A new school year begins

The last time we left you was in the middle of our summer break from school. Well here we are about a month later and have finished up our summer activities and have started a new school year. to finish off the summer though we did celebrate Faith's birthday just the way she had planned and she declared it one of her best birthdays yet. It was opposite day though. Instead of us suprising her she suprised her siblings for her birthday. It was a birthday celebration and family vacation in one. We went to the local town and had a great time swimming in the pool, eating dinner out and more swimming. Faith with help from dad chose the place and the activities. The kids watched and movie together and had snacks in the evening while mom caught up on some much needed rest. We did start our new ministry the beginning of July. A Bible/leadership training progarm. We have 15 people from Our local church and from two other churches on a neighboring island. several of our students and high school and college students so it has been interesting to come up with a schedule that works for everyone. I think we managed to do it though. The adults have outside work and study time during the day and we have class from 6-9 every evening and for three hours on Saturday. It makes for some long days but God provides what we need and the kids are mostly supportive of the ministry. It is hard sometimes for our family though as it takes dad out for all classes and mom for an hour every evening. Jonah is a student for this first three month session and helps me (Jessica) teach when needed. I have worked it out that I teach right around bed time so I can still have supper with the kids, do Bible study and pray with them before bed. Precious is a big help as she is the one to actually make sure they are in bed on time and tucks them in Mondfay to Friday. It has been great teaching and amazing to see the fruit of some of the learning already being put into action. I am so looking forward to seeing how God is going to grow his church through the students. July 29 saw the first day of school for our kids. Precious is in 11th grade. The high schools here have different tracks to study that help to prepare you for college. If you choose the right track then all is good if you choose one that does not line up with what you study in college you have to take what becomes equivelant to an extra semester of college classes. Precious is on the HUMMS track (HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES STRAND). This is the correct path for her as she wants to study to become a special education teacher. She has had a god start so far aside from the frustration of figuring out her schedule as there are some changes to the program this year due to class sizes. She is also trying her best to help support her sister Faith throuh the transition. That brings us to Faith. She is starting the 7th grade. This has been a hard week for her. She has never been very good with change and also gets overwhelmed with large groups of people she does not know so to say the least this is a very difficult transition for her. Please help us pray for her as she has had several panic attacks already and this is only the start of the third day. Pray for Jonah and I also as we are trying to be patient and understanding through this process. I will admit I have failed at that and have lost my cool. I have owned up to it and have had to apologize to all of my kids at some point this week so far. Andrew started the 5th grade and is off to a great start. He enjoys his friends and learning so looking forward to a great year for him. Marah has started 4th grade and is also have to a pretty good start. We are working on learning to pay attention to teacher all the time so we do not miss instructions for homework and other important details but other than that also looking forward to a good year. Mark is also starting the 4th grade. He has also had a rough start to his year. Once he gets settled he actually enjoys school but getting into it is hard. This week is especially diffucult for him as his asthma, which is most of the time under control has decided to act up this week. It is made worse when he gets worked up though which he has a couple of times this week. He had a the hardest time yesterday but the teachers are understanding and help to work with him to calm him down. He went to school this morning with no problem so hoping for a good year with him also. A quick note also for our youth group. The young lady that was handling our Church youth group is moving to Manila for work so a couple of our older high school students are taking over. these two young ladies are looking forward to growing there fellow young people so please pray for them as they have a lot going on in the months to come. They are Precious Cajigas and Stephanie Quilanton. thank you for supporting them with your prayers. As a youth group they are working through the psalms to see what they can learn about God and who He is to them. On the start of school front also want to update you on some of our college students. So through the blessings of you our friends and family we are able to pay tution for two college students. We also are provide tution, boarding house and allowance to one student. We also have three students that have free tutition from the government school but we are helping them with boarding house and allowance. We have at least four more students that have tution covered but could use assistance with boarding house and allowance. If you would like to help us invest in the lives of these young people and their future let me know. I know the year has just started but when you are in full time ministry you are always looking and planning ahead, so a couple of things to look forward to and pray with us for are our fall plans. So over the semester break which will be the end of October or November we will be doing a week long trip to Negros which is two boat rides and several hours of driving. While in Negros we are planning for two different things. The beginning of the week we will be doing a Childrens ministry training workshop. We are excited to share the things we have learned from Val Boado and also from our own trail and error and hopefully help other churches to develope and grow their own childrens ministry progams. This will be an intensive two to three day seminar. The second half of the week we are planning to reproduce our most recent youth camp for all the denominations churches in Negros. We will go with the same idea of each one bring one so we can help our church youth to grow but also have an outreach to the youth that do not already know Jesus as saviour. This will be a big trip with are bigger budget because of travel cost and we have to bring our volunteer team with us. The ending of Bible training classes will be the end of September then they will have three months of on the Job trianing in the local churches. We will most likely not start another round of classes till the start of the year as we do not want to have interference with the holidays because that is a busy enough time. We also have a kids camp coming up in a couple of weeks. The camp planning is coming along and camp is scheduled for Aug 17, 2024. this camp will be in a neighboring Barangay (Village). This camp is also part of our training for the Bible students. Will share more after camp. Another exciting thing from our childrens ministry front is that our staff has started meeting weekly to pray for their students, discuss Sunday school classes and work through a discipleship program together. God is really working in the lives of the staff and that is exciting to see how it affects our kids. We are also hoping to do one more camp later this year but will have to see what God has planned for us. Thank you for your Love, prayers and support as the ministry is not possible without those things. What is needed coming kids camp- $200 Upcoming Negros trip- $3,000 includes travel cost, we do our best to not charge a registration fee so more accessable to all young people. one time school supplies to get the year started right for all elemantery students- $400 Boarding house and allowance for four students- $1,000 for the year. We can always us monthly committed givers also these funds cover our daily needs for the regular ministry, including our Sunday school and youth meetings. We print all of our own material and purchase supplies for coloring and crafts for our students weekly they also get a snack every week. If you are interested in helping us with any of these needs please message me to let me know where which ministry you would like the funds to go toward. We do our best to make sure your funds are being used for there intended purpose. Donations can be made to CTEN, this can be done by check or online. Checks can be sent to Mail-in/Phone Your Donation Commission To Every Nation P.O. Box 291307 Kerrville, TX 78029-1307 1 (800) 872-5404 (Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm CST) You can also donate online at https://cten.denarionline.com/missionary God bless and thank you for taking the time to read about what is happening here in the Philippines and with our family. P.S. Precious will update later with pictures

Summer activities

Wow!!! It has been a busy busy summer and it is only half over. First things is to share with you all about the amazing successful school year for all of our kids. We had closing programs at two different schools and they happened to be on the same day at similar times. So it was a divide and concur situtation for Jonah and I. Jonah went with Precious to her closing in Biabas at the trade High school where she finished tenth grade. She ended the year with honors, two medals and a certificate for leadership. She started the public school system in fourth grade and has been an honor student ever since. I am so proud of the her hard work in school but more proud of her leadership in the church and ministry with the kids. I went to the closing program for the rest of the kids from the elementary school. Faith graduated from the sixth grade. She set the goal at the beginning of the school year to be first in her class and she met that goal. She ended the year with high honors, first in her class. She also recieved 8 medals, one of which was a govenors excellence award. Andrew also ended the fourth grade with honors. Mark and Marah completed third grade with good grades and a couple of ribbons each.

About a week later Jonah and Precious with about 45 other people from our church loaded up three vehicles and headed to a neighboring island for our churches annual national gathering. I (Jessica) remained home with the rest of the kids to care for puppies that had just been born the day before departure. It is a day long trip that includes a couple of sets of driving and two ferry boats. The National event was the 4th to the 6th. The group arrived home in the wee hours of the morning of the 7th.

Everyone only had a few days of rest before everything went into high gear to finish preparing for our annual summer youth camp. We just finished up that youth camp a couple of days ago. Summer Youth camp 2024 was a huge success where the youth where able to learn more about their Identity and Purpose in Christ. We had just under 190 youth registered for this event. The youth camp is a 2-3 day event and the youth all stay here at our church. Camp started with registration the morning of the 20th and we had activities till after lunch on the 22nd. We where so excited to have a speaker that works with young people in a campus ministry setting in the major city on the island. It was great to have someone who could speak to the youth of our day adn share Gods word and love with them. In the past most of our camps have just been from the five surrounding villages. two years ago it was everyone from our local school distract. Last year we did not have a camp for the youth because I was recvoering from treatments and awaiting surgery. This year we focused on churches in our town and encouraged all of the youth to bring a friend. It was an amazing time to see the youth renew there fire for Christ and to see some of the young people committ their lives to Christ for the first time. We thank God for such an amazing event and for the amazing volunteers who all helped out to make it such a huge success. Pray with us for the next summer youth camp in 2025. If you want to help out in any way whether in prayer, provide financial assistants or even help provide supplies for the next camp of even for any of our upcoming kids camps please reach out and let us know.

While working hard to plan and prepare for the youth camp I Jessica wit the help of a couple of the older kids have been getting ready for the start of our next big ministry project. This is the Bible training school. This ministry start the first week of July. We have four students committed and will be arriving in a few days to get settled in before it all gets started. Our first orientation meeting is July 3 and actual classes will start July 8. The funding for this ministry is covered for the first year but if this is a ministry you would be interested or feel God leading you to support then please let us now so that we can make sure your support is going to the ministry you intended it for.

We are also right in the midst of birthday months. Mark and Marah celebrated their ninth birthday on June 2nd. It was nothing big this year We had a lunch meeting for our youth camp activities and had homemade pizzas with some friends for supper. Precious has a birthday this coming Thursdy the 27th and will have a few friends from school for supper. It will be exciting to catch up with the friends as they came to camp and are unbelievers. So we will celebrate Precious and see what they all have to say about how camp went. Just a couple days later we will have Jonahs birthday. For his birthday we will lechon (grill) a pig we have been raising and have lunch with all of our volunteer staff from the youth camp. We will have lunch then a meeting to debrief youth camp. I am always evaluating our camps and other programs to see what we can do to make them better. We will then a have a break for a couple of weeks till July 12 when we will have Faiths birthday. She will have the "big party" this year. For her party she wants a family time so it will be Faiths party and our brief family vacation rolled into one. We are just going to go to a local hotel with a pool for a night to swim and be together as a family. We will have a couple of meals out also. School starts July 29 for our kids here. One more thing to put out there We are looking for anyone who would be interested in a short term mission project. We have a building project for the national church in Negros. All the churches are raising the money but laborers to help build a session hall on the property that was recenty purchased. So if you know of a church youth group or anyone else interested in a work project let me know. Lastly a quick update on the adoption front. We are so blessed and thankful to say that we are making progress and are still hoping and praying to be able to have it completed by the end of this year. We are going to be submitting the last of Our required paperwork to the social worker this week and we can submit to the main office in Cebu next week. After approval of this round then it will be interviews and name changes. Once we have new birth certificates with their new last name of Cajigas we can apply for passports and then Visa. We are looking at and praying about a visit to the States with the whole family in the summer of 2025 if not then summer of 2026 for sure. When we do come we will be there for a minimum of six weeks maybe even closer to eight weeks. For anyone interested in supporting us in prayer or financial You can give to Commission to Every Nationa with a note to indicate you would like the funds to be used for the Cajigas family serving in the Philippines. Money can be sent by mail to CTEN offices in Kerrvilee Texas at the following address, Commission To Every Nation PO Box 291307 Kerrville, TX 78029-1307 Phone: (830) 896-8326 You can also donate online just go to www.CTEN.org https://www.cten.org/usa-giving Your love Support and prayers are invaluable and our ministrry could and would not exist without them. I pray you have been blessed by hearing about our ministry this summer and hope and pray you all have a wonderful blessed summer.

Some help will be great

Hey friends and family, so as some of you might recall we have a busy summer ahead of us. For those of you who didn't read our last post we have a youth camp the middle of June, specifically the 20th-22nd. All the youth camps our family plans include free sleeping quaters, no entrance fee, free food, and all the materials for the activities. Also in July we have a kids camp and where we will supply one meal, supplies for games and activities, and prizes for all the kids. As for our Sunday school ministry we are in the process of starting to build classrooms for our sunday school classes, because currently we are having classes in our living room and a the living room of someone elses place. We just really want our kids to have proper classrooms with chairs and some tables for their activities. Lastly we have two wonderful young men from church who are graduating highschool this school year and would love the opportunity to go to college next school year. But with limited finance from their families we would like to find them some sponsors who might be willing to pay for their college education. Now we know that this is a lot to ask but this is part of ministry and life here. So if any of you want to give one time gifts, help us build classrooms for our sunday school kids and maybe finance a couple young mens schooling then please contact my mom on messenger at Jessica Cajigas or Gmail at jcajigas111081@gmail.com We thank you all for your undying support and hope you can all help us in these upcoming events that are close to our hearts.

Happiness with tears

Hello to all our friends and family, so since the last post we have had a kids camp, kids are preparing for closings (end of the school year programs), and fully scheduled our entire summer. Our first Kid,s camp of the year was on March 16, 2024 and had a theme of the Armor of God. This year we did some things different, like the staff put on a little skit to introduce the kids to the theme, we had new staff members and tried new songs and attention getters. We started the day with decorating the venue and praying over the day, the kids, and the staff. We prayed that the kids hearts would be open to the word of God and that they would learn how important it is the put on the full armor of God. We had a total of 140 kids from our church and the surrounding villages.

This is all the kids with the staff

We had our traditional coloring and activity page table with coloring pages and activity sheets that were all about the armor of God.

For the short skit the teachers did, we had the boys and me (Precious) dress up in the armor of God that we hand made and we had the armor on when the kids started to arrive so we had their attention even before we started.

We invited three people from our church to be speakers and the three speakers divided up the 6 pieces of God's armor. A couple weeks after camp we had a meeting with the staff to asses the camp. At the same time we took the staff to a really nice beach and gave them a day and a half to swim, enjoy themselves and just relax. We also got to celebrate of the staff memebers birthday.

In order to get to the beach/resort where we would have the retreat we had quite a drive so we borrowed a relatives dump trcuk put some plastic chairs in the back and loaded all the people and bag in the back of the dump truck. It was a fun drive with everyone in the back taking turns on what worship song to sing.

We cooked together, swam in the pool and in the ocean and took lots of beach pictures.

The entire team including my family was able to just relax and refresh themselves.

The morning after we arrived some of the girls woke up really early to do a prayer and devotions on the beach where they were greeted by one of the prettiest sunrises. reminding us of how beautiful God really made our world, our home. After the retreat the entire church busily prepared for its annual Thanksgiving (Anniversary). The Youth prepared a dance and drama. The kids did a dance so did the moms. But the highlight presentation was the dads' dance. We were also able to update our family photo.

As you guys may see we are missing one. Back in January Things came to a head with Mickaila. There have been some problems leading up to this but at this point tried to discipline her and she tried to run away. We thought to give her a couple of days and she might settle back in but insisted she wanted to move back to her sister. We decided to drop her off and thought after a weekend she might want to come back when she realized that life was so difficult there. Jonah kept in touch with her sister and we learned that Ella was telling the sister lies about us and our pastor/sister in law. Jonah tried to go meet with her to discuss the lies and when he arrived he was met with anger and a refusal to even talk about the issues. It was also at this point that Mickaila said she would not return to Juagdan and basically wanted nothing to do with us. We still love her and Pray that God softens her heart. We also still support her for school and food. As of this point though we are proceding with the adoption of the other three and Just praying she finds peace in the life she chose for herself. Anyway, now that you are all caught up on what has happened in this year so far, how about I tell you on what we have planned all summer. The very beginning of summer will start with a bang as me and daddy will be heading to Negros (Another Island) for our churches national convention. where all of the churches in our donomination get to together in one place and celebrate. We will be accompanied by our children's ministry staff and some other people from our church. We will leave the third of June and be back either the 6th late at night or the seventh midday. A couple weeks after that my mom is putting together a youth camp for all christian churches on our island and every young pchristian who comes is encouraged to bring a non believer friend. The camp will be held on lcal camp grounds and will start on June 27th and end June 29th. THen in the beginning of July my parents new ministry will begin. They are starting a bible school for anyone who wants to become a pastor. My mom will be a teacher, and my dad will be part of the first batch of students through the school. Then towards the middle of July we are gonna plan on another kids camp in one of the surrounding villages. Then after that it is back to school. Please keep our family in your prayers as we go through this upcoming summer and prepare to start a new kind of ministry. Also that throughout the rest of the year of family can experience lots of Joy and less sadness. we thank you all for your undying support and hope you all have a joyous summer. Until the next post friends and family. Love from the Cajigas family

Returning to chaos

Since the last post school has started again. Our family tries every year at the beginning of the school year to put together some back to school packs for the local elementary students. So this year we did exactly that for all the students that enrolled at the local elementary from grades Kinder to 6th grade. We provided the students with pencils/pens, paper, crayons, earaser, sharpeners, and a couple notebooks all that an elementary student would need to start the year. So the start of this year saw Precious entering 10th grade, Mickaila starting 7th grade, Faith entering 6th grade which in the Philippines means her last year of elementary, Andrew starting 4th grade, and the twins Mark and Marah starting 3rd grade. So because of Politics the Department of Education is considering ending its K to 12 Program meaning that there is the possibility that this could Precious' last year of highschool.

Just as school has started Mommy (Jessica) found out that in order to be completely rid of the cancer in her cervix she would need to get a hysterectomy. So she had the surgery on the 13th of september was admitted the 11th and was released the 16th.A little before that my Grandpa on Daddy's side was hospitalized for a week, he came home but never really got back on his feet he passed towards the beginning of October at the age of 92.

This was at a family dinner 2 weeks before Lolo (Grandpa) passed.

This was taken on his 91st Birthday As a tradition in our house every year we have to celebrate American Thanksgiving before we even talk about Christmas. But when we do celebrate we always invite our neighbors meaning we have to have a filipino twist. So we had the traditional mash potatoes, corn, and pumpkin (Squash) pie and for our Fiipino twist we had a whole roasted Pig and of course RICE!

Daddy and some of the kids behind the roasted pig

Some other Pics from Thanksgiving This year for Christmas we decided to take a Family Vacation to Mindanao for a week so as soon the the kid's Christmas parties has ended we left for our week long family vaaction. We spent the first couple days with some cousins of ours up in the mountains. Then we went to see some friends of ours in Tagum. These friends have been such a huge blessing to our family and while we were there they treated us like royalty. We didn't have to cook, drive or anything hard work. They took us to see the tallest Christmas tree in the Philippines, a hot spring (which was too hot), and then they gave us all a Christmas surprise with a big breakfast and presents for all of us including mommy and daddy. They also let some of us kids tag along to for some caroling.

Daddy came with us to go Caroling

One of the best Christmas Breakfasts ever

Family with Ate Val

Hot spring in Tagum

Tallest Christmas tree in the Philippines When we got back from vacation instead of resting and recovering from travel for a few days it was Go! Go!Go! for Precious to get ready for the Children's Christmas Program. This year the kids performed a skit while dancing of the Christmas story. A cousin of ours came up with the choreography and Precious directed everything. The staff also handmade all the costumes, from the star to the Angel's gowns and wings.

Me and some of the kids in the skit

Almost all the kids that were apart of the skit (all in costume)

One of the young boys wanted to pretend he was a king

The young girl that volunteered to be Mary. For the year ahead we look forward to doing at least 3 kids camps, two youth camps, and a Children's ministry staff retreat. Our first Kids camp is gonna be March 16. Details are still being figured out but we are excited for the year ahead. So from our family we would like to say God bless to each and every one of you.