Report from BHW Philippines Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key Person: Marwin Pesuelo
Date of Visit: 30th November – 3rd December 2025

We travelled to Manila on the 29th of November and overnighted there. Early on the 30th we flew to Puerto Princesa and met Vic. We then caught a taxi to the bus station and caught a mini bus to Brookes Point, arriving late afternoon. We spent a lot of time talking about the partnership and ate a lot of food!

The ECPM team continues to function well with good harmony and focus. They seem to keep well and can move about the country and continue the training programmes. Vic is still the main trainer along with Ella, Marwin, Vida and Ephraim (Ella’s husband). Ella organises a schedule of trainings they are all involved in. 

Recent Events

Context

The Philippines seems relatively peaceful politically compared to periods in the recent past. This makes travel and planning much easier for the team. The impact of global trends continues to put pressure on the economy and makes it difficult for the poorest people.  

Activities

In July 2025 the team were able to attend in international conference in Thailand. This was a real encouragement to them, and they met some of the BHW team from New Zealand there. 

The two-year support of the church planting team BHW was supporting in the Brookes Point area was completed in 2025 and a new team formed and was allocated to BHW for support. On our visit to Roxas, we met the team and their profile is below. 

The day we arrived in Brookes Point was the day of the graduation of the Campus team (photo right) but unfortunately, we got there too late to attend. Forty young leaders from several churches were trained in the High School. Several of them are going to college in Brookes Point and intend to commence a group for Christians and outreach. 

The day we were with the team in Brookes Point they were interviewing some people from the hills behind the town. A Ustad – Muslim teacher – has been converted there and they want to establish a church planting team based around him and his network. The team is very excited about this.  

New Leader

Julius Palaan is a clan chief in Brooke’s Point on the island of Palawan. He is a man of influence but his real passion, along with fishing and boat building, is church planting. He, along with his wife Gemma, her two sisters and their husbands, some extended family members and several others have been trained by ECPM. Some have been supported by BHW in church planting teams, and they are working hard to establish several new churches around the area. Some are in very remote areas high in the hills. 

Julius and his extended family have a vision to see communities all over Palawan penetrated by the gospel with church planting teams. A good foundation has been laid by EPCM, but in his thinking, it is addition and he wants to see multiplication. That will require a different type of church planters, those that are fully bi-vocational. He wants to work to help them be that from day one. I think he has the capacity to do it too. I really like the guy; he’s got the goods and the background. As a chief he has access to all the highest authorities. He is an entrepreneur with his own business which he has grown from very little. He has been involved in a church planting team and currently he and his family continue to develop several little churches around the area. He has a very wide network. 

New Church Planting Team  

The new team BHW is financially supporting is in Roxas area – in Bigahoy village. There are 40–50 families living there and it is about 30 minutes each way to get there by motorbike.

We spent several hours with the team listening to their story and what they have been doing. The team has been operating for almost a year. They do not live in the village yet but do intend to shift there when it is appropriate. For about a year, they have been gathering the children and young people to teach them regularly and the mothers usually come with the children. This creates opportunities to share God’s word. The mothers noticed the sincerity of the team and how their lessons are bringing positive results to their children. They sing and participate in activities instead of doing nothing and just hanging around in the village. These programmes and their consistency in coming have paved the way for them to establish good relationships with the parents. The parents think the team is very helpful to them without asking anything in return.

This area is a community with traditional religions and a very strange cult ruled strictly by a woman priestess. She gets strange “revelations” from time to time which makes it very difficult to talk to the people, they are very confused. 

Because of their good reputation, one person who regularly joins them allowed them to build a temporary mission house and gathering place in the area complete with written documents allowing them to use the land.

The team consists of two sisters and their husbands: Romrick and Mary Joy Selda, and Jesrel and Mary Grace Villaruel. 

Romrick came from south Palawan and worked for several years as a driver. He met Mary Joy and she introduced him to Christ. He went to Bible School and graduated in 2018. He wanted to come back to his own people but got a vision for tribal people. They were married in 2019 and have been working in evangelism from their church for four years. The first community they went to rejected them and for the last year have been going to the current place. Mary Joy works for the Centre for Community Transformation as a micro-finance officer. This is a Christian group, and she has been working there for about 18 months. She has been a Christian since 2010 and studied education for four years and then did three years mission studies in Mindanao.

For Jesrel and Mary Grace this is their first time in ministry. Mary Joy and Mary Grace’s grandfather became a Christian and introduced the family to Christ. Jesrel and Mary Grace love doing evangelism and have a passion for unreached people. Jesrel finished high school and currently only has casual work. He has many talents - fishing, boats and tourism. Grace is 29 years old and after finishing high school she studied computer programming. She is currently a day care worker and loves working with children.

They would love to see a church planted in the village and for these people to hear the good news. They would also love to start a school as the nearest one is 9 kilometres from where the people live. There are about 30 school aged children and 20 youths in the village and none of them know how to read or write. 

Positives
- They are welcome to go and visit whenever they want to
- hey have some Bible studies established
- They had a medical mission there a few months ago. The priestess was the first in line despite claiming to be a healer.
- The priestess has shown some signs of softening since they began going there

Negatives
- The people have very strange beliefs and are very confused
- The roads are terrible, sometimes they get stuck and have to walk
- It is very tiring work
- There is no cell phone coverage in the village
- In the past pastors have gone there and preached at the people, this has caused a fair amount of resistance as they had no relationships and only came to preach. 

Despite the challenges they have great joy in serving this community and intend to continue going until they can live there permanently. They do not want to push them too hard or preach at them but to draw them to Christ by their service.

The villagers live by fishing, growing coconuts, burning charcoal and growing seaweed. There used to be a piggery until the priestess forbade it after a vision. They are poor and need assistance.  

Partnership's Influence within the Community

These comments are about the impact of ECPM work in the Philippines and Palawan, not just the village of Bigahoy.

Since beginning this ministry ECPM has been responsible for mentoring the planting of about 50 churches across the Philippines and 15 in Palawan. This has seen hundreds of people coming to Christ, many young people and now even Muslims.  

Ideas for the Future

Context – there are several aspects:
1) The young people in the rural communities are easily drafted into the radical militias operating in the area, some of them Muslim. The politicians come at election time and make promises but deliver nothing but frustration. The south of Palawan is an area where they hide and raid from. Julius wants to bring some development to this area and sees great opportunities for church planting as essential to development. 

2) For 25 years ECPM has been working in Palawan mentoring church planting teams. There are more than 100 people in Palawan trained and who have been involved in church planting teams. Around 30% of them have stopped church planting because of economic reasons and many others are still involved but struggling to make ends meet. The children of several are not being educated because of this. 

3) On Palawan, most churches planted are in rural, mountainous areas. There are still many unreached villages that they want to see churches planted in. Julius has a vision for this. 

ECPM is a passive group, waiting for invitations, Julius and his family are activists. He is the key person in this area.
- He is already, from him own pocket trying to help as many as possible to become self-sustaining. For example, when we went to visit a team in Roxas, he took them a fishing net to help them to look after their own needs.
- While we were there talking with the ECPM team, he was interviewing some people from a mountain village that they want to support as a church planting team. 

Several opportunities 
1) To establish a fund that Julius would manage to initially assist two church planting teams to become self-sustaining.
- One is the team that ECPM is currently supporting in Bigahoy, that we met and interviewed and that BHW is now partially supporting.
- The new team we met from the hills that was being interviewed by Julius and Vic while we were there meeting with the ECPM team. This is a team to Muslims and based around an Ustad that has come to Christ and who is already being effective in leading people to Jesus. 

I suggest we look at say US$3,000/year with any unused funds being carried over to the following year and we top it up to US$3,000 for three years, reviewed annually. It would be discretionary with careful notes about amounts, who, where etc, and visits to beneficiaries when visiting. This is like other projects we have done in other places. There is still more conversation to be had and details developed. 

2) To help ECPM with a coffee planting project for the purpose of creating resources for their operations, staff and church planter support. They have a key person in Ephraim to lead this. He is Ella’s husband. They will send more information soon as the beginning of a proposal that will commence a conversation. Julius will be involved in this as well. 

3) Many of the people they want to reach live in mountainous parts where there is little agriculture and poorer soil. We talked about Foundations for Farming (FFF) when he started talking about planting different crops to utilise their land better, to create other opportunities for employment and development. Julius got excited when we talked a little about FFF. His eldest son is training in agriculture and could well be a key person for the longer term with this. He would love to establish a place where people could come and learn and benefit whole communities. They also see this as a potential opportunity to invest in communities and develop relationships. Julius also wants to enhance the income of church planters as the amounts they get from ECPM haven’t changed since 2000. We will talk to BHW's agricultural directors about this opportunity. 

Current Issues and Challenges

ECPM has lost several donors in recent years and are not getting any new ones. Local churches are not really stepping up to support. 

The need to develop an empowerment department is important but not that easy. 

There are many invitations they do not have the resources or capacity to take up.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Please continue to pray for the church planters:
- Strength in their spiritual journey because going to a community that is new to them has never been easy.
- For good health and finding joy in sharing God’s word of salvation
- Discernment and perseverance in planning and implementing approaches for their church planting locations.
- For the sending churches to be creative in finding ways to support the church planting teams

2) For the ECPM Training Staff:
- Wisdom and physical strength as they do the work at ECPM, contextualize lessons and do mentoring
- For ongoing training for personal development and to help them do their ministries for most effectively.

3) The new team in Bigahoy as they work at establishing more Bible studies

4) Ongoing discussions about new teams and developing local financial support options 

Comments

I think we have finally got to the point of being able to help ECPM become a sustainable organisation. It will take some investment in the medium term, but finally the penny may have dropped. 

They realise that their modus of leaving teams after two years to fend for themselves does not make the ongoing work very sustainable. They are not training the church planters to be bi-vocational, and the sponsoring churches really do not step up after ECPM finishes. 

ECPM has no ability to do what is required to do this level of training as they have pretty much lost all their external donors apart from us. I explained that they could add another department to their ministry, that of self-sustainability. They need to actively chase after this goal for themselves and for the church planters. They are going to seriously consider this.