Revelation 7:9-10, English Standard Version

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”

Benjamin Hunt: 

From the beginning of my adulthood, overseas missions have been something that I've always felt called to. I've been on 2 short-term trips in the past. Once to Honduras, and once to Morocco. Those trips were different in that the central drive of each trip was not necessarily to work or speak in a church setting. They were more for seed- planting and home- building. We literally helped to build some cinder block homes in Honduras. 

This trip was very different. We were there to speak and share in churches. On this trip, I felt the Lord calling me to encourage His people. In sharing my testimony and message, I was, hopefully, able to encourage congregations to step out of their comfort zones- that God can and will use them as beacons of the love of Christ to their neighbors, families, and friends. It was amazing that the Lord opened the doors to these churches and blessed me and my family to be able to participate in their worship. I was grateful to be so privileged as to be able to pray for the pastors and the people in their congregations. 

I love interacting with people from other cultures. I love learning about their customs and the way they live their daily lives. The people of the Philippines are warm, welcoming, and caring. I admire their love of family and the way they take care of each other. Some folks we met had never spoken English to a foreigner before, but that didn't stop them from being kind and gracious. 

 As our team heard me repeat many times, the highlight of this trip for me was to engage in powerful worship of our Lord with believers from nearly the opposite side of the earth. The reminder that despite differences in our skin color, language, and cultures, we are all created in His image. When I get to worship with fellow believers, even if I don't understand every word, I am awed by the wonder of our God and brought to tears by the thought that what I got to experience on earth, is just a tiny taste of what heaven will be like! 

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Mandy Hunt:

It's difficult to put into words how the trip impacted me, but I will do my best. It really started before we left, and even before we had the funds to go. Since we had William, I have had a desire/dream to go on a mission trip with our whole family, so I was so excited that God was going to make it a reality. We knew it would take a lot to get us there, but Ben and I had complete faith that God would supply, and of course He did. It was so awesome for Ben, myself and boys to see God do that for us ….. because it was WAY more than we could afford on our own. 

There are so many things I could tell you about where we saw God's hand at work, but that would take up too much room on the website.

Most people that know me, know that I am more comfortable behind the scenes, but God decided to push me way out of my comfort zone. We had more places to speak than the original four speakers, (Chris, Coria, Ben and Lina) could be at, so that meant I had to step up and speak at one of the churches. I was asking Ben over and over,” Babe, I don't know how to do this, where do I even start?” He gave me thoughts and advice and as I prayed and prayed, and the only thing I could come up with was the story of my life.  The “Nevers” (things I didn't want to do)were things that  I told God. So, I wrote it all out. The first day I was supposed to speak, it was just me, Chris, Wyatt and William waiting for our rides at the hotel, and I asked Chris for advice and he gave me some good techniques that really helped!! I also had people praying for me back in the States, because I was so concerned about only speaking what God wanted me to and not my own words. God is so amazing because both that night and the Sunday morning that Will and I  had the honor to speak to the same church. I saw this as an act of God because we were supposed to separated originally. During this,  I had amazing peace with no fear at all, and barely had to use my notes. 

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I also felt God leading me to share about my brother’s death. While I have had unexplainable peace about his death, I never expected that one of the reasons for his death would be for me to share about it on a mission trip– and to be part of my testimony.

As I said, there are so many things I could tell you about. But, the other few things that impacted me were serving alongside my husband, boys, dear friends, and getting to know the Filipino people.

Lina is Filipino, and was a part of our team the whole time. I am so thankful God gave us the gift of becoming friends. She gave me words from God when I was allowing the enemy to cause insecurities, and she is a huge inspiration in the boldness of telling people about Jesus and the love He has for them. 

God took me out of my comfort zone. He gave me peace and showed me how He uses the storms that you go through (that you never thought would be part of your story,) for His Glory. I am not one to come to tears easily, but when I think of all He has done, it starts to bring tears of awe and joy.

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William Hunt:

It was a wonderful trip. The people were all so incredible, seeing so many young people dedicated to Christ and pastors who are my age, it was all so encouraging. I made many friends whom I will have to return to and visit in the future. I won't forget the little children that talked, played, danced, and laughed with us. God has a great plan for the Philippines and is already hard at work with them.

Levi Hunt: ​

This was my first mission trip. It was new, exciting, fun, sometimes confusing, overall it was great! We visited a lot of amazing churches, but the children's concert had the biggest impact on me. Seeing all the kids waving, giving us high fives was so crazy, crazy in a good way. The kids were so excited when we were able to give them bags with goodies in them. They come from pretty rough areas and don't have much. 

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The food was all “sarap” (delicious.) My favorite was a thing called “dynamite”!! 

I thankful to God that He allowed me to go, and I hope He will let me go back some day. 

Wyatt Hunt: 

This was my first mission trip. The one day, Chris and I went out for the whole day and visited. As Chris gave the messages, I handed out scripture cards, and we prayed for people. At the first church, during the last song, every person went up front, and some played on the floor, kneeled, bowed in worship. It was very powerful to me to see that, because you don't see kids in America worship God like that. 

At the last church we went to that day, someone had made homemade spaghetti, and it was the best spaghetti I have ever had. Filipino spaghetti is the best! 

I knew Mom and Dad didn't have a way to pay for this trip for all of us, but God did all kinds of best things to provide the money for us to go. Over twenty- hour flights are kind of boring, but absolutely worth it.  I really want to go back!