Maria Nelma or “Pappet” is the team leader and co-founder of Elpis Ministries. Elpis Ministries work with migrant people in the northwestern border of Thailand, in a town called Maesot. It is composed of a Faith House , a shelter for girls at risk, and the Blessing Center , a student center for migrant children. Pappet and her team serve as partners of Elpis School - a school for migrant children. They also do organic gardening & community development work in two villages. Elpis Ministries is also a registered non-governmental organization (NGO) in the Philippines, and partners with children’s work in the town of Hinigaran, Negros Occidental.

“My involvement with IVCFP was when I was in high school when school mates would invite me to Interschool Christian Fellowship (ISCF) gatherings in the YMCA building in Rosario St., Bacolod City,” said Pappet. "Josephine ‘Pinky’ Cabalfin was persistent. Amy Javelosa Rio was one of the student leaders then. I had not attended many gatherings nor did I go to a Kawayan Camp. But I had lots of IVCFP friends. In Balikatan, I attended the 2010 conference in Boston and also the 2015 one in Alberta, Canada.”

Elsie, or Ate Elsie, was the National Director of IVCFP from 2000 to 2006. She is currently a freelance trainor/facilitator and retreat director. “I am a regular resource person for Open Doors with Brother Andrew. I train Christian women in some countries where Christians are persecuted and discriminated, such as Vietnam, Laos, and Bhutan,” shared Ate Elsie.  “I don’t work full time with Open Doors, though. I go only when I am invited around two or three times a year. Recently, I have been invited to train Hmong women in Chiang Mai, Thailand by another group ministering to Hmongs.”

 

Ate Elsie is also a resource person for the Alliance of Christian Development Agencies (ACDA). She serves as a trainor/facilitator for Christian leaders and pastors. She gets invitations to teach/facilitate in IVCFP staff trainings and student camps. Other organizations would seek her to facilitate spiritual retreats.

“I was brought up in a Protestant family. I attended church and Sunday School regularly. My mother was a deaconess, and we had daily family altar when we were small. But I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior through the IVCFP chapter in Philippine Normal University (PNU). I attended weekly Bible Studies and cell groups. I heard the Gospel clearly from Kuya Jonathan Parreno who was then our speaker in an evangelistic meeting in July 1968. I realized I had to make a personal decision to receive Christ. That night I invited Him to come into my life, and I surrendered my life to Him.”

  

Ate Elsie then became an active member of the PNU campus fellowship. She later became an officer, and led weekly cell groups. She attended Kawayan Camp in 1970. After graduating from PNU, Ate Elsie joined the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship  meetings periodically. While teaching at St. Scholastica’s College, she completed a course by InterVarsity Missionary Fellowship (IVMF) taught by Kuya Dick and Ate Rose Dowsett of OMF. While teaching at Del Monte School in Bukidnon, Ate Elsie volunteered as a Grad Team member in Cagayan de Oro City, and started ISCF chapters in a few high schools there from 1979 to 1981.