Dear Family
& friends:
Barrio
Obrero. We had never heard of the place till earlier this year when
discussing where to conduct the evangelistic series for our fall session of
PAFCOE. The local brethren decided to do a church-plant there. We
later learned that the place is considered one of the roughest, low-class areas
of Iloilo—known for drinking, gambling, and evil.
The
barangay, or suburb as we would refer to it, has a massive Iglesia ni Christo
church, whose towering spires can be seen from many parts of the suburb and
beyond. The Iglesia ni Christo (Christ of Christ in Tagalog, the local
language here in the Philippines) church was started back in the early 1900s by
a former Seventh-day Adventist who became embittered toward the church, and
left to start his own. Today it is one largest, most influential churches
in the Philippines, next the Catholic Church. When we started outreach in
Barrio Obrero, we quickly learned that the vast majority of its inhabitants
belonged to the big Iglesia ni Christo Church.
Our only
option for a place to conduct the meetings, turned out to be a large covered
gym near the center of the barangay. This was where the street kids hung
out, to play basketball or other games, or worse to smoke and socialize.
Teenage mothers are quite common, and we met many children 10 years old or
less, who were already smoking. Safety was a prime concern of the local
brethren, since stealing and other crimes are part of the sub-culture of the
suburb.
Barrio
Obrero lies along the sea, and is bordered on one side by swampland. Many
squatters live in the area, their bamboo shacks clinging to the banks, or built
over the swamp edge. Poverty is the picture in these areas, and the only escape
from the misery is alcohol, gambling, or sinful pleasure—or so it seems to the
locals. Our “Revelations of Prophecy” seminar offered something better!
We began
the meetings with a Health Expo which attracted only a small group, since the
word had spread around the suburb that “the Adventists have come to our
barangay, and if you join them, you’ll have to give up your gambling, drinking,
and your pork!” The group who did come were those who needed help—stroke
victims, and those unsatisfied with the low-life of the street.
On the night
that we began the Prophecy Seminar, there was a brown-out (black-out as we call
it) in the area, so with nothing else to do for entertainment, curious
residents wandered into the gym to see what “Revelations of Prophecy” was all
about, in spite of the rumors. Since we had a generator, the lights and
sound blazed out the open sides of the covered-gym until there were over a
hundred-and-fifty sitting inside listening, with many more outside.
The next
night, Saturday night, things did not go as well. A tropical storm blew
in that evening, and the driving rain watered our attendance down to around
fifty. Since the sides of the gym are open, even those inside struggled
to stay dry. Many put up their umbrellas and the site from the stage was
unforgettable! The was camera crew huddled under umbrellas, trying to
keep themselves and their equipment dry; the sheets of rain blowing in on one
side of the open gym, illuminated by the stage lights; the water spreading out
over the concrete floor, unable to drain away fast enough in the downpour; the
electrical and microphone cables suspended on plastic chairs above the
circulating water; and the audience, seated under their umbrellas in the driest
side of the gym—how could we ever forget that night!
Just as
memorable was the noise! Since the covered gym has a tin roof, the
tropical downpour sounded like a million tiny jackhammers above our
heads. Even with our speakers at max volume, it was difficult to be
heard. The noise grew so loud at one point, we simply had to suspend the
meeting and wait. In the din, we prayed with the mist blowing in our
faces, that God would still the storm. As we prayed, and watched, and
waited, gradually the noise decreased as the rain started to let up, until we
were able to begin preaching again (I say “we” because I had a
translator). The rain continued throughout most of the meeting, but with
less intensity so that we could be distinctly heard. We had a “captive”
audience since no one wanted to leave the gym during the storm!
Later in
the series, we had a rainstorm during a Sabbath morning meeting that was even
worse. It rained so hard that we actually had water flowing across the
floor of the gym like a river, and the water was nearly six inches deep beneath
the stage that we were preaching from. Again we prayed and waited for the
noise to lessen, and although we had to wait longer this time, God did answer
our prayers and still another storm.
The
meetings in Barrio Obrero were unique in other ways as well. It was the
first time in all our years of evangelism, that we parked our car inside the
meeting hall! Since it was considered unsafe to park outside on the
street, we parked inside the gym along one wall.
The gym has
walls that are about eight feet high, with another fifteen to twenty feet of
open space between that and the tin roof. We would drive in from the
street through the same entrance that our audience would later walk in.
On weekends when more church members from the city would attend, we had a parking
lot along one wall of the meeting hall!
One night
while I was preaching I saw a transformer across the street latterly explode in
a fireball of electricity, and then the arch danced back along the wires till a
main breaker somewhere tripped and ended the fireworks. Instantly, one
section of the suburb was in complete darkness. For several moments, I
lost everyone’s attention, and part of the audience rushed outside to see what
had happened. Thankfully, the lights stayed on in our hall.
There were
other unforgettable events during the evangelistic meetings in Barrio Obrero,
but most memorable were the lives transformed by the power of the gospel.
We’ll share some of their testimonies in our next report. One lady, a
stroke victim said to me, “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!”
Yes, God
sent us to Barrio Obrero, but He used people like you to support the work of
evangelism with your prayers and funds. We, together with the little
church that has been “planted” in the rough suburb of Barrio Obrero, say “Thank
you so much!”
Your friends,
Pastor
Lowell & family & the PAFCOE staff
