Philippines: The Sheweys

Did you miss our live stream last week? Here is a recording, some links, and highlights from the stream! The first five minutes is a pre-stream of announcements and videos.

Links Mentioned:

• Visit the Shewey’s Ministry Page
• View this link for their story.

Highlights From WorldVenture::In Review:

Copy and paste your favorite quote with a link to the Sheweys and share to your social media. 

• Tim: “So I don’t have a particular Bible study that I’m doing. I’m going through a Bible reading plan. But I guess what I’m learning is that it’s in God’s control, not in my control. I’m just learning to depend more on God for everything, even being sent to the mission field.”
• Stephanie: “I’ve been just going through the epistles of Paul and just really leaning on his experience to see how he did it as a missionary. He’s one of my favorite missionaries in the Bible. And so just reading his letters and seeing how he did it, how he encouraged his churches and how he did it himself, it’s teaching me how to just be courageous.”
• Tim: “And so it was during my college years that I had fell away from the faith. But I realized that I needed something to change in my life. After I graduated, I started going back to church and I made the decision myself that I wanted to follow Christ. I was not just going through the motions anymore.”
• Stephanie: “I’m Filipino-American, and so for the Philippines, they’re predominantly a Roman Catholic country. And so, I was born into Roman Catholicism. It’s very much tied into our culture. And so, my whole family is Catholic, from as far as I can remember. And so, for me it was just like, it’s just the part of our culture. And kind of similar to Tim’s story, it was just going through the motions. I felt like where I was like Catholic by name than by anything else, they didn’t really practice it, but that’s the nominal Catholic. I was just a Catholic by name. We rarely ever went to church, and never read the Bible, never prayed together. So, I never really had a relationship with Christ and kind of very similar to Tim. Because of that, I felt like I didn’t understand what I was following and what I was putting my faith in. And so, I also have a very similar story to Tim that when I went off to college, I ended up just getting out of it altogether because I didn’t get that religion. When I asked questions, I didn’t really get answers that made sense. And so, I left. And it was actually when I met him [Tim] and he invited me to church, that I was really introduced to a saving faith in Christ.”
• Stephanie: “My family’s from the Philippines, ancestors from there. And so, when I would go back and visit my family and I would just see the depravity of the country that broke my heart for what I was witnessing. And so, I told him, just look, the short and the long story is I really want to go back to the Philippines and make a long-term impact.”
• Tim: “And wanting something new, something different. And so just kind of taking one step of obedience, wanting to let Stephanie pursue her dream of doing missions and then slowly agreeing, okay, maybe I can do some short-term missions, you know, a couple of weeks here and there. And then we went on those missions trips and also trips to see our family and seeing the need that there is to share the gospel with other people around the world, just wanting to be part of that and realizing that there’s more to life than just having a job that provides for myself, but also trying to think of others. God was just calling me to be part of something bigger, part of his story in sharing the gospel to the ends of the world.”
• Tim and Stephanie: “So it’s probably about 85 to 90%. Roman Catholic. And then there’s also some Islam in a small portion of Christianity. There’s also Buddhism, Atheism. The majority of the country is Roman Catholic. But with that I feel like even just with my own experiences as having gone there or with other Filipinos, they were just like me. A lot of their experiences are just like mine, where it’s just a cultural Catholicism, nominal Catholicism. And so, with that, because not a lot of people have a true understanding of their faith out there, they tend to mix it with other religions. So, there’s a lot of that going on. Jesus is just like another God to them to add to their list of gods. And so, our hope is and going out there is to give them the true Gospel that Jesus is the truth, the only way in life.”
• Tim: “So that there’s two main things that we feel God’s calling us to right now to do ministry in the Philippines, and that’s church planting and evangelism, which is sharing the gospel and also doing discipleship, trying to raise up the next leaders in in the area to reach even a deeper impact that they have in the area. Already being from the Philippines themselves, they can better contextualize and share the gospel to people that they know around them. So, we’re trying to help raise up the next generation of leaders in that area. And another: I have a background in business economics, and so I want to use that also as a business as missions, potentially partnering with a business is a mission that’s already going on out there to help people get out of poverty by starting their own business and helping to sustain that, pray for them and to share the gospel and biblical concepts.”
• Tim: “And we find out how to do that by reading the Bible and learning more about who he is and how he loves us, and how that just changes our life to be able to share that with other people and have their life transformed like God transformed us.”
• Stephanie: “We were in such dire, dire situations that were like the only way we could get out of this is through God’s strength and his mercy and his grace. And it brought us down to our knees and that kind of situation happened so many times in our life and marriage together. And not only did God always get us out of it, but his plan always came out better.”
• Stephanie: “But the Filipinos are very community oriented, family oriented. And so I feel like if you at least even know one Filipino, you can meet others in your area. And again, we love meeting over food. There are always potlucks involved, parties involved in the Filipino community. I believe that May is Asian Pacific Islander month. Oh, usually and in those that month there’s a lot of like festivals going on and so if you can find the Filipino festival near you or a food festival near you, you can find a Filipino community in those areas.”