It’s the middle of the rainy season on the island of Pallawan, Philippines, and Pacific Union College student Bob Baumann finds out that his preaching site is a basketball court—without a roof.

And that’s just the beginning. Ailments that ranged from common colds to eight hours of unconsciousness and four days in the hospital descended on the evangelism team, which was led by retired pastor and PUC professor Warren Ashworth and included nine PUC students and one parent. As the group dedicated two weeks of their summer to evangelistic meetings in the Philippines, Ashworth says, “Satan hit us with everything he could.”

Other complications included unexpected disturbances in the middle of services. As nursing major Jessica Bowman neared her altar call one day, a heavy table near the front of the building fell over with a bang, though nobody was near it. Moments late it fell again. In the middle of another service, a man near the front suddenly fell to the floor in a seizure, followed shortly by a woman who stood, shouting, and threw a book at a boy sitting nearby.

But despite the setbacks and interruptions, the results were far from dismal. “The students fell in love with the people and the place,” recounts Ashworth. “None of the team members gave in to discouragement and God blessed our faithful efforts with an abundant harvest for the kingdom.” Not to mention that it didn’t rain once on Baumann’s basketball court!

Ashworth and his crew worked under the auspices of Global Evangelism (now called “Share Him”), with the support of The Quiet Hour, the Northern California Conference, and PUC. Their work was “harvest evangelism”: each participant gave 17 sermons in a two-week period, as a culmination of months of Bible studies that local pastors and church members had been giving in the area.

And a harvest is what happened. The people responded with openness and support, and at the end of the trip, Ashworth joined the local pastors in doing 304 baptisms. The mayor of the city, who is very appreciative of the work of the SDA hospital in the city, offered the city pool free of charge for the baptisms. The situation became humorous when the pastors (whose average height is around 5’4”) discovered that it was a competition pool with no shallow end!

This is the fourth such evangelism trip Ashworth has done with PUC students, including trips to Ghana and Indonesia. Each time he is amazed at the dedication of the students, and inspired as he sees lives changed by the experience.

Indeed, not only did this summer’s group persist in moving on with their services regardless of obstacles, they came away full of enthusiasm for continued evangelism. Amy Peat, who graduated from PUC in 2004, plans to return to teach biology in the Adventist academy there and continue working in the church she was assigned to for her meetings. Several other students hope to return as student missionaries or plan to go with Ashworth on next year’s summer evangelistic trip.

Ashworth really isn’t shocked by this enthusiasm. “The exposure to a culture very different than one's own is an eye-opening, humbling experience,” he says. “And there is no greater thrill than to lead a person to accept Christ as personal Savior.”

Senior theology major Nick Metcalf, who preached at a church in the small town of Macarascas, agrees wholeheartedly. “It was the greatest feeling I have ever had,” he says, “to see people I had shared the gospel with, and whom I had befriended, raise their hands and say they wanted to accept Christ into their lives and be baptized.”