Let your heart be broken...

Let your heart be broken for a world in need.
Feed the mouths that hunger, soothe the wounds the bleed,
Give the cup of water and the load of bread
Be the hands of Jesus, serving in His stead.

Our PAFCOE students have been finding out that they are God’s hands and feet serving others with His great message of love and truth. Let me share some of their amazing experience with you!

The first student said, “There was this old man who was living alone whose wife had died earlier this year. Only his two grand-children who live nearby take care of him and visit him. When we arrived at his place, we discovered that he had had an accident and bruised his feet. We offered to treat his wounds with charcoal to make them heal faster and he agreed. When we returned to his home in a few days to do the treatment, we found that he was waiting for us. So we cleaned his wounds and did the treatment on him. As we applied the charcoal, we taught his on-looking grandchild how to do it so they could continue doing it for him. They were so happy and grateful for what we were doing! The old man said, ‘I cannot repay you anything for what you did for me, but praise God for treating me as if I was your own father and showing such kindness to me.’ Those words were so touching to hear! I was so inspired to be the hands of Jesus to serve those in need! Those these little acts of kindness and love, we will lead them to Jesus. When we were done with the treatment, one of his family members asked us to treat her too because she had been suffering the effects of a mild stroke. We did a health survey on her and promised to return to treat her the next time.”

Another student said, “My heart was broken and touched as I saw so many smelly homeless people sleeping on the street as we pass to and from our home. We wanted to help them, so many times we didn’t eat the fruits that were served so we could take something to those poor people. One day, on our way to our territory, I noticed an old man hurrying towards the jeepney we were going on. He was carrying a kilo of rice, but hadn’t noticed that there was a little hole in his bag and the rice was pouring out onto the street. I told him about the hole and helped him gather up the spilled rice. He had lost almost half of his rice! But then the jeepney started to move and the old man forgot about his spilled rice on the street and jumped on. I could see disappointment written all over his face. I couldn’t sleep very well that night. The picture of all those homeless children and that old man was printed on my mind and a question started to formulate in my mind – where can I see God’s love through that? Then it occurred to me that these needy men and women are still God’s children who need someone to share with them a message a hope and love. I pray that they will see God’s love through my actions and that I can do my best to give them hope through Christ.”

Another said, “My partner and I gave Bible studies to 3 different families and I was so blessed! But all of them didn’t have a Bible and they had a hard time understanding everything because they don’t understand English too well. So we prayed to the Lord to provide us a way to get a Tagalog Bible for them all to be able to understand. God really inspired someone to sponsor the money to buy them Bibles. And when we went back to our interest and gave them the Bibles, they were so touched and happy! Now they could read the answers of the questions in the Bible studies we were giving them! And we invited them to attend our evening meetings at UP, and praise God, one came!”

And yet another student said, “After our Bible study, our interest confessed to me that the first time she met us, she felt so comfortable with us and couldn’t resist our invitation to have a Bible study. She asked, ‘Why do I feel this way?’ With tears in our eyes, my partners and I said, ‘It’s the work of the Holy Spirit in you.’ She then told us that many people wanted to have studies with her before but she had always refused and made excuses. But when she saw us, she couldn’t refuse and felt drawn to what we had to share. We were so inspired and prayed for her before we left.”

One said, “I really prayed this week that God would give us divine appointments for Him. When it was almost time to go home one day, someone called out to us and told us about a man who was paralyzed. We went to see him and talked with he and his wife. He had been praying that God would heal him and we told them about the NEW START program and how to be healthy by following God’s principles. I was so glad to see their eagerness to try it and see what God would do for them!”

Another said, “Earlier I had written about a young family we had met in the garbage dump who were looking for things to sell to have enough to eat. We had helped them by giving them food and some clothes. This week, my partner and I were walking down the street when we ran into the young man that we had met at the garbage dump. He informed us that his pregnant wife had just given birth. He had built a makeshift house for them against a building near the garbage dump. We visited his “house” and his wife. Just as we were talking together, it started to rain heavily. It was 5 in the afternoon and the mother told us that her baby was wearing his last diaper. She had just given birth the previous day to a beautiful baby boy. So we went to the pharmacy and bought them diapers, baby powder, baby oil and alcohol to clean with. We were so touched for their situation. And that young couple wants to start Bible studies with us next week! I realized that we are just stewards of what we have. We don’t own anything. If we think we have it hard or have so many problems, consider the homeless family with a small son and newborn baby sleeping in a tiny shed of boxes and wood near the garbage dump – no water, no electricity, no bathroom and cramped together in their little place about 1 meter (3 feet) square. Someone’s situation is worse than yours and you can be a blessing to them through what God has given you!”

Blessed to be a blessing, privileged to care
Challenged by the need apparent everywhere.
Where mankind is wanting, fill the vacant place
Be the means through which the Lord reveals His grace.

Saved through the flood!

Isaiah 41:2 says, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee…” What a wonderful promise that when we pass through the waters, God will be with us. Usually we think of this passage to be referring to the waters of trouble, affliction or problems we experience. But it also can be applied literally as two sisters, Carol and Jeamly found out during their time of being students at PAFCOE.

Here is their inspiring story as recorded by Carol, the younger sister:

“This week, we had a very wonderful experience doing outreach! Thursday afternoon, my sister Jeamly and I were doing visitation to the homes of our Bible students. We are so happy doing our work! After we stayed there awhile, we got ready to go home when suddenly the heavy rain started pouring out of the sky. We got SO wet! But we made it home safely. My sister, Jeamly and I decided to go canvassing the next day, Friday since it was our free day from the PAFCOE classes. We prepared our things for that and went to sleep. The rain was still falling.”

What they didn’t know was that a typhoon was hitting the Philippines right during that time – Typhoon Mario. Back to the story:

“Friday morning came and the rain was still very hard. But we decided to still go out for canvassing anyways and collect our customer’s payments they had promised earlier. We took a jeepney and left around 10:00 and it was still raining and the streets were getting flooded with the tremendous amount of water. All our customers were in Pasay – an area in the southern part of Manila. We rode the train and finally reached there. All morning we canvassed and collected our customer’s payments for their books. But the rain continued and got harder than ever. Finally after 12:00, we decided we should go home. We again rode the train to a place about half-ways from where we were to our home.”

She continued on, “When we went down to the street from the train station, we saw it was still raining! Worry began creeping into our hearts because we realized there were no more vehicles on the roads – no jeepneys, no cars and not any buses even. We became more and more worried because everywhere around us was full of water. How were we going to get home? We began asking the people around us how we could get to our place, but they told us there were no more jeepneys passing that road because it was very, very flooded. But our hearts sank when we learned that there would be no more public transportation passing through that street for the rest of the day because this was a big typhoon. So what were we going to do? We couldn’t stay there the rest of the day! And we were still far from our home.”

These are not the students. Just a picture to illustrate. But the water was probably this deep.

Picture yourself in the sisters’ situation and ask yourself what you would do! Returning to the story:

“We decided that the only way we were going to get home would be to walk. So we began walking. The water was up to our knees and we kept walking. The water rose higher and higher and we began to cry. Then we remembered about God and paused for a moment to pray and ask for His help. Then we kept walking and the water was up to our hips already. We cried more because we are so wet and so are all our bags and all the things inside the bags were wet too. As we walked through the water, we knew it was so dirty because we could see garbage and lots of other disgusting things floating in it. All along the water as we walked, we asked those by the side of the road if the road near our house was near there, but they always said, ‘Oh, that’s SO far from here.’ So we kept going. We passed by the reporters of the news stations who were out to take pictures of the flood and report how bad it was. By now it was already after 5 pm.”

Imagine walking more than 4 hours through flooded streets to reach home! She continued the story by saying, “We kept praying all along to God, but the rain didn’t stop. Finally we saw a man who was also walking in the road and we asked him where he was going. He was going to a place near our home, so we went with him – still walking through the water. But at least we had a guide. We were so cold because not only the rain was still falling, but it was so windy, too! Later on, we saw a 10-wheeler and the man told us to ride inside it. Praise God! He sent a vehicle to save us! Inside were all the rescuers and those who had been rescued. We arrived at the church where we have our classes at 5:30 and when some of our classmates saw us, they were shocked at our appearances! But tears of joy filled our eyes, because God had saved us through that terrible flood! We really praise God for the safety that we had that day! We changed our clothes and joined the other classmates going to UP (University of the Philippines) for our seminar that night.”

That was a hard weekend for our seminar because of the typhoon but we praise God that not only did He keep Carol and Jeamly safe, but He also helped us to be able to continue our meetings. We did not miss even one night because of the typhoon.

God’s promises really are true! When we pass through the waters – literal or symbolic – He is with us and will not allow the waters to go over us!

More amazing stories coming soon!

Let the Children Come...

Jesus said, “Let the children come to Me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Today you and I can bring the children to Jesus to be blessed by Him, too!

Every time we have a prophecy seminar, there is a program for the children. Here in the Philippines, children are everywhere and since they have the highest probability rating of accepting Christ, we do something for them too. Our PAFCOE students choose whether they will be an evangelist for adults or for children and those who choose to be child evangelists, have the blessed privilege of working for the little ones!

During the children’s program, we teach the children all the doctrines of the SDA church on a child’s level. Yes, children can understand all our doctrines! The following are some of the experiences of our students as they worked for the children.

One student who had chosen to do adult evangelism visited the program one night and this is what she said, “I had to opportunity to sit with the children in the evening. While I watched them and made friends with them, I could really see that many of them are struggling just to survive. I was about to eat my supper when one of them asked me for my food and I was so touched that when I gave it to her, she didn’t eat it herself. She gave it to her younger brother. I began to notice that many of them were covered with scars and realized that they were in a battle of survival. And many were not afraid to keep fighting. I really wanted to gather them all into my arms at that time and tell them they are not alone and that God really loves them. I was so touched with that one child that even though she is hungry, she thinks of others who might be more hungry than herself.”

Yes, some of the children (or many of them actually) had very hard lives and some were living on the street. But God loves those children too!

Another student said, “We entered our territory for distributing the children’s flyers and discovered it was an area with absolutely no children! What were we going to do? Just then a friend from Manila Center Church walked past and he ended up directing us to a nearby slum area where there was an elementary school and plenty of children. It’s so amazing how God answers our prayers before we even ask! I really learned the lesson of child-like trust this week. Working with the children is always a challenge but as they climb into your lap and show their love to you without limit, it is a reminder of how we should trust God. These children had only been with us for a few minutes but they already trusted us.”

She said later on, “This week, I learned to be a child with the children. One night we had a rough night with them, but as the Sabbath came, I purposed in my heart to smile to them whatever happened. That evening, I just spent time enjoying the kids – laughing with them and playing with them. And I could really see the difference it made in their attitudes toward me when I came down to their level. There was a little girl that always came to our group and was always smiling. When we came to pick her up with the other children Sabbath morning, she was reluctant to go because she had household responsibilities. But as we were about to leave, she ran to me and grabbed my arm and wanted to go along. That evening she was singing away, ‘Remember the Sabbath day…’ God is so good to move upon that little girl’s heart!”

Another child evangelist said, “I realized this week that the children attending our program really need a lot of attention and most of all – love. There was this one boy who was always faithful in attending our program and he even comes early, but he has no father anymore and he works all night collecting plastic bottles and anything to sell. I was so touched that a boy with such a hard life wants to learn more about God!”

One of the foreigners who chose to child evangelism said this, “I did not bring any children with me to the program and the teacher (that was me – the blog writer) asked me, ‘Why?’ I did not know why! When I went to bed, I was thinking of the reasons why I had not brought any children with me to our program. I realized that I wasn’t focused on soul-winning and I prayed to God to help me! The next day, my partner and I brought more than 20 kids to the program! I realized that God is always ready to help me, but I have to do my part too. Then when we invited the children, the problem was how to get to the program. There were no jeepneys around. So I prayed, ‘Lord, I have 20 kids but there are no jeepneys. Please send an empty jeepney to where we are.’ Just then an empty jeepney stopped in front of us and I asked the driver to bring us to UP (University of the Philippines) and he agreed! I am so grateful!”

Later on he said, “Rain is a big problem for us. One night just as the children’s program finished, there was very heavy rain. We had brought more than 20 kids that night and none had an umbrella – including us! I had the responsibility to keep them safe and dry and return them to their parents. So I prayed, ‘O Lord, please look upon these dear children. If they get wet, maybe their parents will not allow them to come back to the program anymore. So please, stop the rain so we can go home!’ After my prayer, the rain stopped and we could bring every one of them back to their place!”

Another student who was also a foreigner said, “I went to invite the children to come to our program, but I was nervous because I don’t speak Tagalog [the native language spoken here]. I prayed and told God to please, help me! When I went to the homes, the parents agreed for me to bring their children and I was so excited that God had answered my prayers! I realized that God is in control of everything and if we just trust Him, He will surprise us with the things that we didn’t even imagine!”

And yet another said, “During our outreach time, we visited the parents of the children that we were bringing every night to the program. We got to know them and listened to their different stories of the trials and difficulties each had. In spite of their bad situations, they still managed to smile and move on! And their children are really eager to attend the children’s program every night. They had 8 children and each one loves to come with us!”

Another student who was an adult evangelist said, “When we helped the child evangelists to bring their children to the program every night, I realized that the children were becoming close to my heart! Now I love children whereas before I did not. I understand that if I will just treat them kindly, the children will respond and be good to me. Now I really appreciate the work of bringing children to Jesus!”

Another student who is a foreigner said, “Watching the children of our interest cry because they couldn’t come with us to the meeting touched my heart. They really treat us as if we are their parents. When we arrive at that place, the whole community stops and watches the children embrace us with hugs and respect. They take my hand and put it to their forehead as a sign of true respect. This melts my heart! I could never get this kind of love and respect back in my own country! The people in this community want to know, ‘who are these people that always come dressed in blue and black?’ They now call us ‘Amazing!’

Working for the children, seeking to lead them to Jesus is one of the best works that can ever be done! We were so blessed to have the privilege of teaching them the truths of God’s Word and watch them be changed through its power!

“We may bring hundreds and thousands of children to Christ if we will work for them.” My Life Today p. 228

And those were just a few of the many amazing stories that took place during the Prophecy seminar there at UP. Keep watching for more stories – coming soon!

...how much you care...

There’s a common saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” That is so true when it comes to soul-winning! Let me share with you more experiences of our PAFCOE students on their outreach afternoons.

One said, “I felt a bit discouraged this week because 2 of our Bible students didn’t want to study with us anymore. But God gave us more opportunities for Him! We went to one of our interests with whom we had just started doing drop-off studies and he told us with a big smile that he had already finished reading it and wanted another one! He didn’t have a Bible so he couldn’t fill in all the blanks, but he enjoyed reading what was written in the lesson. He had had a mild stroke and wasn’t feeling so well, yet he was eager to study God’s Word! Then we went to our other interests who were suffering with bad health problems. Some of the family members were not very friendly to us, but we were kind to them and after giving them massage, their hearts opened to us and they welcomed us to return for Bible study! Really they didn’t care how much we knew until they knew how much we cared for them!”

Another student said, “This week my partner and I decided to go into the Muslim compound since our Bible study interest was not at home for the scheduled study. As we walked down the street, I was becoming frustrated that we were not finding too many people interested for Bible study. We prayed and continued walking. Finally we reached a street that was clearly where the Muslims lived. Armed with our blood pressure cuff and thermometer, we boldly invited people for a simple health and vital signs check-up. People came out of their homes and were very interested for what we were doing. We didn’t have much time to spend with them, but we did what we could. As we were conducting the health check-ups, it occurred to me that their Muslim people were very happy, easy going people. I had been avoiding this street because I heard what Muslims did to the Christians sometimes and I was scared! But we met only friendly cheerful people who wanted to know all about us and what we were doing. Needless to say, I changed my view of the Muslim people! Imagine what might have happened if we had passed by all those people because we were too afraid to go to them! How sad!”

This was one student’s experience, “Today was our 4th Bible study with one of our Bible interests. Unfortunately, I forgot to study and prepare for it. I didn’t even know what was the title of the 4th lesson! After lunch, I read the script and prayed, ‘Lord, please help me! I know I am not prepared for the topic!’ But praise God, He hears our desperate prayers! He really helped me with the study! The Bible students listened very well and enjoyed the study a lot! The most inspiring part was when I was giving the appeal. I was so touched by the message because it seemed I was appealing to myself and my students were touched, as well. I praise God that even though I was not prepared, He really blessed that study!”

Her partner said, “Today when we did our Bible study, the grandson of our interest displayed his temper tantrums and made a big distraction to the study. Immediately, I decided to find a way to distract him so the Grandma could focus on the study. I tried to give him my Asian pear that I had saved from breakfast, but he wasn’t interested. So I went to the nearby store and bought a package of nuts for him, which made him very excited and for awhile he was quiet. Then he started again. So I went and bought another package of nuts for him and we gave him one nut at a time until the end of the study and thus he became quiet and was not a problem anymore! I was so blessed that they could see how much we care for them and they want to know more from us!”

Another student commented, “While we were walking in our territory with my husband, we passed a man sitting in front of his store. We smiled at him and he called out to us, ‘Please stay awhile here.’ We walked over to him and he asked what we were always doing in that area and why we always come there. He also mentioned that he knew we were studying the Bible with people and that he wanted to join our study! When we offered Bible studies to him, he chose the drop-off ones since he is very busy, but he wanted to learned more about God. He finished that first lesson in one day! God is so good! People notice when we care for them and they want to know what we have to share with them!”

Another shared her experience by saying, “When my outreach partner and I arrived at our territory, we went to our Bible study’s home and found that she was already prepared for our studies! She had borrowed a Bible and had her Storacles lesson with her, along with placing 2 empty chairs in her living room for my partner and I. I was so inspired to see her eagerness to study!”

And one of our foreigners added, “This week we shared the Word of God to one family and they asked so many questions about God. They were so happy that we were studying the Bible with them! Then one day this week, a boy on the street asked me, ‘Why are you here? You don’t understand our language.’ I told him that I am here in the Philippines to learn more about Jesus and how to share Him with others. He asked me, ‘Who is Jesus?” I told him briefly about Jesus and he was so excited to learn about a God who cares for him! He even cried that he – a simple street boy – could have someone who loved him. He didn’t understand my English too well, but I am so glad I could share something with him! When I went back to that place to find him again, he was not there.”

Yes, friends, people want to see that you care before they see what you have to share with them. Stories from the Prophecy Seminar will be posted next.

“The humblest workers, in co-operation with Christ, may touch chords whose vibrations shall ring to the ends of the earth, and make melody throughout eternal ages.” – The Ministry of Healing, p. 159.

Health Expo in UP! :)

Conducting a Health Expo is an excellent way to get people interested in becoming healthier! We held our Health Expo at one of the public halls on the campus of the University of the Philippines (UP) and we praise God for those who attended. Because the hall was not so easily accessible, not as many people as we expected came, but we still had a good attendance! Our PAFCOE students were heavily involved from the set-up, to the health lecturing at each of the NEW START booths, to the registration and much more!

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, I have included some pictures of our health expo for you to get a taste of what it was like.

Pafcoe staff and friends getting ready for a cooking demo

Lecturing about water

One student said, “I was assigned to help out in the Nutrition booth at the health expo and it was so amazing to me to see how the people took every piece of information they could get from us the lecturers. They were sincerely searching for a better, healthier way of living. And it reminded me of how God has given us all that we need to have health and He has provided all the remedies so freely and accessibly for all, yet so few know about them! It was such a privilege to be able to tell the people about God’s healing way!”

We opened the Health Expo at 4:00 pm and by 6:30, everyone was invited for the evening lecture by Dr. Blessey Varona – a well known Doctor of Nutrition. She captivated everyone’s attention by sharing the difference between “heart attack” foods and “heart antidote” foods. It was so interesting! One student said, “Praise the Lord! Our Bible study interest attended the first 3 days of the Health Expo! She said with gratitude in her heart that she really enjoyed the program and had learned many things. We will pray continually that God would convict her to be more receptive to His truth.”

We held the Health Expo and the evening health lectures for 4 days and then invited everyone to attend the opening night of the prophecy seminar. But those stories are for another update.

Stories from the Prophecy Seminar will be posted soon! Keep watching! :)

The Blessing of Giving Yourself

"It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

A common verse, right? Yes! During the reports from the week that preceded the health expo, our students learned the rich blessing that comes from giving of yourself – your time, your talents and your energies to bless others less fortunate.

One student shared her experience by saying, “When we arrived at the small store of one of our interests, we saw she was smiling that we had come! I began to pray that God would open her heart and that she would let us share another Bible study with her. She had not been able to make our scheduled study the previous week and now we had come to invite her to continue again. But she complained that she didn’t feel well and asked us to massage her hands instead. As we did, we began to share with her about the next Bible study and she gladly listened! I was so blessed to give her massage and more importantly – to share God’s Word with her!”

She added another experience, “After that Bible study, we went all through our area distributing flyers. When 5:15 came, we went to see one of our interests that we have been giving simple health treatments to. She was ready to receive us and had already prepared herself for the treatment. As I began working on the knots in her back, she asked me why do we do this for people. I shared with her that we desire to help people as God would do where He here on earth. She listened attentively all throughout the treatment and at the end, decided to accept a Bible study from us! Sometimes we are required to sacrifice ourselves so that others will be blessed. I have found it a joy to do so in serving the Lord! My strength and wisdom and all my talents are from God and to be used only for Him.”

Another student who is partnered with one of our foreign students said this, “One day this week, I was not feeling well. I was so tired and wanted to go back to our dorm to sleep because I felt like I had a fever. But I decided to go out on outreach with my partner anyways. I prayed, ‘Lord, please help me not to be sick so I can serve you.’ As we went out, there was a time when I was so tired and weak that I had to sit down on the sidewalk and let my partner (the foreigner) do the surveys and inviting for Bible studies. I just smiled at him and tried to inspire him. Suddenly, my partner called me, ‘Come! I found someone who wants to do a sit-down Bible study, but we cannot understand each other! They don’t understand English too well!’ So I went there and did my best to share myself in sharing God’s Word with them. Through all this, I learned that even if you are not feeling well, you still have to continue to work for the Lord – to give of yourself. He will extend His grace to help you overcome your sickness and to renew your strength. I also learned that the very best medicine when you have a fever is – to give a Bible study to someone and surely you will feel better!

What’s the common Bible verse? “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

One student said this on her outreach, “This week we visited a 97 year old lady. [Here in the Philippines, it’s very unusual for a person to reach that age.] Even though she is old, yet she still continued doing her chores and I truly saw God’s love to sustain lives. When we asked her daughter how she was able to live so long, she told us that her mother eats very healthy food. God has provided for us the best food that we need to make us healthy and let us serve Him more efficiently! And if we follow Him, we will surely be blessed!”

She continued, “We met our drop-off study interest along the way as we were distributing flyers for the seminar. After we invited her to come also, she told us some reasons why she might not be able to come. But what she said next really inspired us! She said she was very eager to have us give her the next lesson so she could read it and answer the blanks. She added that though she has a Bible for many years already, yet this is the first time she could really study it and understand it! This was amazing because she was 87 years old! We were so blessed to hear that from her and are so excited to give her more lessons so she can continue studying from God’s Word on her own! I learned to pray more for God’s help and to befriend people and show care for them. As we give of ourselves and smile at people, it really opens their hearts to what we have to tell them about God.”

Another student said, “One of our Bible interests got sick and we went to visit her. There we prayed for her and did some simple treatments to help her get well sooner. She was so happy and we were so blessed to be a blessing to her! Though we invited her to come to the seminar, she said she was very busy but she let her grandchild come with us to the seminar’s children’s program. Praise God for using us to work for Him!”

Yet another one said, “When our outreach time cfame this week, my partner and I prayed earnestly to God because we didn’t have any money for our transportation to go to our assigned territory. We really could experience the phrase ‘walk by faith and not by sight.’ But God was so good to us! As we were sharing to others of ourselves and our talents, God was blessing us! He used people to be channels of blessing to us and we went back and forth to our territory several times this week – all through the money of people who were generous to share with us! God also gave us divine appointments that we never expected. He is so good to us!”

And one more said, “This week our Bible student actively interacted during our Bible study. She talked a lot and shared what was inside her heart. Then she began telling us her life story and I was inspired when I listened to how God had really taken care of her all through her life. After she was done, we prayed for her and I felt so blessed after that visit! I had been getting discouraged, but as we shared of ourselves to her, we felt encouraged and inspired! God is really a God who hears and answers us and I thank Him for all the lessons He gave us this week!”

If you have not experienced the joy of giving of yourself to be a blessing to others, just step out and do it! You will be amazed what a rich blessing you will receive in return.

Remember, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Keep watching for more exciting stories!

Flyers, flyers and more flyers!

It’s been a long time since this blog writer posted any updated and you might be wondering what is happening at PAFCOE! Actually right now, all our students are on their OJT, hence the blog writer has time to catch up on all the stories from during the session. During the next few days and weeks, you will be able to catch up on the many stories and experiences of what God has been doing for us here in the Philippines!

During this session of PAFCOE, we decided to hold our training evangelistic meeting on the campus of the University of the Philippines and seek to plant a church on that great campus. This is a large public university with thousands of students. To help attract people to be interested in the Bible seminar, we held a health expo for four days. So the week that preceded the health expo was spent in distributing flyers and inviting people to attend.

Commenting on her experience passing out flyers, one student said, “Many people accepted the flyers and they told us they are really excited to attend the program! God is always there for us and He is willing to help us as we seek to find people for Him! One time when we were passing out flyers, it was raining so heavily and I didn’t have an umbrella, so I prayed to God that He would stop the rain and He did!”

Another student said, “Last outreach day as we prepared to go out, we saw that it was raining so hard that we couldn’t get to our assigned area. There were 4 of us going to the same place and we had only 2 small umbrellas between us. So we went to a gasoline station to find shelter and wait for the rain to pass and decided that was a good place to distribute flyers! Every time a car or jeepney stopped at the gas station to fill up, we handed all the people a flyer. At first we thought it would take us a long time to finish all our flyers, but it didn’t! As we were passing out flyers to those who stopped at the gas station, I suddenly realized that this was one of God’s ways of getting those flyers to people we might not have been able to any other way. Who knows? Maybe some of them will respond! Once the rain stopped, we went to an overpass on the road and finished all our flyers there. I thank God!”

One of our foreign students said, “This week we distributed flyers. In fact, I had always had a fear of passing out anything, and still I hesitate to do it, but praise God, my fear is diminishing! It was a good experience!”

God has amazing ways of helping those flyers to find their way into the hands of those who are searching for the truth.

“All over the world men and women are looking wistfully to heaven. Prayers and tears and inquiries go up from souls longing for light, for grace, for the Holy Spirit. Many are on the verge of the kingdom, waiting only to be gathered in.” Acts of the Apostles, page 109.

More stores are coming soon!