In 2003, Dave and Lora Beverly moved to the Philippines to serve as missionaries with ABWE. Dave had grown up in the Philippines and considers it home. Lora grew up in Michigan.
After settling in Davao City, a thriving metropolis of over a million people, they began looking for ways to reach the citizens for Christ. Area pastors asked if they knew how to help women with unplanned pregnancies.
Women don't have many career choices in Philippine society. Elementary and High School education is free, but students must pay to take exams. Women must be settled in a permanent job by age 25, or they will not be able to find work that could support them. If they don't marry, and if they become pregnant, their lot in life is even more difficult. Could the Beverlys come up with a plan for reaching these women?
Dave remembered a conversation he'd had with Tom Lothamer, executive director of Baptists for Life, also a member of their sending church. Tom had contacted Lora about being trained through BFL for this type of ministry on the field. At the time, they weren't sure this would be the direction their ministry would take, but now the contact looked providential.
He called Tom to ask if BFL could come to the Philippines to train the national pastors, 
individuals from churches, and missionaries in pro-life ministry. In August of 2005, BFL International Training Consultant Evelyn Stone led a team to Davao City for an intense three-day training conference. The 90 attendees were given a crash course in providing alternatives to abortion.
Part of that training involved learning how to talk with women and young people about saving sex for marriage. Tonya Delnay, an abstinence educator with the Pregnancy Resource Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, not only trained the conference guests, but also took her abstinence presentation into public schools, where her message was well received. She spoke to over 4,000 students during three days.
Little did the Beverlys know this would become the bridge into the culture they had hoped to find. Requests for more abstinence presentations came pouring in from other communities. Sexual promiscuity is recognized as a problem among youth in the Philippines. And public school leaders are very willing to allow Christians to present abstinence until marriage to students as a biblical priority. Even the mayor of Suriagao, another city on the island, has become a booster for the fledgling abstinence program.
Two Filipina women began taking the message to schools, but needed to recruit others in order to meet the demand. The Beverlys hosted another training seminar in May of 2006 for 61 abstinence educators. Since then, abstinence education has been the major focus of their pro-life ministry.
Work on establishing a pregnancy care center has grown more gradually, since they don't yet have a suitable location. Women find out about their services by word of mouth. During the past year (2007), four babies have been born and their mothers are now involved in discipleship and Bible study.
The Beverlys' plans for the future include remodeling a building with counseling rooms, a place to collect material goods for mothers and babies, and room to conduct an "Earn
While You Learn" program. They are also raising funds to purchase a good, used ultrasound machine so they can offer prenatal scans.
One of the most pressing needs pregnant women have is housing. Unwed mothers are often forced to leave their homes. They'd like to open a maternity home that will also teach women simple livelihoods, such as cake baking and decorating, raising goats and selling the milk, cheese, and soap, etc. This would also help make the home self-sustaining.
For now, the Beverlys have been able to house women with Christian families and have been hosting one of them in their home. Jean has accepted Christ and is pressing on in the faith. The Beverlys also helped her find a job, and she plans to attend school to become a social worker for the PCC. (In the Philippines, every social agency must have a social worker on staff.)
Please pray as Dave and Lora move forward in this vital work. If you'd like to make a contribution to any of their projects, please contact Baptists for Life.
POST-SCRIPT, 2011: Sadly, the Beverlys have had to leave the field and work toward establishing the intended pregnancy care center ministry is suspended. Abstinence education does, however, continue. Melisa Serata (shown at right) is carrying on the work begun by the two Filipina women. Pray for her, as she works alone with no regular support. Also pray for other missionaries to take up the establishment of a pregnancy care center.