About DWM

ABOUT DWM

DWM Founding continued from previous page Dan and Aurea are in the Philippines as independent missionaries. This was necessary because U.S. mission boards had no interest in sending personnel into a region from which they had withdrawn them many years earlier due to rebel activity. Dan and Aurea had to decide between following a direct call of God, or submitting to men who would have sent them somewhere safer. They opted to follow God to this troubled rural part of the Philippines that had not had a western missionary or pastoral presence for many years. The Evans family supports their living costs through their life savings. The Datu Wali Mission Foundation is an IRS 503c organization and it receives contributions from generous partners that go directly to actual field projects to help the people they serve (clinic charges for poor patients, medicines; fuel for Community Garden tractor work; book distributions, school supplies for local children, and other projects). DWM does not support the Evans family, it has no employees, and board members serve at their own expense (and absorb most overhead costs). Aurea and Jennifer remain Philippine citizens and Dan has a permanent residency visa. Therefore, the Evans family considers themselves permanent residents of the Philippines. Since 2007, Dan has returned to the U.S. briefly only twice. God’s calling included four distinct objectives: Improve access to education, medical intervention for tribal and poor villagers, improve villager nutrition, and minister spiritually. All of these endeavors have a spiritual component, because everything we do is rendered in Jesus’ name with resources God makes available. The education component became our biggest effort because of the many barriers to children attending school. From 2007 through 2012, we conducted many projects locally to lower those barriers, with some measure of success. There are young people today teaching school, who benefited from our school transportation and scholarships. In 2013, Dan’s influence in education matters expanded to our entire province when the governor appointed him to be his education consultant.

Spiritual projects have included preaching and teaching in local churches, conducting praise and worship concerts in our nearest town (Maitum), conducting tribal outreaches, publishing devotionals targeted at local residents on our Philippine Face Book page (with nearly 300 subscribers as of this writing), and publishing Bible study books distributed at no charge. We distribute Bibles as we find a need, and minister to and feed village senior citizens weekly. Due to the unique culture, traditions, tribal practices, systemic corruption, and poverty here, every project we undertake requires constant adaptation. Some of our efforts have not been successful, but they have revealed alternatives that were. We are grateful for God’s provision, protection, and encouragement as we continue to serve in an area that was largely vacated by western ministers years ago. That absence has resulted in many local churches becoming apostate. Much of our ministry now is in competition with cults and apostate pastors who made a left turn because they lacked good training and leadership. Security is a constant challenge. According to the U.S. State Department, at least thirteen international terrorist organizations have a presence in the Philippines, all of them on our island of Mindanao and within 200 miles of our compound, which we knew before we came. Some of these groups operate training camps, others actively carry-out terrorist activities on our island and piracy off our coast. These include groups aligned with Al Qaeda and ISIS. The Philippine Communist Party also operates an armed group that terrorizes the country. God has protected us and we believe he will protect us until it is our time to be united with Him, whether that be from natural or unnatural death.