SPOTLIGHT ON MISSIONS: Donna Scroggins • Philippines

It has been especially wet during the rainy season this year, but it looks like things are beginning to dry out a bit. Filipinos hate to get rained on, and since the rain has been especially bad this year, many have lost homes and lives due to flooding.

• Sunday, Feb. 26 — The BMA Bible College and the Darlene Carey Christian Academy celebrated World Mission Day on Tuesday, Feb. 21 with a joint mission rally under the basketball pavilion on our campus. The BMABC Choir sang and we welcomed Mike Goodwin who spoke on the Samaritan woman. We received a great offering for World Mission Day, and while the offering was being counted, we had an old-fashioned testimony service. We exceeded our goal of 25,000 pesos, with 26,717 pesos. This year the offering has been given to our BMAP president and pastor of Refuge Baptist Church in Hong Kong for his upcoming trip to encourage the mission there.

• Darlene Carey Christian Academy — The academy is working on adding two more grades in the fall. This means hiring more teachers and staff. The school is totally tuition based, which means all teacher’s salaries and expenses are paid through the tuition paid by the students. We also try to help with projects needed for the school to be able to run more smoothly and joyfully and are excited to have a new nipa hut (a traditional Filipino-style house/structure) where parents can wait and staff members can rest.

• From Stan — We will welcome a team from Missouri to participate in a church organization and ordination on the Island of Leyte. Pastor Josh Wright and Mae Laymann, both from New Testament in Sullivan, Mo.; Melvin Meade, former Philippines missionary and pastor of Lower Doe Run in Centerville, Mo.; and Tony Kingston from Bethel in Lonedell, Mo. will travel with me, Donna and BMAP President JoJo Vallejera to the mountains of Leyte for the church organization and ordination of Missionary Alfred J.R. Suico as the new church’s pastor on March 19. This is a hard place to travel to, and we ask for your prayers for our safety. We are also expecting guests from all over the Philippines to attend.

• From Donna — We start mid-terms this week and then student week during the month of March. Back during our first months as missionaries, we traveled to northern Luzon (that is the island Manila is on) to work with BMMI and Missionary Fil Kakilala. While on that trip, we met Mae Lahmann from Missouri, a Filipino from the mountains of Leyte. She told us her story of helping the village she grew up in and the small mission church there that has been without a pastor for the five years we have been serving here in the Philippines. She asked if we would travel there and help the ministry. This makes the church organization and pastor ordination so much more special as we travel to Leyte in March to finish our work there. Thanks for all your prayers!

• Ordination at Mandalagan Baptist Church — Two young men who were in the first class of freshmen we taught when we arrived in the Philippines in January 2017 were recently ordained. Joshua is the student who would purchase a ticket on the bus and then, while traveling north for two hours, stand and preach to the travelers. Aljun spoke no English when he first arrived, but persevered until graduation and even started working on a master’s degree through the BMA Theological Seminary. Both of these men are from the island of Mindanao. They are both missionaries now. I was honored to take part in their ordination.

• Visit to Japan — Donna and I were so excited and thankful to visit Japan and our missionary there this month. We fell in love with Daisuke (Dice-kay) Okada. We regret not being with his wife, Marcia who was in the United States caring for her mom. Daisuke was a great host. We also recorded several informational videos you can see soon from our Global Missions Office. The building they meet in for church services is a leased Chinese restaurant they remodeled. We attended their English-speaking worship — the Japanese worship was later that day. Missionary Okada also teaches a new generation of believers who are also headed into ministry. Daisuke and Marcia Okada will be at the upcoming national meeting in Conway. Please make a point to introduce yourself to them.

• Congratulations — After years of work and study (beginning in 2010) and intensive classes from May to October 2022, four of our teaching staff at the Bible College finished taking their exit exams for their master’s degrees. They had 12 hours of comprehensive exams in Church History, Disciple Making, Systematic Theology and Old and New Testament. I received word from BMATS Academic Dean Dr. Philip Attebery in Jacksonville, Texas that all four students passed their exams and have been officially recommended by the seminary’s faculty and board for graduation. When I informed the students, Pastor Joemel Samson said, “I wanted to jump up and down for joy, but had injured my foot.” These men will receive their diplomas and be hooded at the upcoming graduation of the BMA Bible College on April 17.