Bicol Centre for Christian Leadership
PBC supports this NAB-partner in the Philippines, located in Legaspi City, an area predominately Roman Catholic. The BCCL was founded by Lee Bertsch of the NAB together with Mayette Ativo (who previously spoke at PBC) in 2001 to train ministry leaders in Bicol.
The ministry thrived under Mayette’s leadership until her untimely death in 2020. Before her death, Mayette handed the reigns of leadership to Claire, a native of Legazpi City and a product of the BCCL.
Claire and her husband, Tim, moved to the Philippines in 2023 to oversee the ministry. The BCCL is developing ministry leaders in heart as well as skills, to reach their community and the nations with the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The BCCL is the NAB’s ongoing work in the Philippines, financially supported by NAB churches, but run entirely by Filipinos. The BCCL has multiple certificate programs for ministry leaders, a food and Bible distribution ministry helping students in their local outreach, cross-cultural ministries, and a café - which is run as a business and as a mission.
One successful outreach in the last few years is to local students from India. “This story comes from the Bible,” one of our mission students declared as she starts sharing a parable to our young Indian friends. “Do you know what the Bible is?” she continued. The small group immediately replied, “It is a holy book, a-te! (older sister, in Filipino).
We are so blessed to see how attentive our young Indian friends have been listening to the Bible stories our mission students have been relating to them. This is the second month, during our monthly Sangati (gathering, in Hindi) that our mission students have been practicing their orality Bible storytelling skills. January 24, they shared about the parable of the weeds. We were so pleased to see that within five minutes of listening to the story repeated twice, our young Hindu friends were able to retell the story to friends who just arrived.
It is wonderful to see how excited our Hindu friends are each time they come to our monthly Sangatis. It’s exciting that we are now able to intentionally plant God’s Word in their hearts. We started off in May 2023 with our mission students sharing their “life stories” or testimonies. Now, almost two years later, as we have developed deeper friendships with them, we are able to have these conversations about the “Holy Book.” Praise be to God! Pray for BCCL for their educational work of the Gospel as well as their outreach activities to bring more souls into the Kingdom of God.
To Learn More: https://nabonmission.org/2025/