Philippines, Here Come the Seilhans!

As most of you already know, our family felt the call this past year to become full time missionaries with Family Missions Company.  We sold our house and the majority of our belongings this past May and moved out to FMC’s mission base in Abbeville, LA.  You can read about our call here or listen to it here. 

Our family after the Commissioning Mass wearing our
 "official"missionary cross and t-shirt!

During the summer months, we lived in community with other full time missionaries learning the ropes of mission life until our “real” training began in September.  (See "What is In-take Anyway?)  After two months of reading, studying, and training, we went down to General Cepeda, Mexico to put all that we had learned to the test.  And boy, did God test us!  We survived them all with the help of your prayers and returned home more on fire about our call to the mission life.  On December 11, we were commissioned as a full-time Catholic foreign missionary family. And our journey is just beginning!

In just a few weeks, our family will be sent out to our first mission post in the PHILIPPINES!  We will be living on the island of Mindanao in a city called Malaybalay with three other FMC families.  There we will continue several ministries that were begun by other FMC missionaries:  a youth ministry, a jail ministry, and a bible study, but will also be starting new ministries that God will reveal once we arrive and get settled. One possibly being a married couples group.  While our main purpose as missionaries is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we will also be helping with various other projects such as Typhoon Relief, Floors for the Poor, Give a Home, Rebuild My Church, feeding the poor, caring for the sick, etc.  You can read about each one on FMC's website and donate online to any of these projects at anytime.

This was one of the "Rebuild My Church" chapels that Travis and the
two boys help to build in one of the ranchos in Mexico.

As eager as we are to get to the Philippines and get started, we know that we can’t do it without support from back home.  We have been blessed tremendously this past year as we began this journey.  But we are still in need of your help.  In Mission of the Redeemer, Pope John Paul II said that missionary activity is the greatest and holiest duty of the Church, a duty that all baptized Christians are called to participate in.  We are ALL called to bring the Gospel to ALL the nations through our baptism in Christ.  Blessed Mother Teresa once said, “Some give by going, some go by giving.” 

Our family has been called to “GO”, but we can’t go without you.  We need your prayers and financial support now more than ever. We are leaving behind just about everything we’ve ever known---our family, our friends, our culture, our modern first-world comforts.  We beg you for your prayers and challenge you to make small sacrifices for our family.  Prayer is more powerful when sacrifices are offered up with them.  Can you commit to praying weekly or even daily for our family? An extra rosary, holy hour, Mass?  Can you give up one thing that you enjoy and offer it up for us along with your prayer?  Coffee, a TV show, Internet for one or two days a week?  We are praying for each of you and your intentions daily and offering up our struggles and trials for you.  If you can commit to praying and sacrificing for us, please leave a comment below or email us at seilhanfly@gmail.com.  Along with your prayer pledge, include any intention that you'd like us to pray for.

While prayer and sacrifice are the ultimate gifts that you can give, we still need financial supporters in order to do what God has called us to do.  One of Family Missions Company's charisms is “Embracing Gospel Poverty.”  We will be living off of a small $600 monthly stipend that comes from donations to our mission fund; all additional monies will be used for ministry.  We will be renting a very simple house in Malaybalay and will be living very simply as closely as we can to the people we will be serving.  We are still in need of monthly partners.  Monthly partners are a great blessing to us as it helps us worry less about fundraising while we are trying to do God's work in the field.  But one time donations would also be a tremendous blessing as we purchase airline tickets, visas, and incur other travel expenses.  Would your family be willing to give up one meal out a month or give up cable or some other luxury to support the preaching of the Gospel to the poor?
 

If you feel God calling you to become part of our mission to "proclaim the Gospel to all Nations" by financially partnering with us, you can donate directly to our mission fund in two ways:

·      Online at www.seilhanfamily.fmcmissions.com. You can set up a monthly electronic draft, or you can make a one time donation towards our travel expenses or to one of special projects mentioned above.

·      Mail a check to Family Missions Company, 12624 Everglade Road, Abbeville, LA 70510.  Please write "Seilhan Family" in the memo line of your check.

 

Lastly, we ask that you prayerfully consider joining us in the mission field.  Maybe God is calling you to physically support us by joining us for a short term mission.  There are several trips already planned to Malaybalay in 2014. It would bless us greatly to be able to share our mission work with you in the field.  If not Malaybalay, we encourage you to check out the other short term mission trips that FMC has planned for Mexico, Ecuador, China, India, and Peru.  Click here to check them all out:  Pick a Trip.  Or maybe He’s calling you, like us, to “sell everything and follow Him.”  There is nothing that will bless you and your family more than serving the poor and being Jesus to them.

We believe that each one of you were placed in our path or sent to this blog to specifically share in this journey with us---spiritually, financially, or physically. We ask that you prayerfully consider what part God is calling you to play in the mission He has called us all to when He said to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15

In Christ,

The Seilhan Family