Missions
SDCF is committed to championing the cause of bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world.
"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
ROMANS 10:14-15 (NIV)
To learn more about our SDCF Commissioned Missionaries and partner with them in their work, please visit forlovespurpose.org.
Missionaries
EP & LULU BRION
After serving the Lord for 30 years in various churches in the Philippines, Pastor Ep was invited to become the Lead Pastor at San Diego Christian Fellowship in 2002, where he faithfully served for 8 years. Throughout their years in the US, Pastor Ep and Lulu still kept in touch with the many pastors and families in the Philippines. Through that communication, they developed the burden to return home and minister to the pastors and pastors’ wives in the Philippines who were in need of spiritual refreshment and encouragement.
Ep and Lulu left the US in August 2010 and moved to Cebu to start the ministry of GraceNet Philippines. They partnered with the Baptist Conference of the Philippines (sister denomination of Converge) to identify at least ten pastoral couples at a time from every district of the country that are in need of spiritual and emotional refreshing. The goal was to give these pastoral couples a break from the ministry, so that they can return to their churches refreshed, renewed, and recharged. These pastoral couples were invited to an all-expenses-paid retreat, wherein they received VIP treatment of food, pampering, and gifts. They attended relevant seminars and small group discussions to help them become more effective in their ministry. From 2010 to 2016, Pastor Ep & Lulu served about 275 pastoral couples through these retreats. They also developed and field-tested a spiritual journey with both discipleship and leadership tracks to help the pastors in their ministry. In 2016, the Baptist Conference of the Philippines adopted this as their national unified curriculum.
After a year-long home service in 2017, Ep and Lulu returned to the Philippines in 2018 with a new vision, “to deeply influence catalyst churches in Metro-Manila with the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality discipleship program which in turn would impact other churches in the Philippines.”
Since 2018, Ep and Lulu have introduced the EHS program to leaders of 2 big churches (with membership of not less than 1,500), 4 smaller churches (with membership of 200-250), and a good number of pastors, Christian workers and church leaders. To date, 3 churches have already rolled out the EHS study to their small groups.
The Philippines has had the longest lockdown in the world due to the Covid pandemic. The resulting restrictions have gravely affected every area of life for Filipinos: social, economic, religious, and political. This is the same with ministry. The Brions have had to live with circumstance-induced limitations, especially the restrictions on in-person, face to face ministries. They praise the Lord for modern technology such as Zoom and Messenger, through which they have been able to connect and continue to minister.
Ep and Lulu can be reached at forlovespurposebrion@gmail.com.
JIM & LISA BLACK
Our mission: We are asking God for a gospel movement among every least-reached people group — in our generation.
What in the world does an international leader of a continent do to advance the cause of Christ and his kingdom?
Ruthie Burton’s long-standing mission has been “Proclaiming Jesus `Christ to the Deaf and Children of Brazil.” Ruthie is a local San Diegan who has given her life to minister in Brazil. She was a long time missionary of Otay Baptist Church and continues to be supported under SDCF. Her mission primarily centers on ministering to the deaf and children in Brazil as well as training volunteers to become effective ministers to the deaf.
Aside from her regular activities in Brazil, last year, she along with 27 other Brazilian volunteers traveled to Beira, Mozambique to minister to children and adults alike.
How you can partner with Ruthie in prayer:
“Good and faithful servants” is a fitting description of Pastor Cirilo and Dory Doguiles. “Pastor Cir,” as he is lovingly called, was the founding pastor of Fil-Am Christian Fellowship, now known as SDCF. In 2002, Pastor Cir and Dory left sunny San Diego to work for the Converge Worldwide headquarters in Chicago. After years of working at the denominational level in the areas of church planting, Filipino ministries, and Intercultural ministries, Pastor Cir and Dory decided to solidify the commitment they made 28 years ago to return home to minister in the Philippines. On January 29, 2014, they left for the Philippines to embark on this new ministry.
As Converge missionaries, they will be part of the Converge Worldwide Philippine field, with Pastor Cir working as the Executive coach of Converge Philippines national leaders. His job is to help advance the mission of multiplying transformational churches through Starting and Strengthening (S2) churches.
Their five-year vision and goals include:
Please continue to keep them in your prayers:
We were both born into Muslim families and have grown up as Muslims, but the Lord has been gracious and has saved us in Jesus Christ. We’ve found the light, and it became our desire that our light is seen by all men (Matthew 5:16), especially by our fellow Somalis. To be equipped for this mission, I (Abdi) had two years of Bible training and four years total at a Christian evangelical college [Daystar University College] in Kenya, earning a bachelor in community development in 1997. I served the Lord in Kenya as a Somali program producer for a Christian radio broadcast, in Djibouti as a development officer and evangelist, and in Belgium as internet and social media evangelist.
My wife, Kawser became a Christian in Djibouti; after getting married in 1998, we both attended a one-year Bible course in Kenya to be evangelists. She had been active as an evangelist, focusing on sharing the gospel with the Somali Muslim women and disciplining those who come to the Lord. She has also set up an international prayer network with Ethiopian and Somali Christian women via telephone. Because of persecution in our homeland of Somalia, we had to flee. God brought us to Belgium, where we have been living for the past 18 years. Again, God is calling us to go back to East Africa to serve him amongst the Somalis. God has miraculously sent us as missionaries serving with a Christian ministry working among the Somalis throughout East Africa and far beyond through the following avenues.
Hank & Olga*
HORN OF AFRICA
Hank and Olga have served a large Muslim ethnic group from the Horn of Africa since 1981. Initially they worked in that group’s homeland using health and agricultural community development as their platform for Gospel witness. Later they had to moved to a neighboring land due to insecurity and became involved in media ministry and discipleship. They moved to the USA in 2004 to a city with a very large refugee population from the nation to whom they had served. Olga worked as a social worker with an emphasis on recruiting and training church volunteers to witness to their new neighbors. She retired in 2016 but continues involvement with about 10 resettled families with whom she had developed strong relationships. Hank moved his media focus from radio to website and social media outreach. He directs a global outreach with a team located in North America, Europe and East Africa. This media ministry reaches both the heartland in the Horn of Africa and the sizable Diaspora population across the globe. If you would like to become involved in prayer support, please contact the Missions Committee.
Thirty-Six years ago, Myrna was working as an Assistant Media Director in an advertising company in Manila. One day during her morning break she read Matthew 9:37, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few…” From that point she began praying hard about sharing God’s word in the workplace. Myrna responded to God’s call and became a full-time missionary in 1985 through the Philippine Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC).
Since joining CCC, she has been assigned to various locations in the Philippines, South East Asia, San Diego, the Middle East, and now in Arizona under a ministry to foreign students. Their major campus ministry is in one of the biggest universities in America which has approximately 10,800 foreign students from 152 countries.
Their team provides the foreign students a safe place to experience the love of God by (1) praying with them and for them, (2) coming alongside them as they start a new life in a place away from home, (3) facilitating activities that the students find valuable like: English Conversation groups, sight-seeing trips, experiencing American Holidays, visiting American homes, and visiting American churches, (4) conducting seekers Bible study groups and (5) hosting a yearly Christian conference and spiritual retreats.
Myrna and the team are grateful for their ministry partners. They covet prayers for the journey, opportunities, and challenges ahead.
V & M were having a fruitful ministry in the Philippines when God called them to serve in Indonesia. They were in Indonesia for 9 years ministering among Muslim and Buddhist university students. A church was birthed through this ministry.
Upon the clear leading of the Lord, they left Indonesia and served in Taiwan for almost 9 years. V became the ministry director of their mission organization. The Lord also used them to start a campus ministry in a university. Praise God that this ministry continues to thrive under the leadership of another couple who took over when God led V and M to return to Indonesia in 2020.
At present, V serves as the shepherding pastor of the church they started before. They also minister to missionaries working in neighboring islands. Praise God that the Lord also opened for them an online ministry among the teachers and students of a university in spite of the pandemic.
Please pray that God will continue to bless them
with wisdom and strength and that there will be breakthroughs, especially in
their ministry in the university
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” - Matthew 23:14
Dan is serving with Global Recordings Network Thailand assisting the Thai staff on an ongoing
basis by designing evangelistic materials, which includes the website and smartphone app. He also helps the office run smoothly which enables the office to get the Gospel out to more
people in Chiang Mai and throughout Thailand. God has given Dan a vision of giving every person in Thailand the opportunity to say, “Yes” to Jesus. In 2010, God directed Dan and Na to join GRN to help see this vision become a reality. Na is a gifted teacher, linguist, and Bible curriculum writer who thrives when sharing the Word with children and training and equipping believers. Together they have two sons, Daniel (22) and Tytus (9).
*Alternate or incomplete names have been used to protect missionaries' identities.
