"We All Need Jesus": What a Philippines Mission Trip Taught the Freemers
Quick answer: Jeff and Aimee Freemer are a couple from Cornerstone Community Church in Wildomar, CA, who spent seven days on a Philippines mission trip this summer, seeing Mosaic International's work firsthand, from a rebuilt village school to beach baptisms in Donsol. They came home with one simple conviction: people are people, and we all need Jesus. Here's their story.
Who are Jeff and Aimee Freemer?
Jeff and Aimee Freemer have been married sixteen years, and they'll tell you the world gets a little smaller with every trip they take together. They live in Lake Elsinore, where Jeff grew up and where the two first met at Cornerstone Church. Jeff serves as Cornerstone's Community Missions Director; Aimee teaches high school physical education and leadership. Jeff has two grown daughters and two little grandsons that him and Aimee are completely smitten with. This past summer, they added something new to their story, their first trip to the Philippines to see the work of Mosaic International up close.
How the Freemers found Mosaic International
The Freemers first crossed paths with Mark and Brittany Sherman about five years ago through community missions. Jeff and Aimee were already serving as Cornerstone's liaison to the Dream Center in Lake Elsinore when Mark stepped into the role of missions pastor, and the four of them started working side by side for the Back-to-School Bash. Then one evening they invited the Shermans over for dinner, and Mark and Brittany told them about Mosaic. The idea landed right away: not swooping in to fix things, but empowering local leaders to build up their own communities. At the very first Mosaic Gala, Jeff and Aimee watched that vision come to life, and a few years later, they decided it was time to see it for themselves.
Why they said yes to a Philippines mission trip
The timing had a way of lining up. Aimee had a milestone birthday coming, a travel deal happened to route them through the Philippines, and Cornerstone had sent a team two years earlier. Jeff had never been on an international missions trip. It felt, they said, like God was leading them, up close and personal to a cause they already believed in. They spent seven days in-country.
First impressions
After landing in Manila, they flew an hour south to Legazpi City, caught their first glimpse of the Mayon Volcano, and settled in with the Shermans at their home in Tabaco City for the week. Going in, they felt all of it at once, nervous about a new country and culture, excited to see the Shermans in their element, ready to meet people from the other side of the world.
What they weren't quite prepared for was the poverty, which was unlike anything they'd experienced. And right alongside it, something they didn't expect: joy. The Filipino people carried on with their days with a gladness that stayed with them long after they'd flown home.
Inside the Dream Center and the Dreamers' Food Hub
Their first stop was the Dream Center, where the local leaders who run it, Pastora Lea, Pastora Eds, and Edwin and Jo, walked them through the grounds and the facility. Nearby, close to the Shermans' home, they got to witness the soft opening of the Dream Center's newest project, the Dreamers' Food Hub. It's a small snack shop, but the model behind it is bigger than snacks: Pastor Edwin built it to employ local youth to serve local youth. All week long, the young employees lit up whenever the Freemers stopped by, eager to share what they'd made before the grand opening.
The school that stopped feeling like a tourist attraction
One morning, they were told they'd be visiting the local elementary school, Pinagbobong Elementary in Tabaco. What they didn't know was that they'd be the guests of honor at an outdoor school assembly. One of the teachers stood up and told them something Jeff and Aimee won't forget. For a long time, she said, people would come to the school, see the crumbling classrooms, take pictures, make promises, and then leave, never to return.
The school had started to feel like a tourist attraction. And then Cornerstone came. They listened. They brought a team. They followed through, rebuilt the classrooms, and came back again to check in. With tears in her eyes, she thanked them for being different from the others. Then the students took over, leading the Freemers proudly through their classrooms, showing off exactly where they get to learn.
Later, as representatives of Mosaic, Jeff and Aimee also helped hand out school uniforms to students starting the year in Donsol. In the Philippines, every student is required to wear one, and these were purchased with money raised through Mosaic. For parents who work hard just to cover the basics, it meant one less thing to worry about.
The hardest day: serving widows and single mothers
Not every part of the week was easy, and Jeff and Aimee didn't pretend otherwise. The hardest stretch for Jeff was an outreach delivering groceries to widows and single mothers.
As the team, through Mosaic and the Dream Center, prayed over each home, invited the families to church, and shared the gospel, Jeff saw houses with no running water, no electricity, dirt floors, barely shielded from the elements.
Weeks later, it's still with him. In the U.S., he reflected, there are more paths out of poverty than there are in the Philippines, which is exactly why the support Mosaic and its partners provide matters so much.
Baptisms on the beach
Out at the beach, they joined a church celebrating its second anniversary, also the future site of the next Dream Center, on a property the church was able to purchase with funds raised at the last Mosaic Gala.
The Freemers recognized worship songs they sing back home, now sung in Tagalog. They listened to members young and old give testimony to how Jesus had changed their lives. And they watched a dozen people be baptized in the ocean. One young man came up out of the water with his arms raised high in victory.
An older woman, who had shared that she'd lost all hope of going on, was baptized too, a moment they found almost impossible to put into words. Nearby, Mark stood grinning behind his camera, saying he could do this all day. The language was more of a barrier here than anywhere else on the trip, and somehow it didn't matter at all. Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of them.
"We all need Jesus": what Jeff and Aimee brought home
So what did they carry back? A small, stubborn image, for one. In their house, clean water comes from any faucet they turn. In Tabaco, some of the people they served drink, bathe, and clean with water from single-use plastics or a pipe running beside a creek. The Freemers have simply been praying for that pipe to keep flowing. The bigger lesson was simpler still: we all share the same basic needs, food, water, shelter, and people to belong to. "People are people," they said, "and we all need Jesus." It's the truth behind the line Aimee wrote after the trip — that we are all created in the image of God.
"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." — 2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV)
To anyone at Cornerstone, or anywhere, weighing a trip like this and not sure they should go, Jeff and Aimee are gentle but clear. The unknown can look scary, but those fears are worth conquering — for the new places, the new people, and the lifetime of stories you carry back. And for those who can't travel? They're just as certain the work still needs you. "Whether it's using your time to pray, your talent to plan a gala or fundraiser, or your treasure to give to a specific cause," they said, "God will use you."
Ask them to sum it all up in a sentence, and neither one hesitates. Jeff: "It was perspective-shifting." Aimee: "It was humbling, but rewarding."
TAKE ACTION
Jeff and Aimee didn't set out to be anyone's heroes. They said yes, they showed up, and they let what they saw change them — then they came home and told the story. That's the heart of what it means to be a Mosaic Ambassador.
Mosaic Ambassadors are everyday advocates who use their voices, networks, and resources to support life-changing work around the world. They share stories, inspire generosity, and mobilize others to pray, give, and take action — whether that's posting an impact update, hosting a small gathering or fundraiser, or simply encouraging the people around them to get involved.
You don't have to fly 7,000 miles to make a difference. If Jeff and Aimee's story stirred something in you, become a Mosaic Ambassador and help bring hope and transformation to communities ready to be reached.
THERE'S A SPACE IN THE CIRCLE
Jeff and Aimee named three doors: your time to pray, your talent to organize, your treasure to give. If the third one is yours, the simplest way in is The Circle. It's a group of people giving a set amount every month, and the person giving ten dollars and the person giving five hundred are the same size in it. We do life in circles, not rows.
That empty spot isn't a design choice. It's yours.
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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
