Training Pastors in High-Risk Areas-So. Philippines-$70,000

Although most of us may have never heard of Mindanao, a small island hidden away in the southern Philippines, God's heart of love reached out to the Tagakaulo people living there. LCMS World Missions began working with the 40,000 people in small rural villages, establishing indigenous leadership roles in the fledgling churches. In only a few years, the Tagakaulo Lutheran Church of Christ in the Philippines officially registered with the government as a church body with 17 congregations.

The small island was thrust onto center stage when an Islamic militant group kidnapped a group of people on Midanao that included missionaries from the New Tribes Mission. This was the same area where LCMS missionaries were serving, and the decision was made to evacuate them for safety precautions.

This decision forced the team to reexamine its strategy. World Mission believes that missionaries still have a spiritual responsibility as church planters and mentors to serve this church body. After much prayer, the new plan involves sending missionaries Todd and Kim Roeske back to the Tagkaulo people but not in the remote regions.

The couple will use the city of Davao as their base and will coordinate the teaching materials and training schedules for other former missionaries to return on a rotating basis to attend the offered training. Tagakaulo leaders will leave their remote areas and attend these seminars in Davao quarterly for the next two years.

The new material that will be developed through this work will in time be used to train native leaders, thereby providing a non-resident mission model for training that can be used in other mission areas.

MOST Ministries New Christian Project-$47,000

Mission Opportunities Short Term, (MOST) has a formal Global Outreach Partnership agreement in place with the LCMS Board for Mission Services to share the Good News of Jesus with 100 million people. To reach this goal, the involvement of many more short-term and career missionaries is needed. Short-term missions have proven to be one of the most effective ways to help individuals experience mission outreach and reach new countries with the Gospel.

Grant monies from mites will assist with the development of youth, women's and hospice teams that will work with the establishment of health and immunization guidelines. They will also work with the conversion of team member training manuals to more usable formats and visit some field sites, getting to know the people of the area.

Some of the specific projects of the past year included teaching and using eyeglass programs in many countries, Guatemala Mission education, agricultural and construction projects in Mexico and Venezuela, and India Women's Ministry.