SPOTLIGHT ON MISSIONS: Stan & Donna Scroggins • Philippines

I really like the meaning of the French phrase for goodbye, much better than the English. Au Revior means “see you again.” While this may be our last newsletter directly from the Philippines, it will not be the last you will hear from us.

These last weeks are so bittersweet. There is no easy way to say goodbye to the place where God has placed you, especially when open doors of ministry keep coming our way. But after close to 50 years of ministry, we know that change is almost always a good thing.

Back around October, Tony Kingston from Bethel Baptist Church in Lonedell, Mo., started a project to send a note to every one of our students at the Darlene Carey Christian Academy. This month, Tony visited us and was able to share a devotion during chapel at the academy. We’ve been able to add a playground because of a special gift. Thank you, Lord, for this anonymous gift.

We enjoyed guests from America to help us with the ordination and church organization in Leyte. They visited Bacolod first and we put them to work speaking at our chapels. We were glad to have Fil Kakilala back for the month and he was also a guest at chapel.

Midterm tests have been completed, now it is already time for finals and graduation in two weeks.

John Paul Oberiano is my senior voice student. In 2018, I met this talented young man at Here’s Hope Baptist Church on the island of Panay and persuaded him to begin music studies at the Bible College. Because of COVID delays, he will graduate next year, but his voice requirements are finished. His senior recital consisted of English, German and Italian art songs, Tagolag art songs and a variety of worship music. I am so proud of him and I know the Lord has exciting plans for him in the future.

I’ve grown so close working with these wonderful ladies at the Bible College. I will surely miss these dear sisters.

We welcomed four wonderful guests from Missouri to Bacolod for a short visit before heading to the island of Leyte — Josh Wright, pastor of New Testament in Sullivan, Mo.; Melvin Meade, pastor of Lower Doe Run in Centerville, Mo.; Mae Lahmann, also from New Testament; and Tony Kingston from Bethel in Lonedell, Mo. These four came to help us organize our mission in Leyte into a New Testament church and ordain missionary J.R. Alfred Suico into the gospel ministry. While in Bacolod, all four of our guests got to be part of our ministry here — Bro. Josh and Bro. Melvin spoke at Mandalagan Baptist Mission; and Mae Lahmann and Tony Kingston spoke to Bible College students at First Baptist Church.

We took off from Bacolod for Maasin and, once we landed, God immediately opened a door for ministry. An airport guard asked for prayers and help to start a Bible study for his fellow guardsmen. Pastor Suico will start working on this right away. After checking into our hotel, we headed straight to the New Testament Baptist Mission for a special musical service.

Josh Wright (pastor of the mother church) preached the organizational message. Mae Laymann gave a history of the work in Tigbawan. J.R. Alfred Suico received a certificate recognizing the new church — New Testament Baptist Church of Tigbawan.

Let me tell you a bit about Mae Lahmann and the missions history. Mae grew up here and after she married moved to Sullivan, Mo. with her husband. During these years, she always returned to help the children in her village. She and her husband, Greg sent scores of kids to school. Once the Bible study for kids got too big to be hosted in Mae’s parent’s house, they decided to build a nipa hut on their property and move the Bible study there. In 2017, Donna and I joined a Medical Mission team in northern Luzon and met Mae. She asked me if I would go and check on this little mission because they had no leadership for over five years. I went, and that visit led to a graduate from the BMA Bible College going there for just two months, then COVID happened. Now J.R. Suico has been there for four years, and we’ve organized the New Testament Baptist Church. Only God!

Missionary Suico gave testimony of his call to the ministry. The Presbytery was organized and President of the BMA of the Philippines John Rey Vallajera led in the questioning of the candidate.

For the past four years, I’ve been the one to baptize the believers of the missions. Now, newly ordained Pastor Suico had the honor of officiating his first baptism.

I’m so proud and grateful for these four adventurous short-term missionaries who helped us finish up some important years of missionary work. They traveled to St. Louis (probably the most dangerous part of the trip), flew over 8,000 miles to Manila, then to Bacolod, then in a crop duster to Maasin, then up a snakey road to Tigbawan, took a boat to Cebu and then flew back home — all in less than 10 days.

Thank you, New Testament Baptist Church of Sullivan, Mo., for working with us all these years and for your pastor joining and supporting us so wonderfully. And thank you to the Meremac Baptist Association for helping fund their trip and being part of this wonderful ministry.

Please pray for these Filipino missionaries and church planters: Kevin Berayo (Ahgu Mountain Mission), Kenneth Avencena (Guimaraes Island Mission), Junmar Arcena (Mandalag Mission), Alfred Suico (New Testament Baptist Church), Ezra Leyson (Badiang Baptist Church) and David Perez (Mandalagan Mission).

From Stan — Looks like we will be busy right up until the day we depart for America. Doug Lee and I traveled to Manila March 31-April 3 with four of our graduating students to investigate the possibility of them coming to work on the island of Luzon. There is plenty to do here and a mission work already needs missionaries. Then after our return will be finals. Our Tuesday Bible study group is finishing up with a question/answer time and a “Last Supper” with us. I’ll be speaking at several places, as well as the last chapel of the school year. Then there is the process of closing our house and passing our “stuff” on to others. A member of our Thursday morning breakfast bought our truck, and the proceeds will be used for ministry needs here in the Philippines. Our last few days will include: baccalaureate Sunday, April 16; graduation Sunday, April 17; and departure on Tuesday, April 18.

From Donna — These last few days are crazy. For the last six years, we’ve enjoyed our 9g Missionary visas. These visas allowed us to live long term with only yearly renewals. Because our visas expired March 2, we had to get them downgraded to a tourist visa for our remaining weeks here. Therein lies our dilemma. We sent our passports off to accomplish this when we returned from Japan in February. Immigration has just informed us that we now must have an NBI clearance (like the FBI), and those clearances take three weeks — we leave in two. Yikes! Stan flew to Manila to get this resolved. You may remember that the Bible College just received accreditation? Part of the requirements was that Stan and I both needed NBI clearances. Since we had already started the process, Stan was able to get the clearances and now, we wait for our passports to come April 12 — five days before we leave. Don’t stop praying!

Stan & Donna Scroggins • Philippines

I really like the meaning of the French phrase for goodbye, much better than the English. Au Revior means “see you again.” While this may be our last newsletter directly from the Philippines, it will not be the last you will hear from us.

These last weeks are so bittersweet. There is no easy way to say goodbye to the place where God has placed you, especially when open doors of ministry keep coming our way. But after close to 50 years of ministry, we know that change is almost always a good thing.

Back around October, Tony Kingston from Bethel Baptist Church in Lonedell, Mo., started a project to send a note to every one of our students at the Darlene Carey Christian Academy. This month, Tony visited us and was able to share a devotion during chapel at the academy. We’ve been able to add a playground because of a special gift. Thank you, Lord, for this anonymous gift.

We enjoyed guests from America to help us with the ordination and church organization in Leyte. They visited Bacolod first and we put them to work speaking at our chapels. We were glad to have Fil Kakilala back for the month and he was also a guest at chapel.

Midterm tests have been completed, now it is already time for finals and graduation in two weeks.

John Paul Oberiano is my senior voice student. In 2018, I met this talented young man at Here’s Hope Baptist Church on the island of Panay and persuaded him to begin music studies at the Bible College. Because of COVID delays, he will graduate next year, but his voice requirements are finished. His senior recital consisted of English, German and Italian art songs, Tagolag art songs and a variety of worship music. I am so proud of him and I know the Lord has exciting plans for him in the future.

I’ve grown so close working with these wonderful ladies at the Bible College. I will surely miss these dear sisters.

We welcomed four wonderful guests from Missouri to Bacolod for a short visit before heading to the island of Leyte — Josh Wright, pastor of New Testament in Sullivan, Mo.; Melvin Meade, pastor of Lower Doe Run in Centerville, Mo.; Mae Lahmann, also from New Testament; and Tony Kingston from Bethel in Lonedell, Mo. These four came to help us organize our mission in Leyte into a New Testament church and ordain missionary J.R. Alfred Suico into the gospel ministry. While in Bacolod, all four of our guests got to be part of our ministry here — Bro. Josh and Bro. Melvin spoke at Mandalagan Baptist Mission; and Mae Lahmann and Tony Kingston spoke to Bible College students at First Baptist Church.

We took off from Bacolod for Maasin and, once we landed, God immediately opened a door for ministry. An airport guard asked for prayers and help to start a Bible study for his fellow guardsmen. Pastor Suico will start working on this right away. After checking into our hotel, we headed straight to the New Testament Baptist Mission for a special musical service.

Josh Wright (pastor of the mother church) preached the organizational message. Mae Laymann gave a history of the work in Tigbawan. J.R. Alfred Suico received a certificate recognizing the new church — New Testament Baptist Church of Tigbawan.

Let me tell you a bit about Mae Lahmann and the missions history. Mae grew up here and after she married moved to Sullivan, Mo. with her husband. During these years, she always returned to help the children in her village. She and her husband, Greg sent scores of kids to school. Once the Bible study for kids got too big to be hosted in Mae’s parent’s house, they decided to build a nipa hut on their property and move the Bible study there. In 2017, Donna and I joined a Medical Mission team in northern Luzon and met Mae. She asked me if I would go and check on this little mission because they had no leadership for over five years. I went, and that visit led to a graduate from the BMA Bible College going there for just two months, then COVID happened. Now J.R. Suico has been there for four years, and we’ve organized the New Testament Baptist Church. Only God!

Missionary Suico gave testimony of his call to the ministry. The Presbytery was organized and President of the BMA of the Philippines John Rey Vallajera led in the questioning of the candidate.

For the past four years, I’ve been the one to baptize the believers of the missions. Now, newly ordained Pastor Suico had the honor of officiating his first baptism.

I’m so proud and grateful for these four adventurous short-term missionaries who helped us finish up some important years of missionary work. They traveled to St. Louis (probably the most dangerous part of the trip), flew over 8,000 miles to Manila, then to Bacolod, then in a crop duster to Maasin, then up a snakey road to Tigbawan, took a boat to Cebu and then flew back home — all in less than 10 days.

Thank you, New Testament Baptist Church of Sullivan, Mo., for working with us all these years and for your pastor joining and supporting us so wonderfully. And thank you to the Meremac Baptist Association for helping fund their trip and being part of this wonderful ministry.

Please pray for these Filipino missionaries and church planters: Kevin Berayo (Ahgu Mountain Mission), Kenneth Avencena (Guimaraes Island Mission), Junmar Arcena (Mandalag Mission), Alfred Suico (New Testament Baptist Church), Ezra Leyson (Badiang Baptist Church) and David Perez (Mandalagan Mission).

From Stan — Looks like we will be busy right up until the day we depart for America. Doug Lee and I traveled to Manila March 31-April 3 with four of our graduating students to investigate the possibility of them coming to work on the island of Luzon. There is plenty to do here and a mission work already needs missionaries. Then after our return will be finals. Our Tuesday Bible study group is finishing up with a question/answer time and a “Last Supper” with us. I’ll be speaking at several places, as well as the last chapel of the school year. Then there is the process of closing our house and passing our “stuff” on to others. A member of our Thursday morning breakfast bought our truck, and the proceeds will be used for ministry needs here in the Philippines. Our last few days will include: baccalaureate Sunday, April 16; graduation Sunday, April 17; and departure on Tuesday, April 18.

From Donna — These last few days are crazy. For the last six years, we’ve enjoyed our 9g Missionary visas. These visas allowed us to live long term with only yearly renewals. Because our visas expired March 2, we had to get them downgraded to a tourist visa for our remaining weeks here. Therein lies our dilemma. We sent our passports off to accomplish this when we returned from Japan in February. Immigration has just informed us that we now must have an NBI clearance (like the FBI), and those clearances take three weeks — we leave in two. Yikes! Stan flew to Manila to get this resolved. You may remember that the Bible College just received accreditation? Part of the requirements was that Stan and I both needed NBI clearances. Since we had already started the process, Stan was able to get the clearances and now, we wait for our passports to come April 12 — five days before we leave. Don’t stop praying!