Queridos amigos,
Thank you for praying for me on my last trip! Your prayers made a difference, and I was aware of Holy Spirit’s presence and Papa’s favor and grace.
In the Philippines I appreciated working with some amazing Discipling for Development (D4D) International Mentors- Gary and Merri Lee Hipp who coached us for eight years in Rwanda, Wency de la Viña who heads up the Philippine Navigator D4D work, Ronald Mazune from Mission: Moving Mountains Uganda who was also one of our coaches in Rwanda, and my fellow coach to Thailand Scott Purser. I enjoyed being able to bring stories from our experience in Rwanda to highlight various lessons with examples of how D4D works within a church setting.
Every morning we walked or jogged to Clark field in the town of Los Baños in the middle of a university campus with other people doing their morning exercises. For three of the mornings, I walked to the middle of the field in the bright sun with my flags. I love sowing hope, by declaring God’s purposes in various situations I am interceding for and by swinging my flags! I feel Papa’s pleasure and I love adoration and declarative, breakthrough-intercession before God’s throne.
Scott facilitating with Jason, Pleo translating, and Manat scribing. |
Scott explaining to Chalee what we have studied so far. |
In Thailand Scott and I had five wonderful days of coaching together. Yosapa and his team caught us up to where they are at currently. They also asked good questions. I wanted to give our Discipling for Development team an example of what it looks like to go through the Mobilization Phase that they have begun.
To do this I led the Way Foundation staff through a one-day simulation, which in a community normally takes nine months. In our D4D work we train leaders to take whole communities through this process, For this simulation, the families of The Way Foundation staff were the community. We took them through lessons (gathering all the data of their strengths as well as the barriers impeding their growth, analyzing this data with root cause analyses and force field analysis, then prioritizing the list and discovering their curriculum). This was Scott’s first time doing this as a simulation, and he said, “I’m with you, Dave, and if this ships sinks, I’m going down with you.” He was able to support me well and take some of the lessons, so it didn’t all rest on me.
The day went well, and we finished with a good syllabus (list of topics) the Way Foundation families can study and be discipled in over the next year or so.
One of the ladies here, Majise borrowed my flags during worship on Wednesday. It was her first time to use them. It was so fun to watch her worship! Scott and I went in together and gave her the flags on the day we left. She was so happy! May they bless her as much as they blessed me!
I had a great 2nd day with the whole Way Foundation group! People connected the scriptures well with our process. Jesus’ main message was “repent for the kingdom of heaven is near!” Repent means “have a different thought,” “change direction,” recognize thinking that causes us to “miss the mark (sin)” and change it! Romans 12:2 says, “do not conform any longer to the pattern of thinking of this world, (holding us down), but be transformed by renewing your mind, then you will know his good pleasing and perfect will.” This work of coming to understand our faulty thinking and choosing better thinking combined with our heart’s cry to see God glorified, to see his kingdom come and his will accomplished in our lives as it is accomplished in heaven, doing this moves us into the abundant life purposes that God has for us.
I ended with a short testimony of our community of Musovu, in Rwanda and how they discovered and determined their syllabus plan for discipling their church community, and the amazing results that are still ongoing. Then we laid hands on Yosapa and Manat our Discipling for Development leaders working directly in three villages and prayed for them.
On Thursday we took an in-depth look at the negative fruit of the tree of bad financial management. Then we looked at the root causes. Afterwards we went through The Problem-Solving Process on financial stewardship.
Manat and his wife working through their financial stewardship plan. |
Cutting up pineapple for the break. |
I especially enjoyed leading with four people: myself facilitating in tandem with Pleo, an energetic young lady translating between Thai and English, Manat scribing in Thai, and Jason helping Manat with the Thai and then scribing in English (so I could visually know what is happening). It was a dynamic, fun and insightful process!
Before I left for this trip a friend in a prayer meeting said that I would operate in a new kingly authority. I felt God’s grace and I functioned in a new level of kingly, confident anointing. It was good to experience this. Thanks for praying for me and being part of releasing this gift for me!!!
David Thomas
Spanish 
English (United States)