About Paul & Deb
OUR FAMILY
We arrived in the Philippines in 1987, Paul was 25 and I was 21 when we arrived and our missionary journey took us to Mindanao where we continue to serve our Lord until this day.
God has blessed us with two beautiful children – our daughter Jen who God gifted to us in 1995 when she was 14 years old, and our son Jubab who God gifted to us in 1998 when he was 2 months old.
Jen is married to Udi and they have four children who have made us very happy grandparents. Udi is one of the pastors at the first church we founded in Cauyunan. They also run their farm and head up a lot of outreach work, so they are very busy. Our two eldest grandchildren, Char and Clint are both studying nursing in University and have lived with us since they started at University.
Jubab is married to Freya and they live in Perth, Australia. Jubab has a wide range of experiences including growing up in a remote village where we worked and lived during his childhood, doing home schooling for years, finishing his senior years of high school in Australia, Bible College in the USA, and a couple of mission trips to Hungary and to Japan. Jubab and Freya met in University in Perth, and they are now both working, love their local church and enjoy the things God has them doing. They had the joy of having two weddings in one year, the second one being here in the Philippines with all of our Higaonon family.
OUR MINISTRY
Our ministry has involved many things that we could never have seen ourselves doing when we first arrived here as a very young couple, but which God empowered us to do through His amazing plan, power and strength!
We have served our Lord here doing church planting, Bible translation, baptizing, teaching, discipleship, medical work, building, community development and all that God has set before our hands to do.
Currently, this year of 2024, we are continuing to develop commentaries of each book of the New Testament along with producing videos of Bible teaching on each chapter. These are all being uploaded here to our website and are being used in the seven regions where our missionary teams are serving and church planting. This material is being produced in Talaandig/Higaonon and also Cebuano which is spoken by about 20 million people both here in the Philippines and abroad.
We continue to help the churches in each of these regions with leadership training, computers, motorbikes, support and buildings… anything that we can do to help further the work of the Gospel and the outreach into new areas.
OUR CHILDHOODS
Before we close, just a quick backwards look to the beginning of our lives. Paul grew up in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. He enjoyed a privileged life for some time and went to top boarding schools in Melbourne, but things went into a downward spin after his parents divorced and his life got pretty messed up and lonely. He arrived in Brisbane, Australia looking for a new start just after his 20th birthday.
Deb grew up as a missionary kid in a remote village in the Philippines, did home schooling until she was 15 and arrived back in Brisbane, Australia when she was 16 with the plan to study nursing and to be a missionary.
We met four months later when Paul came to our house selling Encyclopedias. He started coming to regular bible studies at our place every week and started reading the Word and within a couple of months he had fallen in love with Jesus and had received eternal life and forgiveness of sins.
The rest is history and we have now been married for over 40 years and the entire time of our marriage we have been on our missionary journey together. We’re thankful to be on this exciting journey with our Lord Jesus who never leaves us or forsakes us!!
