Seeing the work of True Love Waits (TLW) in the Philippines “once again demonstrated God’s continued awesome work” through the abstinence-until-marriage outreach, TLW co-founder Jimmy Hester said after a two-week trip to the country.
Among the highlights Hester noted during the Philippines visit was meeting a man named Joerex from a region of the country that is predominately Muslim and dangerous to live in because of terrorist threats. Joerex quit his job to devote his time to training TLW leaders. He also gets into local schools to present the message and has a one-hour daily TLW radio program.
“Joerex has great passion for reaching young people,” Hester said, “and carries out all these activities with minimal resources and at great personal risk.”
Hester and his team reached 1,705 Filipino students through TLW presentations and recorded 432 professions of faith in Jesus Christ. Other highlights of the Feb. 13–26 trip included:
- Meetings and speaking engagements with the president, Christian campus minister and students at Polytechnic University of the Philippines; and with pastors, Bible students, guidance counselors, administrators and students at churches and schools, including the main campus of Dasmarinas National High School.
- TLW consultation and student ministry with the student pastor and his nine-member staff at Conservative Christian Fellowship, a megachurch with 15,000 worshipers each Sunday.
- Speaking with counselors, staff and youth at The Highlands camp, which has 1,200–1,500 students at each camp.
- Interaction during home fellowships with national celebrities (recording artists, songwriters, models and community leaders) and representatives from other ministries (Youth With A Mission, Conservative Baptists and Youth for Christ).
- Participating in Unashamed, a daylong event in which nearly 900 student and adult leaders were trained to take TLW to students in churches and schools in their parts of the Philippines. The event also was audio taped and will be used in future Unashamed conferences in the Philippines. Team members led workshops for adult and student leaders dealing with issues such as purity, pornography, lust and homosexuality.
- A 45-minute interview with a radio station that broadcasts throughout metro Manila.
“The True Love Waits team in the Philippines, led by Derek Ross, is doing a great work among Filipino students, and I know their best days of ministry are ahead,” Hester said.
Ross originally came to the Philippines as an International Mission Board representative. Today, through Commission To Every Nation, a Texas-based missions organization, Ross oversees a national ministry in which someone is providing TLW small-group training nearly every day.
Joining Hester on the trip, Rick Prall, content editor for LifeWay Christian Resources’ student ministry publishing, said TLW workers are “able to do so many things in the Philippines that we could not do in the U.S., such as open evangelism and purity training in public schools. The Philippines’ team has trained high school and collegiate students in leading small groups to focus on the purity lessons and lead students to come to Christ.”
True Love Waits, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, is designed to encourage moral purity by adhering to biblical principles. More than 100 organizations and thousands of churches throughout the world have adopted the use of TLW, challenging young people to make a commitment to sexual abstinence until marriage.
The first TLW national celebration took place in July 1994, when more than 210,000 covenant cards were displayed on the National Mall in Washington. Today an estimated 2.5 million to 3 million youth have signed commitment cards pledging sexual purity until their wedding day, and that number continues to grow worldwide. For more information, visit www.truelovewaits.com. (Baptist Press)
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