Our work

We came to Davao to plant a church that makes disciples and sends them out. Here's what that looks like right now.

40+: people coming to our Bible studies, counting the kids
135: new believers from the June crusade our team is following up
2011: the year we each started serving in Asia

Rise Church Davao

We're building an English-speaking, Holy Spirit-filled church in Davao City. We haven't found anything else like it here.

Sunday services haven't launched yet. For now we're focused on Bible studies, training and gathering more leaders before we launch. More than 40 people are gathering now, counting the kids, and we're branching out into multiple groups.

A lot of the friends we've met here grew up thinking they couldn't know God personally. It's been refreshing for them to hear it plainly at our Bible study: you can know God, and He hears you. Now some of them are learning about water baptism.

Read the latest from Davao

Our vision to plant a church in Davao.

Training believers

We teach believers to hear God's voice, pray for the sick and share Jesus, and then we step back and let them do it.

We had just finished teaching a group of believers how to pray for the sick when a woman came forward with cysts in her thyroid and chest. Justin felt a gentle nudge from the Lord: "Let them do it." So he stepped back, and the people he'd been training stepped forward.

Read what happened

Justin praying with people at a church service

Reaching villages

Our Bible study organized an outreach to an Aeta village where we've been serving. The families there don't have electricity or phones.

One Saturday afternoon we showed up with no way for word to get around that we'd arrived. A woman named Elisa was sick with a fever when she heard a voice say, "The preacher is already at the church." She came, and after the service she was healed.

Read "God got there before we did"

Aeta families gathered under the outdoor church shelter — Worship under the shelter at the Aeta village.

Anna with one of our daughters and Aeta women

Our girls playing with children at the Aeta village

Justin handing out food at the Aeta village outreach

Standing with Filipino missionaries

Some of our closest co-laborers are Filipino missionaries carrying the gospel to communities in Mindanao that have never heard it, like our friends on Balut Island. After the June 2026 earthquake, nearly every building on the island was destroyed, and they're ministering from an evacuation center.

Read the June update

Come serve with us

Our friend Mulinda from Georgia spent a little over three months with us in 2026, helping our family and discipling families from the Bible study. If you've been praying about coming to Davao City, for a short trip or a longer stay, we'd love to talk.

Send us a message

Our work

Rise Church Davao

Training believers

Reaching villages

Standing with Filipino missionaries

Come serve with us

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