Dear family, brethren, and friends,

I left Manila on a Qantas flight at 2:45 AM Tuesday, arrived in Brisbane in the State of Queensland, Australia, and soon flew on to Rockhampton in Queensland.  My suitcase and the box of Bibles and books for distribution did not arrive in Rockhampton.  Qantas representatives assured me they would follow on another plane, so I stayed at the airport for several hours doing work on my laptop.  Alas, the next flights were no better.

Daryl Johnson brought me to my motel after we had an adventure at a fast food restaurant. After waiting at our table 30 minutes visiting, we returned to the counter looking for our order, only to learn they did not call us because they gave it to another customer!  Oh, well, we finally ate and enjoyed our visit.  I got to the hotel about 9:00 PM after a very long day.  A gorgeous full moon greeted us.

I lost part of Wednesday catching up on sleep plus, taking additional exercise in an effort to regain my stamina after another time change – we are 3 hours ahead of the Philippines and 15 hours ahead of the U.S.  I managed to catch up on some email, not all, and did some Bible study and writing.  The suitcase and box of books were belatedly delivered to the motel today.  My last exercise ended at dark and I did not see the moon, but the perfectly clear sky was studded with the bright beautiful light of Venus, which looked as close as an airplane in a landing pattern.
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

Friday morning, I flew from Manila to Tuguegarao, Cagayan (a province in northeast Luzon) where Jerome Forelo, Mark Daquioag, and Jay Gumpad met me.  We traveled west a few hours to reach Ballesteros on the Pacific Ocean or the Philippine Sea.  About a dozen preachers were waiting for us at the home of Fidelfin Miranda, where his wife served a delicious meal.

After working on lessons for tomorrow and on email, I was blessed to take a power walk for an hour on a new road or boulevard running next to the ocean.  My body complained about this vigorous exercise because I have not been able to walk like this since leaving home, but it gave me a good night of rest and renewed stamina for the next day.

It rained steadily all night with strong and gusting winds, so we had to dodge downed limbs and other debris on the roads Saturday as we went to preach at the Cabaritan West church of Christ where Jun labors.  Well over 155 souls filled the building and extra chairs were brought in. There must have been 50 young people present — what a wonderful opportunity!  After the lessons entitled “Young People, Read the Bible” and “The Prison of Sin” (which were summarized in the dialect by Jerome), two people came forward to confess Christ and submit to him in baptism in the sea.
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

By God’s loving providence, my 89^th trip to the Philippines (8^th trip to Australia) is now underway.  Preparing for these trips is somewhat grueling because there are so many details to attend to, while life’s normal duties also continue.  I had 5 hours sleep Saturday and 3 hours Sunday but made up for some of the lost sleep on the Monday-Tuesday flights from Louisville to Tokyo to Manila.

It was good to see the Kevin Stilts family from Elizabethtown, Kentucky at the Louisville airport as they prepared to board a different flight to Manila, which arrived ahead of mine.  They will teach and work with Rody Gumpad in north-central Luzon while my schedule takes me in other directions. Kevin came with me on an earlier trip and I am thankful to see this capable brother introduce the Philippine work to his teenage children.

The flight from Louisville to Atlanta was normal as I slept, but the Atlanta plane sat on the tarmac after backing away from the gate for 2 hours to repair an engine and then flew 15½ hours to Tokyo.  Actually, this gave me some extra time to study and prepare a Power Point lesson, and I slept soundly on the 4½ hour flight on to Manila.  Sad to say, the 6-7 hours spent working on the PP lesson was lost time because the computer did not save the charts, for reasons I do not know.  You could put everything I understand about computers in a thimble and roll it around!  Anyway, the time spent in study was productive.
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December 21, 2024^th Year of Our Lord
HALBROOK REPORT: 88^th PHILIPPINE TRIP DECEMBER 1-21, 2024

Dear brethren,                               

By the mercies of God, Jim McDonald brought me to the Philippines in 1995 and now my 88^th trip is complete, December 1-21. God blessed this trip with the labors of Mark Mayberry and Chris Reeves. In addition to lessons for sinners, classes and lectureships for preachers and other saints, and private studies, 13 souls were baptized during this phase of the war between God and Satan!

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5).  We press forward to victory in Christ!
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

ALERT: Preaching is never dull work, including reports, and we get plenty of advice.  Some brethren like reports cut to the bone, short, with only the most essential information (I understand: you have other things to do than read long reports).  Others tell me the most interesting parts of these reports are the details of what is taught including the open forum discussions.  So, short, or elaborated?  This one includes elaboration on the open forum discussions because so many interesting questions were submitted.  Therefore, some of you may need to delete this report before wading into it. You can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time, as the saying goes!  Feel free to smile here, if you like!

Salvador Parbo took Mark and me from Kidapawan City to Davao City early Monday morning to catch our flights about 1:00 P.M. – Mark to Cebu City to work with Chris Reeves, but James Paet and me flew to Manila.  Jaime, James’ daughter, was kind enough to meet James and me at the Manila airport with James’ vehicle.
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

The Kidapawan lectures on “How to Study the Bible” continued Saturday with another full house.  The corrected attendance Friday was 138 including 47 denominational preachers and today we had 108 with 34 denominational preachers.  Mark’s topics were study by context, take all the Bible says, and the silence of Scripture.  My lessons focused on translations and word studies, the historical context of passages, and the Bible’s use of figurative language.

The open forum was very productive again.  One denominational preacher who returned today explained he was taught that Ephesians 4:8-11 means Jesus went into hades to save people who died during the Old Testament times.  The passage is not discussing what Jesus did to save certain people but how he conquered sin and death, then ascended to heaven to equip his saints to serve him in different roles.  Hebrews 9:15 shows the perfect sacrifice of Christ saved Old Testament people who lived and died by faith in God and His promises to send the Savior.  Sinners in hades cannot change their status (Lk. 16:26).
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

Tuesday night I bid farewell to Nick and Justina Rowe and flew to Brunei.  After spending the night in the airport, I safely reached Manila Wednesday afternoon, where Mark had arrived from Tuguegarao, Cagayan ahead of me.  Thursday, Mark with James Paet joined me on a flight to Davao City in southern Mindanao. Salvador Parbo and a contingent of preachers from General Santos City met us about 2:00 P.M. to drive us about 3 hours to reach Kidapawan City, Cotabato to work with Danny Angeles.

We hit the ground running because we drove straight to the house of Danny’s doctor friend who is a 7^th Day Adventist for a first-time Bible study.  I presented an overview of God’s plan for our salvation entitled “The Gospel Makes Us Right with God (Rom. 1:16-17),” including changes in the plan made by false religions and denominations.  I let the doctor himself read most of the passages and he acknowledged that he understood what we studied.  Mark took a few minutes to explain Jeremiah 31:31-34 to clarify the distinction between the Old and New Testaments.  Dr. Edwin made a weak attempt to explain how his denominational baptism might be the same as Bible baptism, but he acknowledged that he needed to give this more study and thought.  He thanked us for providing the bread of life from God’s Word and invited us to his table to share a feast of physical food.
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

First, I apologize for being so late in getting the first report out.  This trip has involved a string of complications more than any time I can remember and I have been getting to bed past midnight almost every night.  The delay will make this report longer than usual.

Mark Mayberry (from Alvin, Texas) and I arrived safely from Louisville, Kentucky in Manila in the Philippines after passing through Atlanta, Georgia and Inchon, South Korea.  We arrived shortly after midnight Tuesday morning after almost 30 hours of travel.  It was a long, tiring trip but nothing like Paul’s travels which left him floating in the sea after his ship wrecked!  We count it a blessing to travel this way.  Chris Reeves (from Clarksville, Tennessee) arrived from Nashville, Tennessee Tuesday about noon by God’s good providence.
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Dear family, brethren, & friends,

By the mercies of God, I arrived home about an hour ago (almost midnight on Tuesday, U.S. time) with much thanksgiving.

I am thankful to God for the opportunities to serve His saints and our brethren in the U.K., France, and the Philippines.

I am thankful to Donna for all of her patient help without which this trip would have been impossible.  I am thankful to be home with her again!
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Dear family, brethren, and friends,

Wednesday was used as a day of rest in Davao City – this was my first full day without preaching appointments other than travel days since I left home July 25.  We visited some houses of our brethren which are under construction after they were forced to move by their landowner.  They are making good progress, partly due to funds donated by U.S. saints.

Next, we visited the grave of Juanito Balbin who died February 6 of this year.  He has been my dear friend and co-worker for 20 years or more.  His sons Dudley, Sonni, and Connie faithfully continue the Lord’s work in the Davao City area and beyond, wherever they find open doors.  In fact, during last year they have received invitations to preach and to teach singing classes in other parts of the Philippines.  They along with James Paet recently labored with Shamar Cajigas at the Seaside church near Toledo City on the island of Cebu, which was very successful.

It was interesting to learn in email that some parents are reading these reports to their children to open their eyes to the spread of the gospel around the world.
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