Hosting Teams

Bring a Team!

Greetings from Davao City, the most diverse city in the Philippines.  The Philippines, also known as the Pearl of the Orient, is a terrific place for short term missions. God is certainly at work here.  There are a variety of ministry opportunities, all of which are accessible to foreigners as most locals speak English. In Davao, you can minister in urban communities, on university campuses, in Muslim villages, on tropical islands, and with mountainous tribes… all of these within sixty minutes of the city.  

We love to host teams!  It is exciting to see them capture the heart of God for the poor and the lost.  By living in an urban poor community full of youth and children, team members receive a rich and meaningful experience in sharing their faith while living where “the action is.”  If you are passionate about bringing Christ to the Philippines, we are passionate about making your trip a fruitful time.  Because the Filipino culture has been influenced so strongly by the West, it is an easier place to adapt to than some other foreign nations.

Key values for hosting teams are:
- providing meaningful, strategic and effective ministry projects with credible leadership
- serving with excellence and quality within the context of urban / rural poor culture
- offering regular and consistent communication to leaders and team members
- following up partnering ministries to ensure the best possible chance that "fruit will remain"

Full Service Hosting

Based on years of hosting and leading short term outreaches in many different nations, we have developed a team hosting philosophy that aims to relieve many of the pressures of leading an outreach on foreign soil.  With an experienced staff, we not only offer translators, but leadership to bring cultural awareness and help the teams make the most of their mission experience.  We have a vision to channel the fire of short term teams into places with well established ministries, where "God is at work" so as to maximize the partnership of short term teams and long term efforts in building the Kingdom of God.  Our staff will travel with your team wherever you go: to the city, to the islands, or to the mountains. They will take care of buying your food in the markets, cooking, arranging transportation, acting as intermediates between the team and the pastors, as well as helping to facilitate ministries should an event be cancelled/delayed.

Diverse Ministry

Teams may be involved in all Hope for the Nations programs and activities, as well as those of other ministries in the area we partner with. These opportunities include:

House of Living Stones.  A home for the nurturing and parenting of abandoned babies and street children.

Hope Clinic and Training Center.  Offering primary health care and midwifery to local families.

Tabitha Food for Life. Providing one nutritious meal, caring, and educating of malnourished children.  Nutritional and hygienic teachings are also given to the families as well as the opportunity to integrate them into cell groups.

Oasis Student Sponsorship. The sponsorship of 150 children at risk in order to give them the opportunity to complete their studies while being mentored in the Word of God and tutored in the major subject areas.

Youth: Jubilee Generation. The purposeful discipleship and development of youth to grow into their God given destiny.  Yout-HOPE-ia sponsors youth for education, tutors and mentors them, and empower them to make a difference.

Micro-enterprise Businesses.  The establishment of small businesses that give Agdao youth and adults the tools necessary to live a life of self-sufficiency and dignity.

House of Jubilee.  A community based church.

JLI - Jubilee Leadership Institute.  An in-house bible school for emerging young ministers of the gospel.

Hope Academy Pre-school, Kindergarten and High School.  These schools are designed to provide a quality Christian education for children and youth.

AWAKE. A movement designed to empower youth to influence all sectors of society.  Included is the pastoral care and discipleship of a ropes course ministry and coffee shop.

Nehemiah’s Place. Tutoring and mentoring in computers, leadership skills, english, and the bible. 

Tribal Ministries.  Trips to remote mountain villages where teams help in practical work projects, medical outreach, and evangelism.  

In addition to our HFTN ministries, we work with many Christian, parachurch, and government organizations who are willing to give teams the opportunity to work with them. If your team feels called to a particular type of ministry or has special talents or training to share, we can probably put you in the right place to make it happen, so talk to us about it!

Lodging & Living
We are based in a large ten bedroom house which also hosts our church, youth and children’s programs, schools, bible studies and livelihood projects.  At present, it is also a home to our staff, volunteers and students in the university sponsorship program. It provides enough immersion to understand and embrace the community while at the same time offer some separation, which seems to work best for North Americans like ourselves.  The house is large enough to host a team of 25 people.

As teams perform better if their stomachs are happy, we aim to serve good tasting and nutritious food for our teams.  While we will serve some popular Filipino dishes, we will also serve western dishes to bring some familiarity.  Davao is also well known for its amazing exotic fruit.  The Philippine mango is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the sweetest mango in the world.

At the end of their stay, teams will be debriefed at an island beach resort. This is always a special time for both the team as well as our staff as we review the outreach, eat and have fun together.  Have you ever had barbequed tuna and chicken served on banana leaves? 

Why Not?
The main reason why you should not come to Davao is because God does not want you to come.  It’s that simple.

Other reasons are: 

• You have a life threatening allergy to warm and tropical countries
• You break out in hives every time you eat mangos or papaya
• You would rather climb an escalator than a rugged mountain
• You have no interest in venturing out on a pump boat into the mighty Pacific
• You would be much more fulfilled watching another movie with your friends than doing radical exploits for God
• You would rather watch someone from another culture talk to you on TV rather than actually going and meeting them personally
• You cannot eat more than 35 grains of rice before experiencing a desperate need for potatoes

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