Here's another update from Dad:
Happy New
Year from PAFCOE! We invite you to visit our website, to see what is happening with
Amazing Fact’s Schools of evangelism in the Philippines. Yes, schools is plural
because God has opened the way for AFCOE to have two schools in the
Philippines—one in Iloilo City in the center of the archipelago, and one in the
heart of the sprawling city of Manila. The school in Iloilo City will be
a continuation of the school that we established last year. Manila will
be a new AFCOE school, hosted at the Manila Center SDA Church.
But
stepping back for a moment into the events of last year, come with me again to
the hovels of Barrio Obrero. Our students began working there in August
of 2012. The PAFCOE training begins with two weeks of Literature
Evangelism practicum each afternoon. Early in the first week, students
memorize and practice their canvases in class, and by the middle of the week,
they are on the streets selling books.
Near the
end of the first week of our fall session at PAFCOE, Flora Mae and Flordelyn,
two student partners, knocked on the door of a home near to the covered gym
which would later become the hub of our evangelistic outreach to that
barangay(district). An older woman hobbled to the door with a cane.
The girls greeted her and launched into their canvas. But the poor old
woman had little money.
As they
talked, the girls learned that the lady’s name was Maria. Maria had
suffered a stroke recently, and was partially paralyzed on her left side.
Since both girls had been through a medical-missionary training program prior
to attending PAFCOE, they offered to come give Maria treatments in her
home. Thus began a friendship between this old woman and our two young
students. Each week, they would visit Maria and give her hydrotherapy and
massage treatments.
Later when
we began our evangelistic series in Barrio Obrero, Maria was on the front row
with her two new friends—the PAFCOE students! The girls introduced her to
me as a contact that they had met during outreach. They told of how they
had been giving her regular treatments. As I shook Maria’s hand, she gave
me a broad, nearly toothless smile, and told me in broken English how happy she
was that the girls were visiting her.
Maria never
missed a meeting from then on. Each day, she would come slowly walking
down the street with her cane to the covered gym, dragging her partially paralyzed
left leg. Near the end of our meetings, the girls informed me that Maria
wanted to be baptized, but not in Barrio Obrero. Her husband, a devout
Catholic, was strongly opposed to her joining the Adventist Church, so she
wanted to be baptized somewhere further away where she would not have to fear
her husband’s opposition.
We made
arrangements for Maria to be baptized a month later in a baptism that we held
on the south end of the city, about a half-hour drive from Barrio Obrero.
It was a Sabbath-afternoon beach-baptism. Maria, with a helper on each
side, slowly made her way out into the quiet waters of the sea. Together
with seventeen others, she took her turn to be buried in baptism. On the
shore, Flora Mae and Flordyln beamed with joy as they watched the fruits of
their evangelistic labors.
It was
Maria who said to me at the end of our evangelistic series in Barrio Obrero,
“Pastor, God sent you here. Of all the places in the Philippines that you
could have gone, and of all the barangays in Iloilo that you could have held
meetings, God directed you to Barrio Obrero so that we could learn the truth!”
Another
“older” person that our male students worked with was a man we’ll call “Frank”
(his Filipino name failed to stick in my memory). Frank was baptized as a
Seventh-day Adventist at the age of ten, but wandered away from religion in his
early teen years. He had been away from the church for nearly 60
years. When our PAFCOE students met him, and learned of his history, they
invited him to attend the evangelistic series and return to the Adventist
church. Frank came, and was another faithful attendee that didn’t miss a
meeting.
A quiet man
who was missing all of his teeth, Frank spoke little English. When I
would greet him after the meeting at the entrance to the gym, he would give me
a toothless grin and a warm handshake, and say something akin to “farewell.”
Since we had an on-stage translator, and since our PAFCOE students sat with
him, I never had to worry concerning his comprehension of the message.
At the end
of the series, Frank happily rejoined the Seventh-day Adventist church family
and was rebaptized after being out of the church for nearly 60 years! He
is now a part of the new church being established in Barrio Obrero.
On the
other side of the time-span from Frank and Maria, were the many children and
youth baptized at the conclusion of the evangelistic series. April, a
sixteen-year-old street girl, was one of them. We’ll tell you about her
and the other “street kids” that came to the children’s evangelistic series in
Barrio Obrero in our next report. Till then, Happy New Year, and thank you for
your support!
Your
friends,
Pastor
Lowell & family & the PAFCOE staff
