A. Several of our members traveled to Manila to join the CPECFI-AACPE conference. As part of CPSP-PH, we are a sibling organization to AACPE. The event on November 27 was valuable and a great opportunity to learn and connect.

At CPECFI Conference

B. CPO. As CPE winds down for the end of 2025, CPO is just starting. Clinical Pastoral Orientation is a pre-CPE that is set up to work with a school’s semestral schedule. Chaplain Bhab Dicang is supervising a group of 4 and this will continue to March.

C. Seminars. Chaplains Mike and Icel held a couple’s seminar in Baguio this last weekend. Chaplains Israel and Fhey held training sessions on pastoral counseling in their trip to Thailand this last weekend. We hope to continue these various seminars throughout the Philippines and Southeast Asia in 2026.

D. Our next CPE batch is tentatively planned for Feb 3 – April 24. Contact us if you are interested or have any questions.

F. Boards are coming up this coming March or April for some of our trainees. More info when it becomes available.

Clinical Pastoral Orientation is being held at Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary. It will be held on Mondays 8 am to noon. It will align with second semester if PBTS. The first day will be Nov 24 with the course expected to finish the first week of March. (We expect to follow the PBTS schedule with a break for the holidays.)

CPO is a preparation for CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education. It follows the principles of CPE but in a format that fits a 3 unit semestral course. Chaplain Bhab Dicang will be the facilitator/SIT for the course.

It can be taken for seminary credit, or not. If taken for seminary credit, enrollment with PBTS is November 5-14. Costs follow the policies of the seminary.

If taken through Bukal without seminary credit, the course is P7000.

Contact us at bukallife@gmail.com if you have questions or want to enroll with us. (Remember, if taking it for seminary credit, contact PBTS during the enrollment period.)

Because Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is easily our biggest program (over 200,000 trainee-hours in the last 12 months) we sometimes don’t talk much about our other work. Other work includes pastoral counseling (individual and couples), remote training seminars, missionary member care, training materials production, and more.

One of the “And More” is our ministry to police and police trainees. This is a major ministry of one of our team, Chaplain Paul Tabon. He has been doing this for years. Sometimes it has been as a solo effort, and sometimes as part of a training activity for ministers. He is recognized as a life coach for the police.

We are looking into the possibility of expanding this work for CPE trainees. Possibly, this could be a part of a “fellowship”— a subspecialty in certified clinical chaplaincy. You will know more when we know more.

Below are a couple of pictures of Chaplain Paul working with criminology interns.

Our team, Chaplains Celia, Bhab, Fhey and Doc Bob, along with our ministry driver Luis, traveled to Guingin, Nueva Viscaya to hold a two day seminar at Guingin Christian Fellowship. It is situated in a beautiful valley in the Caraballo Mountains. The training was in Christian Caregiving and Counseling.

Our hosts treated us so well. Afterwards we spoke with the leader of the churches in the region to do this again at another church in the region… hopefully next year. Our focus is on developing skills of pastors and pastors’s wives.

We were also able to visit with our friends, the Sokokens, for a great meal, and discussion about holding a training with their group of churches next year.

We are improving our materials each time we do this and are now in the process of improving the Tagalog version of our materials.

We don’t take a lot of photos. We don’t take pictures of our counseling or our counselees. We take relatively few pictures of our CPE training, and no pictures of them while doing ministry. But we had a couple of activities this week where a bunch of pictures were taken, so we are sharing a few here.

The two activities are (1) 6th Triennial Missions Congress of One Sending Body (four of us attended because of our partnership in Missionary Member Care), and (2) Certification Board for four of our trainees in Clinical Chaplaincy.

To read it at the link below, or the embedded document below:

Bukal Life Journal 2025

Our two CPE Summer Intensive Groups are finishing up as well as our Summer CPO-200 group. CPE will restart this September.

Between now and September will be somewhat of a break for us but there are a few things in the near-term.

July 10. Diplomate online chapter meeting.

July 19. Counseling seminar in Mabalacat Pampanga.

Early August. Online publication of the Bukal Life Journal, 2025 edition.

August 13-15. Attending National Missions Conference in Cavite. (Also, at least 3 will have there certification board during this time.)

A couple of updated pictures

I. Two groups of Summer Intensive CPE are in fuull swing expecting to finish in late late July. The groups are being led by SITs Crista and Jezza.

II. Our 200 hour CPO just started with 7 trainees. The program will last for 5 weeks. It is being led by Diplomate Vo and SIT Fhey.

III. Congratulations to Jeno Bautista and Solomon Aggrey: Both graduated today from Philippine Baptist Theology Seminary with Master of Divinity in Pastoral Car. Both are also CPE trainees with Bukal LIfe Care. Solomon has completed 4 units, and Jeno is finishing his 4th unit.