Missionary Steve Deal, an independent missionary, is the founder and president of the Asian Children's Foundation, Inc. in the Philippines. Along with his wife Ahmie and their daughter Savannah, they run Redemption Ranch in Lipa City. Steve was introduced to Good Soil by Ariel Abadiano, a long-time partner of Good Soil in the Philippines. Steve asserts that The Story of Hope and other Good Soil trainings and resources have changed his life and ministry:

Steve shares the story of some of those fruit-bearers with us:

Mitch is one of the young ladies that Ariel and I trained in Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship here at the Ranch. She has been such a blessing. The other day I saw a Facebook post of Mitch encouraging another young gal, Rose Ann, to take her ChronoBible Cards with her when she went home to visit her family. Rose Ann is in our college scholarship program. She is from a Roman Catholic family in Leyte and was returning home after being away for more than a year and a half. During that time, she was exposed to several months of teaching from The Story of Hope and made a personal faith response after I checked her understanding and witnessed to her using the ChronoBridge Cards. She is now active in our church, active in witnessing in our community, and attends our Leadership Training each Saturday. Mitch has been involved in supporting and strengthening her. Mitch also posted a photo of Rose Ann witnessing to an 84-year-old woman in our village and another of the two of them up on the mountain behind our ranch to embolden her as she headed back.

Mitch was also very instrumental in Lea's salvation and mentoring her to teach The Story of Hope. (You can read about Lea's story in another blog article.) As a result of Leah’s salvation and Mitch’s ministry with her, now there is a plan to plant a new church out of Lea's home. Mitch recently came forward in a church service surrendering her life to God's call. She shared with me that she has a five-year goal of becoming a church planter. I am so proud of her.

Steve, along with Mitch and others from his ministry, attended the EMC (Essential Mission's Components) training down in Northern Mindanao a few weeks ago. Along with 60 other Filipino pastors and church workers they were blessed by all they learned about church planting and multiplication. Mitch was quick to share with her church family some of what they had been taught. Steve continues to provide Good Soil Evangelism & Discipleship training at Redemption Ranch. We rejoice with him in the fruit God has and will continue to give.