Dear Christ Love Community Church,

We write first to you to thank you for the encouragement your church is to us. The timing of your intent to support us is truly providential, for while you may not have known how much we needed a sign of God’s love, God knew, and He sent it through your church. And while circumstances are different, your giving to our ministry brings Philippians 4:15-19 to mind. Your gift stands out as a special blessing to us even though we are so far away, and we pray that what you give will be fruit given to your account.

Please allow us to introduce ourselves very briefly. While Jonathan is from Montana, Evanie actually spent her teen years and onwards growing up in Jacksonville. Did you know that Pastor Ryan was Evanie’s youth pastor? Praise God for Pastor Ryan’s ongoing ministry, a ministry that God has called us to through teaching. Before we were teachers though, Jonathan was studying computer science at Pensacola Christian College, and Evanie also attended PCC to study nursing. We actually did meet during our freshmen year of college, but it was not until God changed our hearts and majors for education that Jonathan finally woke up and realized the godly woman Christ had prepared for him in Evanie. In Fall of 2013 Evanie graduated with her undergraduate in elementary education, and Jonathan graduated in Spring of 2014 with his master’s in English education. We were married in 2014.

God brought us to Baguio City, Philippines, in June of 2014 as independent, self-supporting missionaries. Initially, we came just to be teachers in a small Christian school. Teaching the children was so fulfilling; seeing them learn and using our teaching to share Christ with them is something we miss. Through our teaching though, we learned that teachers themselves are in need of discipleship and training. While we may enjoy teaching children directly, the 30 million children in the Philippines cannot be reached if we limit ourselves to teaching our own classrooms. This realization is what led us to stop teaching to instead focus on preparing ourselves for training teachers. Since that time, Evanie has almost finished her master’s in educational administration locally, we have met more local contacts, and we have been introduced to a new ministry.

In April of 2016, we started managing a Christian guest house ministry also located in Baguio. While neither of us have degrees in hotel management, God has shown us how He has prepared us for this ministry all along. Now, we praise God for how He lets us serve missionaries, pastors, and others involved in full-time Christian ministry through something as simple as a guest house. Serving as managers here has also allowed us to meet many Christian school principals, teachers, and others passionate about discipleship of Filipinos. As we do our part training teachers, we pray that we can ultimately send out missionaries from the Philippines to reach the world for Christ.

God Bless you all,

Jonathan and Evanie (and soon to come baby boy) Bryant