Despite the fact that the weekends seem busier than the weekdays, I still look forward to them.

Weekends at the Moffit’s could be summed up in two words: ‘People’ and ‘Food’.

Josh kicks off each Saturday with a men’s Bible study breakfast. If our co-workers happen to have visitors, then he has them come and share with the guys.

While the men are downstairs, the kids and I, and whoever they had spend the night, have breakfast.

Some Saturdays there is a men’s, afternoon Bible study that Josh leads. And some Saturdays I attend a women’s Bible study. But EVERY Saturday the house is full of kids!

Saturday evenings we have two couples over for dinner, then do a study with them on marriage. (I think we’re learning as much as they are!)

Sunday, of course, is church. Josh teaches the sermon each week, then attends at least 2 meetings every Sunday afternoon and evening. Needless to say, Sunday is not his day of rest!

While he’s off attending meetings, I’m on ‘cafeteria duty’, usually feeding between 7-10 kids. But, many mouths also means many ‘dishwashers’!

And this is what discipleship looks like!

Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement and support. Without you, we couldn’t be here loving (and feeding) our Tala-Andig friends!

4 years of hurdles down, ONE hurdle to go!

We finally have an interview scheduled for Neo’s American visa! This is the last step in the adoption process.

Can you please be praying for our family (and for Neo-boy!) as we prepare for this important interview and for the interview itself?!

A positive interview means our family can finally take a furlough.

‘Out of the mouth of babes’…

That was what I kept thinking last Sunday.

First, this little group of princesses got up and sang a song for the congregation.

Mental illness, adultery, domestic violence, and alcoholism are just a few of the issues that the families of these little girls have faced. But, Jesus has changed all that. And now these young ladies can get up in front of the church and sing about their Savior!

 Then, these three lovely ladies got up and recited a memory verse to the entire church (about 200 people!). We were so proud. Not only were our girls able to memorize a verse and recite it to the church, but they did it in Tala-Andig!

Our children really are a gift from God. They make us laugh, they encourage us and they make us feel loved.  

The other day I was working late in my office on some difficult verses, and all of a sudden I heard the door open and two little Moffits came in with a cup of tea and a blanket for their tired, old mommy!

Thank you God for our kids!

Hey, don’t forget to check out our blog and our new posts each week! 

www.moffitmissionaries.blogspot.com

‘Agak’ is what a mother hen does with her chicks.  She models before them the proper way to live.

The Tala-Andig lady Bible teachers also ‘agak’. They ‘agak’ the other women in the church. They break into about 6 groups one Saturday a month and teach their peers from God’s Word how to live properly.

I attend the group up the hill about ten minutes walk. And I thought I’d bring you along….

In the picture above, some of the ladies are deciding which song to sing to the group as a ‘special’.  

Below, Enday (one of our close friends) sings a song to the group. I’ve never seen her do this before, she’s normally shy.

The ladies sit on the floor and lean against  the plywood wall as they listen. You can see through the back door into the smoky kitchen where our coffee is simmering over the fire.

When the singing and sharing time is over, Tala teaches us a lesson from the book of Philippians on the importance of getting along with each other.  Then, it’s coffee time, lots of visiting and we all head home with hearts full of God’s Word, stomachs warmed with coffee and happy for the refreshment that comes from an afternoon with other ladies!

In other news: Daisy was given the honor of naming a baby a few weeks ago. Here she is with precious little ‘Hannah’.

My sister did a post on her blog a few weeks ago about her cabinets, which got me thinking…..you might be amused to take a little tour through the cabinets of a church-planter living in a remote location!

Since we shop for two months at a time, we go from very FULL, to very EMPTY in the course of 8 weeks. And what we fill our cabinets with may differ a bit from your cabinets. 

Here (above) we have an entire shelf dedicated to canned meat products. Yuck, I know. But we’ve grown to love tuna and sardines and canned ‘meat’.

When we first arrived in the Philippines another missionary told me, ‘Everything here is cooked with soy sauce and vinegar!’ Well, she wasn’t exactly right, but we do use a lot of it as can be seen by the GALLONS of it in our kitchen!

I have to tell you, even after 6 years in this country, I still find boxed, room temperature milk totally baffling. But, there it is. The milk shelf…in a cabinet?? Doesn’t milk belong in the fridge? Not here. Here milk comes in cans and boxes! But don’t worry it says it’s fresh! J

Well, we’ve finished the book of Mark, so now what? Now, we are working on the book of Romans!

Let me introduce you to ‘Team Romans’. The truth is, so many people are a part of translating and teaching this book, that I could never include them all, so here are a few pictures representing each aspect of the team:

First of all, Group A- ‘The Translation Team’. Our co-workers, Paul and Debbie (pictured above) represent the group translating Romans into Tala-Andig. This group include them, their local translation helpers and the overseas consultants who check each completed chapter.

Then, we’ve got Group B- ‘The Lesson Makers’. This group includes Josh and his two Tala-Andig helpers, Benji and Marjun. They are in charge of making the lessons that Josh then teaches on Sundays.

After that comes Group C – ‘The Checkers’. That me and my girl Amor, or whoever is available to help me the day we have a lesson to check! We are in charge of checking and correcting Group B’s lessons.

Lastly, Group D, ‘The Enablers’. This part of the team gets the least amount of recognition, but our job would be impossible without them. They are the team of women who help with our housework. In an environment seriously lacking automatic appliances, these ladies wash clothes, dishes, floors (and even kids)! All so that we can spend our time in our offices getting God’s Word ready to be SPREAD to the greater Tala-Andig people group!

Please pray for Team Romans!

www.moffitmissionaries.blogspot.com

Belinda, the girls and I were able to sit in the teaching for the last three months.  It was exciting to see these people understanding God’s word. 

There are still tens of thousands of people in this people group who have not yet had a chance to hear about salvation through Christ.  Please pray for these new believers, that many would rise up and start evangelizing their friends, neighbors and even the neighboring villages.

- "Is this a town?"
- "Are we still in the middle of nowhere?"
- "How do we know if we’re out of the middle of nowhere?"
- "Do we have hours or minutes left ’til we get there?"

But, despite the agonizingly long hours in the car, we’ve had
some "American experiences" that will make great memories; seeing the pacific ocean, the redwoods, the Nevada desert, the Nebraska cornfields, the Ozarks, lots of hotels and sweltering Missouri summer days.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers as we continue to enjoy our time in the states, and as we prepare to head back to the Philippines in September.

Belinda, for the traveling Moffits