Trips recently taken

The Shiel family attended 3 days of Teen Camp in Zamboanga.
Great opportunity to continue building relationships  with this church family

Tis The Season of Questions

Tis The Season of Questions Newsletter

OCTOBER travels

Brian had an exciting trip into the mountains Thursday with 2 other missionaries, 2 pastors and a Community Health worker.  The purpose of the trip was to set the stage for a 3 day medical clinic to be held in 3 villages north of Davao City.  Jeffery Smith with Well of Life Ministries coordinated the trip.  We got there and back all in one day despite being delayed for 4 hours at the edge of a river that we had to cross.  We made some new friends and Jeffery was able to re-connect with folks he hadn't seen since February.

SEPT

August - September!

- 5 weeks down!
- Language Learning in full swing.
- School is a heavy load for the 3 children
- Nate officially becomes a United States Marine on September 14!
- Patty will have the privilege of traveling there to witness it first hand!
- Working at keeping our head and heart engaged and still find time to relax and enjoy!
- Adjust to the intense heat!  Most days it's above 90 degrees and HUMID!
- Assimilating as much info and new experiences as we can! It's exhausting!

July Update - Shiels arrival in Davao

Dinner w/ our new Co-workers

The Shiels

Sandy, Des, Ged & Mike Miguel

We've Landed!  not settled .. but landed!

We've arrived in Davao, Mindanao!  We feel pretty good after 40 hours of travel, inspite of loosing 12 hours!  We were welcomed by one of the SIL staff who works at Faith Academy.  When I asked how he knew we were arriving, he just said that this community is a family and it's just what he does to welcome newcomers!  Sandy Eckleberry (our co-worker with WorldVenture) also came to help us get over to the SIL Guest House and settle in complete with Welcome bag!  The kids did great the whole journey, finally falling asleep on the last plane ride!  We couldn't wake up Caleb and Matt so had to wait until the plane was nearly empty before we could get off and enter the terminal.  We sailed right thru Customs and Immigration, no questions asked in spite of our 12 checked bags!

The last few days have been busy looking at possible rental houses and we are happy to report that the Lord has directed us to a very nice 3 bedroom home, about a 10 minute walk from Faith Academy. It was highly recommended by the Academy's principal and family who just moved out 2 weeks ago.  Today we spent about 4 hours shopping for beds and table and chairs!  That was just to compare prices!  We have some items stored in one of the Baptist churches close by that we previously purchased from retiring missionaries.  So hoping that Monday or Tuesday we'll be able to get a moving van to transport our stuff.

Please pray that the 5 boxes we shipped from New Hope will arrive soon!  There are many items in those boxes that will help make this house into our home.

Thank you to all who have joined our support team, both financially and in prayer!  It is a privilege to partner with you in this new ministry!

God bless,
We'll be in touch again soon,
Brian

June update

We want to thank everyone who has been praying for us.  More financial partners have joined our team since our last update so currently we are at 95% of our monthly support and 92% of our one time expenses.  This means will still need to raise $286/monthly and need $3,500 to cover our house set-up expenses.

We have our tickets!  We leave Philly July 17th, will spend 4 days with Brian's family in Manitoba, and then fly to Manila out of Minneapolis on the 23rd.  We'll only have a week before classes begin at Faith Academy for Heather, Caleb and Matt.  Pray that we'll find housing quickly and get settled so that the kids will have a good start to their school year.

We are hoping to be all finished with our packing in the next 3 weeks so that the week before we leave we can focus on spending time with friends and family.

Nate has joined the US Marine Corps and arrived at Paris Island monday night for Basic training.  We don't expect to hear anything from him for the next week or so. Pray for him as it will be really tough.  Heather will be serving with Child Evangelism Fellowship for a week holding backyard Bible Clubs in our area.  She has 2 days of training, Thursday and Friday this week, and then will be gone everyday for the next week.  Pray for stamina and ability to communicate God's Word effectively with children from many different backgrounds.

If you don't get our updates and would like to, email Brian at brian6shiel@gmail.com.

Congrats Nate!  

Our 1st NHS GRADUATE!