asians and blend in to other Asian countries; they have everything needed to be effective missionaries. It is our desire to see more and more Filipinos coming out of this country as missionaries. We desire to encourage them, challenge them, train them, and send them!

Visiting one of the short term teams that we sent

With the group of Thai administrators that invited our teams to help them teach English in their schools. 

Gilmer with the pastor in the story above

Setting up potential teams for next summer

Children in an orphanage that one of our teams will be working with next summer

Family Update:

Gilmer parents and a friend from the States (Grant) came for a visit.

Lola and her new Grandson

Luke is now 3 months old and doing great. He's such a blessing to have and the kids continue to love on him. He officially turned over for the first time yesterday and although he hasn't exactly mastered sleeping through the night he is going for longer periods at least. We will be in the process of getting his US citizenship as soon as we get our paperwork back from the Philippine Immigration, so please be praying that this is a smooth process. Right now if we needed to leave the country for some reason we would not be able to do so since Luke does not have his passport. 

Luke's first swim

Nhaya, Caleb and Josiah are all doing well. They are enjoying school. Nhaya is in 5th grade, Caleb 3rd, and Josiah preschool- 3 days a week. I can officially call myself a soccer mom, since both Nhaya and Caleb are involved with soccer now. They love it!! Nhaya is also quite the musician, playing flute as well as piano. Caleb's favorite past time, besides soccer, is catching bugs! Many times I have to ask him to leave the bugs outside because they don't get to live in the house with me. Josiah is growing fast and can't wait to turn 5 years old this December.

Go Caleb go!!! He's in the red.

Look at all the new babies in the Mom's group I attend for missionaries!

Ministry Update:

One of the Night Cap's

We have had some exciting things happen recently in the Short Term Department! Gilmer and I both work with short term, and we have had many chances to talk with those interested in missions. PSC has been doing what we call Night Cap. It's a chance to sit and have coffee and talk about missions for those interested in knowing more. It's seems to have been a big success in the urban setting of Manila. Many have been able to voice their questions and be encouraged to follow God's leading in their lives. We've also had a few big events to introduce our teams for next year and explain what each country we work with is doing. Last Saturday we had a prayer event, where we set up tables for the different teams and people were able to hear a short description and then pray for that country.

Prayer event mentioned above

Luke helping out at the event!

There were 5 teams last year and this year there will hopefully be 10, maybe more. We are working on sending them to 5 different countries, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, the other two we can't list here because of security reasons. If you want to email us with more questions please feel free, we can answer that way.

Those with a heart for missions signing the map,
 remembering to pray for that country

Gilmer speaking about the Muslim area of the Philippines 

where one team will go this  summer

Please continue to pray for the teams to fill up and be able to raise all their support as well as all the training and recruiting we will be doing. This is a faith building time for the Filipinos and we are committed to helping them reach the unreached with the Love of Christ.

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thanks for being part of our team!

Blessings from the Paden Family

Gilmer, Julie, Nhaya, Caleb, Josiah, and Luke