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4000-910-Jerome, David and Kenda

We will serve as Church Partnership Evangelism (CPE) Coordinators. Our primary responsibility is to coordinate and host short-term mission teams from US churches and partner them with Philippine churches or outreaches. Teams will engage in evangelism intentionally targeted at the family, friends, co-workers and neighbors of Philippine believers.

We want to grow the number of short-term teams visiting the Philippines to between six and eight teams each year over the next three to five years (currently averaging two to three each year) and establish accountability that sees 50 to 75% lasting fruit from a CPE campaign. As we continue our partner discovery, we invite churches and individuals to form a team and take part in a CPE campaign with Philippine churches. It is our belief that people will grasp the same excitement we have if they experience the ministry firsthand.

David was fortunate to have been raised by Godly parents. From an early age, they shared with him stories from the Bible and that God was the author of those stories. They also told him that God, creator of the universe, loved him personally. When David was 7 years old, the Godly influence of his parents led him to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Kenda did not grow up in a Godly home. She was introduced to God by her grandma Gracie who took her to church. As a teenager she began to realize something was missing in her life. Kenda was 15 years old when her mom began to go to church and later accepted Christ as her Savior. She began to take Kenda to church where a sweet lady named Jesse led her to a relationship with Christ.

David and Kenda took different paths on their journey to the Philippines. David was a high school student in 1976 when a missionary couple named Bo and Cynthia Horlen visited the church his family was attending. He listened intently to the presentation that morning, filing the information away as “really cool stuff,” and believing something like that was not for him. In 1980, Kenda was a teenager and a new believer at Deer Valley Baptist Church, when that same missionary couple from the Philippines came to visit. She remembers listening to them and thinking that she would like to be a missionary someday.

David and Kenda married in 1983 and moved from Phoenix to Tempe where they began attending Mesa Baptist Church. After only a few weeks at their new church home, a missionary couple on home assignment visited MBC. Once again it was Bo and Cynthia Horlen. And once again, they listened intently as the Horlens reported on their ministry.

Kenda quickly became involved as a youth leader. At spring break of 1998, the youth pastor asked her to help lead a team of students on a short-term mission to Mexico. She did so with no hesitation and in the following years returned to Mexico three times. In 2003, the new youth pastor increased the stakes and they led a team of students to Jamaica.

In 2003, Bo invited Mesa Baptist Church to come to the Philippines and participate in an evangelistic campaign known as Church Partner Evangelism. David volunteered to join the five-member team that partnered with Dumaguete Gospel Church in Dumaguete City. Over the course of the week-long campaign, he was privileged to help lead thirty-three people to Christ. In subsequent years, David led six more teams from MBC to the Philippines.

With Kenda already “on board,” it was apparent God was completing their journey to join Him in the work He was doing in the Philippines. David presented his heart to Bo and another WV worker who presented to him the job description for a full-time CPE coordinator.

Our ministry will target all age groups. Makeup of a given team may determine planning and preparation with the Philippine church.

We ask for prayer for God’s guidance and direction through the process of family unity. Also pray for our children to develop a closer relationship with Jesus and our daughter-in-law to find Christ.

Blogs and Articles on WorldVenture:
From The Depths of Despair
A Long Term Solution to Short Term Missions

Location:
Philippines, Asia
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