August 12, 2003
“Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?”
As many of you know, I had the opportunity to visit the Philippines recently. In earlier letters, I’ve talked a bit about how communication between various cultures can be interesting at times. Here in North America, we tend to beat around the bush when asking some questions, while Filipinos just come out and ask. The questions above are ones I might get once every couple of months here in Canada. In the Philippines, I heard them at least once a day. On one occasion, after I had done some computer work that people seemed overly impressed about, I must have been asked ten times. Cross-cultural communication can sure be fun at times!
My time in the Philippines was great. I had a number of good meetings with several Filipino missionaries to discuss bringing teams over to work with them in the coming years, and how that might work. I also got to observe, and sometimes even take part in a number of different ministries we’re involved in. I was able to visit many of the friends I had made the last time I was in the Philippines, and developed some new friendships as well. I also had the opportunity to work with Jim Larson, a professional videographer that ITUS sent over while I was there. I was able to learn a bunch from him, and came back with some great pictures and video too. I’ve included a few pictures in this letter, and posted a bunch more on the web at: http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=smvanbru&AID=963292
Over the next few months, I’ll be spending much of my time at International Teams Canadian office. I’ll be keeping myself quite busy working on various details related to the next team – developing promotional material, working out details regarding what future teams will be doing, etc. I can’t say this was quite what I was expecting to be doing when I first felt called to this, but I can see how God has prepared me for the various tasks I have before me. It’s cool to see God at work like that, isn’t it? Pray for me that I don’t get too restless here – I can’t wait to get out on the field, working with the next team, but I know God has other stuff for me before that.
In addition to these jobs in the office, I will also be working on getting my support up to a level in which I can go out with the next team. At the moment, I’m at roughly 35% of my target budget with 20 monthly and 19 occasional donors, and have 60 people committed to praying for me. Praise God for these wonderful people that are a part of my team! If you would like to join this group, please let me know, and I’d be happy to tell you more!Thanks so much for all of your prayer both while I was in the Philippines, and over the last few months. Your prayer is so necessary, and has definitely been felt. I’d hate to think about what the last few months would have been like without all of you. Please continue to pray:
Pray that we would have wisdom as we develop this program – that it would be shaped into a programthat is glorifying to God, beneficial to those involved & something that people will get excited about.- Pray for those God has called to be a part of the next Encounter Teams program, that they will be ready to respond, and be open to all God has to do in their lives as He prepares them for the team.
- Praise God for those He has called to be my team as prayer and/or financial supporters. Pray that God would bless them as they have been a blessing to me.
For His glory, Steve Van Bruwaene
PS: A month or two ago, I sent out a survey to get feedback in helping to develop the next team. You can check out the results at: http://www.iteams.ca:8080/SteveVB/surveys/
