It all began with a dream, an auction, and spicy chili.
For well beyond the years that I have been a Pastor at Valley Christian Church, our congregation has supported a highly effective and energetic missionary named Dale Mueller. Dale serves the majority of his time in the Philippines, attending to the needs of not 1, not 2, or 3 or 4 even. But 5 different churches that he had a direct hand in planting, along with various other side projects that he does as well.
Our congregation loves Dale and rightfully so. I have always told people that his missionary letters read something like the Apostle Paul. “I spent some time in this city for a couple weeks, and after that I traveled to this remote village and helped these people. Once the work was established there I hopped on a boat to this place before I fly out on this day”. Common things you might see in one of his letters. The man is just plain busy, and has been talking about retirement ever since I met him. Yet talk and actions speak a different story. His heart will not let him until the time is right or the Lord takes him first even though he could retire right now and be respected for a lifetime of kingdom service.
I would like to segue briefly, and introduce you to another character in this blog. Don’t worry, our two characters come together. This other characters name is Andrew Seeman. Andrew is an elder in our church, and came to us about 7 years ago when he and his wife met and hit it off exceedingly well. We are so happy to have him as a colleague in kingdom work, but also as a dear personal friend as he has become. One thing about Andrew is he is humble about his work. Obnoxiously so in my opinion (though he of course would disagree). Andrew is a freelance video producer (commercials, Youtube series, church criteria) and I believe he is one of the best in the city of Billings. We had been playing around with the idea in our Elder’s meetings about how to connect our church to our missions work better, and then the pieces just fell into place.
Dale Mueller and Kay Davidson, our two missionaries serving in separate fields in the Philippines, were going to be in Billings and present for our Harvest Auction (an event where we raise money for them). We have a video guy. Video’s always communicate better than pictures. See where we’re going with this? We immediately got in touch with Dale and asked him if we would be able to sit down with him and Kay and interview them about their unique role in the Philippines. They graciously agreed. During the process I saw a light come on in Dale. He was so, so impressed at Andrew’s skill, his demeanor, his attentiveness to even the small details as we set the room, the lights, and the questions. Most importantly the final product turned out amazing. It was a huge boon to our church and we raised even more money for them that year than we ever had.
At that year’s Harvest Auction, while eating some particularly spicy Chili (looking at you Kevin), Dale said the line to me “wouldn’t it be great if someone of Andrew’s skills could come to the Philippines and not just get my story, but the story’s of the people there?” And I said “what if we came? I bet our church would let us go and help us raise the money and I would be happy to be Andrew’s helper.” And thus the dream was born.
What if we did go to the Philippines? And told their stories, not just Dale’s but the peoples stories of how God is doing a work there. Most missionaries know that these ‘what ifs’ come up quite a lot. And this very quickly turned into a major what if as 3 months later the world shut down with a Global Pandemic where the Philippines was hit particularly hard.
But the seed was planted and the dream was alive.
Years later, in 2023 we visited with Dale again at another Harvest auction, with less than spicy chili this time. After talking with Dale and Andrew we kind of decided that if we were ever going to do this, now is the time. Dale isn’t getting any younger, and if we wait too long, the opportunity will pass us by. We prayed about it quickly, and felt confirmations from more than just ourselves. We raised funds swiftly, and everything was paid for before we even left. We bought our plane tickets early, even before fully funded, because we were so confident that this is what God told us to do. And today as I write this blog, we are here. Sharing the Gospel, and taking great video work of all the things the churches, not just Dale, but the churches themselves have done to continue the Gospel work.
We can’t wait to tell you… but most importantly, to SHOW you more.
