DISCIPLES BAPTIZING NEW DISCIPLES

The youth in the Philippines are growing up without any role models or values. Many families have broken relationships, which has led to youth having identity, anxiety, and addiction problems rooted in rejection and fear. We are engaging youth with the gospel which reveals the restorative love of the Father through His Son's gift at the cross—and the power of His resurrection to change lives. We thank the Lord that dozens of youth are hearing about the love of Jesus one-on-one or in a small group setting every week. It is by God's empowering grace and we give Him all the honor.

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Kyle, who is a part of our team, baptized two young teens from his youth discipleship: Franz (13 yrs old) and Judymae (12 yrs old).

Judymae's two older sisters (who are almost in their 20s) came to Christ about two years ago through our ministry and were baptized. At the time, Judymae was 10 years old and not joining a group. But Kyle was able to connect to the pre-teens in that area, and after some time, she made a decision to surrender her life to Christ.

This is Kyle's fruit of discipleship. Kyle, along with our other leaders, Andreca and Arabella, are in the harvest fields with the pre-teens and teens week in and week out ministering the gospel and discipleship foundations in one-on-one and small group settings. We have no "central building" where youth come. We are a DE-CENTRALIZED movement. These three ministers go and minister the Word of God right where the youth are in their communities—on the streets, in the houses, in the hang-out areas. It is beautiful when they get to see transformed lives from their labor of love.

We also recently witnessed the baptisms of many young boys; I’ll call them the gulay boys. They are boys in late elementary school or early high school who spend their spare time after school selling vegetables ("gulay" in Tagalog, pronounced "goo-lie"). They come from impoverished families and work to help the family. They get a small portion of the sales for being mobile vendors of "gulay."




Here are six of them listening to Kyle, our volunteer staff, review water baptism. The youngest is 11 years old and the oldest 16 years old. They all got written permission from their parents. Kyle ministered to them with our evangelism and discipleship laminated cards—in between their busy school and work schedules for three months about once a week—seeing the Holy Spirit move in their hearts to bring fruit that showed repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus.