Testimonies of Meeting Jesus!

PAFCOE is all about soul-winning, as you may have realized already! But the stories that come out of PAFCOE are not just from the students’ interests – some are from themselves! I would like to share with you a couple of the student’s inspiring testimonies. Here they are:

“It’s hard to describe my past life. Before I met Jesus, I did not have big problems. I just had a few of so small problems. My life was easy and simple. I played, went to school, ate and then went to sleep; as you can see, it was a life of ease. But deep inside me, something was lacking I didn’t have peace in my heart and felt like there was a longing for something that I could not get. I was somewhat happy, but my joy was not full.

“Because I was born into a Christian family, I heard about Jesus when I was still young. I was always positive about the message of Jesus, but I did not have a close relationship with Him. Then I began to contemplate the many times Jesus saved me from the brink of death – cord coiled in my mother’s womb, almost hit by a truck, could have been barbequed by electricity and others. These made me realize how much Jesus loves me and how much I need to come closer to Him; He saved my life! And as I studied my Bible and prayed more to Jesus, developing a relationship with Him, I saw more of my weaknesses, and saw that I needed Him more. Then I fully gave my life to Him.

“After giving my life to Jesus, I could describe it as like gold. I have peace, I have joy, I have contentment, that I never found until I gave my life to Jesus. But while this was like gold, this gold is still on the process of purifying. Of course there are a lot of problems, sometimes big sometimes small, but it never outgrows the peace that I have in Jesus. My life of ease is gone, but along with it, is my lack. Someone filled up all my longings, and gave me peace and joy that cannot be lost even amid problems and trials. I have a hard time describing how it is such a blessing to experience giving up my life to Jesus. You need to experience it yourself to understand what I am saying!”

Yes, friends, meeting Jesus is the best thing you could ever do! Keep reading for another inspiring testimony!

“I grew up with a devoted mother and non-Adventist father. I went to church not really knowing the reason why I worship God. I’m very shy especially when I’m exposed to people. For so many times I kept thinking the reason of my existence was because I didn’t understand the meaning of my life. And sad to say, I come to church very seldom and had no more interest of spiritual things. For some years in my life, I felt so empty and attain no real joy. I went astray to God yet I still felt His guiding Spirit.

“One day, my sister asked me a question that leads me to answer her directly. Do you still have a plan to come to Jesus? Would you like to come with me to church? The Lord touched my heart and He used someone as an instrument to me to come back to Him. I answer, “yes” and it’s actually what my heart had desired for so long. Jesus found me and led me back to Him at the time that my spirit was so down. I felt unworthy for Him but His love for me is truly great!

“As I contemplate God’s leading, I’m amazed how He prepared the roads I never expected to tread. Amazingly He opened the way for me to be part of His mission. His first calling was for me to experience “literature ministry.” When I was in high school, He also allowed me to serve Him through 1000 Missionary Ministry. Missionary endeavor has never been easy but I’ve learned that true service is not all about us, nor the people alone but it’s all about Jesus. God blessed me so much but most especially, I am grateful for the opportunity of being a laborer with Him. He also heard my prayers and it’s a joy to see people accepting Jesus, especially seeing my father and being with him in the church. Indeed I humbly praise Him for what He has done in my life!”

We have to meet Jesus ourselves before we can lead others to Him!

Finding the joys of Bible studies!

Have you experienced the joy that is found in giving Bible studies and sharing God’s Word to others? If not, we highly recommend you try it! Here at PAFCOE, our students have just gotten a “taste” of this joy! As Ellen White says, “It is a joyous work to open the Scriptures to others.”  -- Testimonies, Vol. 9, p. 118.

Keep reading for some of their inspiring experiences!

One student said, “The most inspiring experience I had was during the time I was talking to one of our Bible interests. She is an old lady, in her 70s and still working by selling candies and newspapers. She opened up to me and told me how difficult her life was and how much she desires to study the Bible but that she can’t see clearly anymore. While I was talking to her, it reminded me that I still have lots of work to do in bringing souls to Jesus. It inspired me to use all my strength for the service of the Lord. Many people are just around us, only waiting for people to tell them about Jesus! Then I realized that I should be an instrument of God to do that important work!”

Sometimes Bible studies are given in unique places! But it’s always where the people are as one student commented:

“I was so inspired so much because of our experience this week! There was an old man working at the side of the street planting grass. During the time we met him, he was digging a hole about 4 feet deep. He invited us to do our Bible study with him in that hole! So we did! We sat together with him in the hole and opened our Bibles to begin the study. Imagine how the people around us reacted when they saw us opening our Bibles to an old man in a hole!”

Yes, that was a unique place to have a Bible study, but it worked and God blessed! Another student said,

“This week, we were able to meet a beautiful young lady on the road. She happened to stop and ask us if we can guide her to the street she was looking for. My partner gave her more than she was asking for – she surveyed her and I didn’t expect she would be so friendly and eager to have a Bible study! I saw God’s great love for us all. He loves even the very ones who seem to be so engrossed by the world. I praise God for seeing His great love today that even this lady was interested in learning more!

Then she added, “I’ve learned many lessons this week. There was a person whom we approached for the survey, but we did it in a hurry and didn’t even offer a prayer for him because he was a hurry himself. Suddenly we noticed that we had neglected to survey the hurried man’s companion! The man’s companion approached us and asked us what we were doing. I was so sorry to God that we had not noticed him earlier because he was so eager to know the truth and accepted for a sit-down Bible study which will be given to our male classmates. I learned that I must regard each person as a precious soul and never withhold the truth from anyone.

It’s so easy to study with kids! Here are two experiences the students had with kids:

“My partner and I happened to have this wonderful opportunity to gather the kids from a slum area around us and teach them Scripture songs and tell them Bible stories and how to pray. Through their smiles and eagerness to learn, I saw Christ’s wellspring of love. He revealed to me His great love for me through telling me to be like the children – willing to be taught and happy to learn new things!”

The other one said, “When the children learned that we know how to teach Bible stories, they asked us for more stories when we come back to visit them. Then I asked them if they know who Jesus is and all of them said they didn’t know what we are talking about! I almost cried because they want to know more about Jesus. I love children!”

Yes, friends, working for souls is a “joyous work”! Try it yourself and just watch how you will be blessed!

Missing Jesus

Have you ever thought you might be missing Jesus – even if you are working for Him or serving Him as a missionary? Think again! This is the story of one of our current students:

“Years ago, even though I grew up in a Christian home, I still have this emptiness within me. I tried to fill this emptiness by joining dance competitions and other things that pleased me – all the pleasures of this world. I thought those were the answers but then God called me to join a group of young people who wanted to share God’s love to those around them. I read the book Steps to Christ, by my favorite author and decided to become a missionary.

“Though I was a missionary and knew many things about God, there was one thing I missed. I missed Jesus! I knew that Jesus is the Son of God but knowing Jesus is different from trusting fully in Him. God brought me to another place and used a Christian Doctor to introduce Jesus to me. I learned how to trust God and surrender to Him. His sacrifice for me and His power to help me overcome sin was so amazing!

“By accepting Christ as my personal Savior, my life is not easy. I have trials as others are experiencing, too. But I thank God that we have Jesus to tell our sorrows to and unload our heavy burdens on. I’m now a missionary, a fulfilled missionary, with the love of Jesus and the assurance of eternal life; not by what I’ve done, but what He has done to me and through me. I’m now enjoying my time with Jesus by communing with Him and reading His Word! God is so good!”

Yes, we can be so busy sometimes with our work (even if it’s God’s work), that we can miss Jesus. Let’s purpose to always spend the time we need each day to make Jesus our truly “best” friend!

PAFCOE Batch 5 has begun!

You might have been wondering why nothing has been posted for quite awhile on the blog. Life has been very busy lately at PAFCOE since batch/session 5 has just begun on January 9. We praise God for the 48 students He has sent us from all over the Philippines and even one from Europe!

Every night of the first week, Dad (the PAFCOE director) presented topics about what will happen at end-time based out of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy. Everyone was inspired and challenged to be ready for Jesus’ soon coming!

Outreach has already begun, too! And the stories from their experiences are already flowing in!

  

One student said, “I remembered when Jesus was still here on earth He met different people and He always had compassion towards them. He always had a burden in his heart to reach every individual He met. While we are walking on outreach, I remembered myself as I was before – hopeless. I saw that these people are also hopeless and the Lord reminded me that He died not only for me, but for every one of them, too. I felt like I’m not worthy to minister to others, but God gave me the courage to do it! I learned that in my own strength, I can’t do anything, I can’t speak the right words, I can’t do the right actions and I can’t think right unless I am connected with the source of all power. We need more prayer that through this we will have strength and power.”

Another student added his thoughts:

“Before the outreach, I prayed that we would have a good experience on outreach. Then we started our surveys. The first person we met rejected it without even listening to what we had to say! So we went to another house and the people inside wouldn’t answer. I was somewhat discouraged. I felt like skipping a house thinking, ‘They won’t answer,’ but we went anyways and someone answered! And the person accepted Bible studies! We went to another house and she also accepted! I then remembered that God in His infinite love wanted me to feel the joys of soul-winning!”

Of course, doing outreach isn’t always easy, but here is one student’s experience:

“While we were walking to our outreach territory, I began very tired because it’s so far away from our classroom. Then I remembered the time when Jesus was carrying a heavy cross just for us and I prayed that He would give me strength to keep going and He did!”

Getting lost is another challenge, especially when the students are not from the area (many came from other parts of the Philippines). This is the story of one team of students:

“I was very inspired when a Grandma received our survey and allowed us to ask her the questions. Since it was getting late, we decided to go back. But as we looked at one another, we realized that we were lost! Neither of us knew how to get back! We laughed together and started to walk and prayed we would find the way. Praise God, He answered our prayer and brought us back home!”

Another one said, “We got lost this week in our outreach. I was so inspired by my partner and the other team that even though we walked a long ways to reach home, still they didn’t complain! I saw that their faces are still happy and they were singing. We encouraged each other not to dismayed but have faith that God will help us and He did!”

And still another student commented on getting lost. She said:

“We got a little bit lost this time doing outreach. As we were trying to see where we were on the map and find our territory, this lady and her husband asked us where we were going. We explained what we were doing and the nice lady pointed out the directions for how to get to the streets on our map. Her husband was sick and they had just come home from a check-up. She even showed us which house they live in. Since we were still deciding where to start, we told her we would be visiting her house soon. I was so amazed at her kindness to us strangers! I know it was a divine appointment and I pray we will be able to do a Bible study in their home.”

Prayer is the key to reaching hearts as one student found out:

“When I approached a lady to do the survey with, she asked me lots of questions that I could hardly answer. As I offered to do the survey with her, she told me ‘no’ three times and that she has no time. I just prayed in my mind that she would be willing to do the survey and suddenly she started answering my questions! She even took one of our Bible study guides and we ended our conversation with prayer! Glory be to God!”

Another student said this: “I learned that if I love God and trust Him, He can change me! He can replace my feelings of fear to a love for souls. I realized that we should not have self-confidence and that we need to be prepared for soul-winning. It is through surrendering myself to God that will make me be a successful soul-winner.”

God really has His people who are searching for the truth as one student found out!  “I feel so blessed when we met one of our interests! He is a Roman Catholic and was so eager to share God’s Word and told us that he doesn’t bow down to any saints or pray to them. He always believed in Revelation and always read the Bible. I felt so inspired because he was so eager to learn more about God and is searching the Bible for its truths!”

And one more from our lady Doctor who is a student, too. She said, “The most important experience I had this week was to depend solely on God and to take away all the pride in my heart. As I was knocking on doors during outreach, Satan was trying to tell me that I was wasting my time there – that as a physician, I could do more things to help people than just knocking on doors and doing surveys. As my partner and I prayed, the Holy Spirit reminded me that my heart was still sinful. I felt bad to be thinking those thoughts even for a short time. I surrendered my pride and focused on Jesus.”

Continuing on, she said, “I had a memorable experience with a helper (similar to a maid/servant) that we surveyed. I remember her eagerness to know Jesus more through the Bible and of course, she accepted Bible studies. Her curiosity to know more about God was like that of a child’s and she was very humble and willing to be taught. It inspired me to have a child-like spirit like she had!”

Yes, friends, our students are finding people who are interested in learning more about Jesus and His truths! Keep checking for more stories about what God is doing through them here at PAFCOE!

Amazing Facts goes back to Africa!

On January 19, our two missionaries from PAFCOE flew out from Manila bound for Africa and their mission awaiting them there!

The group who sent them to the airport. The girl going to Africa are the ones who have the backpacks on at the center to the left of Mom and I. It was a very windy day - hence the wild hair and wind-blown skirts!

After the time they spend in Africa last year, God opened the door for them to return and work for a longer time in Kenya and other parts of the East Central Africa Division. Sha and Maya are so excited to see what God will do through them during their time as missionaries!

It was so amazing what God did to help them through immigration! Sha described it like this:

"It's Tuesday, January 14, I and my partner, Mayvilyn Ramos, have only 3 days left to process our Adventist Volunteer Services requirements before flying to Africa. Another challenge is the Passport for Mission Course which we needed to answer and it's really impossible to finish it because we don't have enough time. And we're wondering if we could fly as scheduled on January 19. "God, help us and let Your will be done" is our prayer and we started processing our requirements. Indeed, God heard! We finished the online application. Friday came, we were told that we can fly without the service request from East Central African Division (ECD) and we would not encounter problems about it in the airport.

This is like the story of Moses! We are like the Israelites, Moses as their leader and ours is God! Moses was pleading before Pharaoh to let the Israelites go and we are pleading before God to let us go! When they reached the Red Sea, escape seems impossible! Behind them are the cruel Egyptians and infront of them was a vast body of water. But a miracle still lies ahead for the ultimate deliverance!

It was a lesson learned from the past that we needed to have all the documents in our hands to be presented to the immigration before going to the Airport. Behind us is the cruel enemy working as he tried everything he can to make it difficult for us to process the requirements; and infront of us is a vast wall - the immigration!"

 

To read the rest of the story, visit her blog and see what God did for them!

We invite you to pray for our missionaries there (Sha and Maya) that God will bless their efforts there and help to win many souls for His kingdom. Follow on her blog to see what's happening there.

Winning your family to the Lord! (OJT Report, part 7)

I’m sure you will be inspired as you read what God has done in the life of Jhamil, a student from last session of PAFCOE!

Jhamil

Jhamil great up in a very noisy and as he called it “disgusting” place in Cagayan De Oro [a city in southern Philippines]. In that area, very few people knew about God and their main priority in life is to get money. Since he came from a very poor family, he lived in a house with only curtains for the walls.

Jhamil’s mother became very angry with him because every time he got money, he would drink and do drugs. He decided to resign from his job because he was very thin and had become an addict. Then his uncle called his mother and asked if he could take Jhamil to Cebu with him and send him to college.

Because Jhamil really loved studying, he happily agreed. However when he got to Cebu, he found out that his uncle couldn’t send him to school anymore because his wife had had a major operation and now had no money to support him. So what would he do?

During that time, some of his relatives who were already Adventists introduced him to a layman to take Bible studies from. Jhamil was very happy to receive Bible studies because he didn’t have to work during the study! So he made the Bible study very long and asked lots of questions, but finally he was convicted to be baptized into God’s remnant church. On April 20, 2012, Jhamil was baptized!

He said, “I heard about PAFCOE from one of the youth in our church who was a PAFCOE graduate. She told me all about it and encouraged me to enroll so I could learn more about evangelism and how to conduct my own seminar. I was really interested and wanted to attend! I prayed to God to help me find someone who can sponsor my tuition. Someone told me to find a sponsor from the internet, but I didn’t know how to use the internet! So I wrote a simple letter, even though it seemed old-fashioned.”

That’s just what Jhamil did! He wrote a short letter to our family, telling us of his desire to be a student at PAFCOE but that he had no money for the tuition. Of course, he didn’t know our US address (or even where we were), so he gave the letter to a friend who was going to Loma Linda and told him to mail it to Amazing Facts. The friend did just that and eventually the letter reached us while we were having vacation in the US between sessions. How did his letter just “happen” to reach us while we were in the US?

He said, “I prayed for God to do something through my letter and I believed that God would give me the chance to attend PAFCOE. All I did was to write the letter and believe that God would hear my prayer.”

When we received his letter, we were so touched by his sincerity and determination to come to PAFCOE! But how were we to contact him? We didn’t have his address or any way to contact him, but we wanted him to come! God would provide his sponsorship!

So Mom wrote to a friend in the Philippines and told her about Jhamil and his letter to us. Mom’s friend had a friend from Cebu who just “happened” to know Jhamil and was able to give him our message to come by faith and God would provide for him. Jhamil said, “I am so very thankful to God that He heard my prayers! The one who mailed my letter in the US also gave me money to get to Manila and all things work together for good! Everything I had from the start until the end of PAFCOE is provided by God!”

So he came and God provided him a sponsor and all his needs, just as He promised! When it came time for the students to decide where they wanted to go for their OJT, Jhamil wanted to do his seminar in Cebu. He tried working something out there, but nothing came of it. So he finally concluded to go back to his home town of Cagayan and hold his seminar there. He saw God’s providence when the super-typhoon came through and the church he was hoping to do his seminar in lost its roof. So holding a seminar there would have been really tough! God knew all along!

Speaking of his first week after arriving at OJT, he said, “I was so overwhelmed with everything because I expected that I will be using my friend’s projector and laptop. But when someone went to bring it for me, there was some problem and he couldn’t get it! So I prayed and pleaded with God to provide me something to use – especially since I didn’t have a laptop or a projector! Because the typhoon was coming and because I didn’t have my equipment, I couldn’t start the opening night.”

He continued, “But God is so good! I really felt at that time that He loved me so much because someone provided me all the things I need and I could start the next night! I really enjoyed preaching the word of God! One inspiring experience I had this week was when I saw my parents and brother attending the meetings! [His family was not Adventists.]  They enjoyed attending every night and this is a huge answered prayer for me! When I made an appeal the first week, my father responded because he had been so touched by the message. When I saw it, my tears began to fall but I held them back and finished the meeting with prayer.”

God was using Jhamil to bring his family to the Lord! The next week he said: “God really gave me good weather this week! Also He helped us have power, even when other nearby areas had none. I always brought my scripts with me, just in case the power went out and I didn’t have a laptop and notes to use. Praise God for all His goodness to me! Even this week, I still see my family continuing to attend the meetings! Not because of me, but because of the message of God’s word. When I started visiting my interests, I was asked many hard questions, but God always helped me with knowing what to say to them. I know God guided me!”

But God brought even more happiness to Jhamil’s heart the following week! He said, “The most inspiring experience I had this week was when my parents decided to be baptized after I preached on the topic of baptism. I was so inspired with that, and so I studied my next sermons even harder and never got discouraged even though I had only 14 guests every night. I really enjoy preaching and I think this is my God-given talent and I want to do more evangelistic meetings using the materials I have now.”

But during the last week was when he was so happy! Speaking of it, he said, “I was so happy to witness the baptism of my parents! I never thought it would be like this, but God’s love reached their hearts and minds and eventually they decided to give their lives to Jesus!”

When he gave his report back at PAFCOE, he said, “My beloved classmates, I urge you to reach your family for Jesus, because I already reached mine! My favorite topic was Pilate; I preached it for 2 hours! Actually, even though my presentations were very long, the listeners love to attend because the message is very clear. One time, I called my audience forward for an appeal for those who wanted to get baptized. I closed my eyes and prayed and when I opened my eyes, I saw my family in the front! I asked them if they wanted to get baptized just because of me. They said that they wanted to follow Jesus.”

Friends, take Jhamil’s challenge to you – reach your family for Jesus! You can have the joy of seeing your family come into the kingdom because of your efforts!

Reaching your family for Christ! (OJT Report, part 6)

Kevin's family

The desire of Kevin, our outreach coordinator was to conduct an evangelistic meeting in his home town on the island of Cebu.   Why? Because he wanted his family to hear all the truths of God’s word (his parents were just nominal SDAs).  But he especially hoped his younger brother would surrender his heart fully to Jesus through baptism. Through some miraculous circumstances, God arranged so Kevin could do his OJT in his hometown. The following story is what God did to help him fulfil one of his dreams.

Before the last session had started, Kevin had already made contact with one of the district pastors in the southern part of the city for the possibility of holding a seminar in one of his churches. The Pastor referred Kevin to one of his churches for an option.

Kevin became so excited about the possibility of holding his evangelistic seminar in Cebu at last! Soon, he came to PAFCOE to continue being the outreach coordinator and because he could not be in Cebu, he asked a friend to serve as his representative and attend the prospective church’s board meeting.

But during the board meeting, the usual common excuses for not holding a seminar in a church came up – “this meeting is too long”; “we don’t have the needed funds,”  and many other reasons. Kevin was disappointed to hear this, but as the outreach coordinator, he understand that actually this was nothing new.

Speaking of the situation, he said, “I recalled the academy where I graduated and immediately made contact with the church pastor and the principal. The pastor was very excited and the principal said he would forward the letter I sent him to the church board. I kept on praying for the meeting to be approved. However, 6 weeks before OJT, I got the response. The board said that the meeting will be too long, and that they don’t have enough time to prepare for the meeting because the teachers will be going on a tour. I was so disappointed. I thought, ‘How can God help me and the staff decide where to send our students for OJT when I can’t even get my own site confirmed? It seems as if He does not care. I have only 2 weeks before we have to print the flyers and tarpaulins/banners.’

“I was so disappointed! Because of some last minute changes on some student’s OJT sites and the resulting headaches, I decided to let Pastor Lowell choose where I would go. After considering the options, he decided to send me to Cavite.” Remember Cavite and Erme Jun? Keep that mind as we’ll come back to that in just a minute.

Back to Kevin: “When I heard Pastor Lowell’s decision, I accepted it as he had been so patient with me already. Soon after as I was allowing one of our students from Cebu recheck the site details before sending it to the printing press the following week, I told her  that I was glad she would be preaching in Camotes Island (a part of the Cebu) and that maybe it was not yet my time to preach in Cebu City. Then suddenly, she told me that she knew someone who might be able to help me! I got the number and gave him a call.

“The person on the phone sounded very positive and said he would present it to the church board. This was just 4 weeks before OJT and at the back of my mind was this, “What church in Cebu City would accept to hold a 4 week evangelistic series on a very short notice and with very little preparation time?” I actually just wanted to hear another church say “no” just to confirm in my mind that Cebu is not for me.  And a miracle took place!

“The church agreed! They told me that they need a seminar like this and they already have some money for evangelism! The youth were willing to help out for assistance and this church was only 5 minutes walk away from my family’s house!”

But what about his schedule for Cavite? God had other plans!

Kevin said, “Hesitating, I humbly approached Pastor Lowell to tell him that I had just found a church that was very willing to hold an evangelistic series in Cebu. I asked him to decide for me what to do because I knew it would hard to find a replacement for me to go to Cavite since this was last minute already. Plus I knew that several of the other site speakers would have to change if I could not go to Cavite. So I told him that I was happy to go to either Cavite or Cebu. I would accept wherever he would decide.”

Just that day, Pastor Lowell called up Erme Jun to see if he would be available. Click here for more about that amazing story of how God worked it out for Erme Jun to come! Because his previously scheduled seminar in Estancia, Iloilo had just been cancelled, Erme Jun agreed. So Pastor Lowell told Kevin that he was free to go to Cebu!  Speaking of it, Kevin said, “It was just a great miracle! I got my new OJT details sent to the printing press just in time!” God knew all about it and worked everything out!

Since his site was located in Cebu (in central Philippines), it was also affected by the super-typhoon who came through on November 8, 2013. Despite the storm, everyone was safe and the church where they were to hold the seminar was not damaged. Because of a city-wide blackout, the first night was postponed until the following day.

On Sabbath morning, the optimistic church decided even though there was still no electricity, they would start the seminar that night. Kevin said, “God allowed His message to be heard, even though the devil did his utmost best to hinder the work.”

So that’s just what they did!  Though there was no electricity, Kevin preached about Daniel 2 and Jesus is coming soon! All he had to use was a white board, a marker, a candle, two not-so-bright emergency lights and a handheld flashlight.

Describing the situation, he remarked: “It was really tough! [Remember, there was no power, so a projector could not be used.] I needed to draw the image of Daniel 2 and include all the necessary details for the people to understand. I had never done this (drawing) before, but I believe it served its purpose.”

You can’t let the devil win! If there’s no power for a projector, use a whiteboard and illustrate the sermon that way! It works!

He continued, “With the absence of electricity, I needed to amplify my voice naturally. I really don’t know what happened, but I was able to hear myself as well as if I was using a complete sound system! But what I really praise God the most for is that after each meeting, I did not even feel like getting a sore throat or like losing my voice! God will always prevail no matter what the situation may be! I have learned that if God wants it to happen, He will make it happen!”

Though there was no power, still the people came to hear the word of God! After 2 nights in the dark, the electricity was restored, making it much easier to preach God’s truths. Also more and more church members began attending, along with the regular visitors. Many of the attendees were older people and as Kevin put it, “It was such a joy to see those quivering aged lips whisper praises to the Lord after each meeting and nothing could compare with the shake of those wrinkled hands.”

But what brought Kevin the most joy was to see his dream fulfilled of seeing his whole family attend the seminar each night! Speaking of his family, he said, “The nightly attendance of my whole family gives me so much joy! It has always been my dream that my family would be able to hear all the truths that I know and God made a way for that! My younger brother (age 13) comes home early after school each day and listens attentively night after night. I praise God exceedingly to see the messages of the Bible being retained in his young mind! Also my mother was so excited about the seminar that she invited other relatives to come, too and they did!

Every night, he continued preaching and during the 3^rd week on the topic of the true church, he shared an inspiring experience:

“During the altar call I made last Friday, I was so inspired to see my brother coming down to the front [to show his desire to be baptized into God’s true church].  Some of the people I least expected also came forward. Old and young responded to God’s call and I am so inspired in thinking of how the Holy Spirit can speak through me, despite my weaknesses and faults. Also I was so inspired because I heard my mother tell others that she will now follow God’s principles and not eat the things God forbids. These words coming from my mother are truly a miracle! Praise the Lord!”

God can use the life that we live for Him to be a testimony to others for what He can do through them, too. Kevin said, “One of my high-school classmates came to the meeting during the last Sabbath I was there and I recognized her. When I got up to preach the last message, her eyes grew big in shock as she stared at me. She had not recognized me until the church elder leaned over and told her who I was. After my sermon, the elder’s son (also one of my classmates before) and the other lady came up to me and recalled all the stories and experiences of how different I was before during those days. I shared with them how God led me to a new life despite all the things I did before.”

Through the preaching God’s word, that church was revived. Kevin was filled with joy to hear and feel the thankfulness of the church for the preaching of the Bible that led them into so many truths they had never clearly understand or even known before.

But the greatest experience that took place during Kevin’s seminar is best described in his own words:

 

“No other thing can fill my heart with joy than to see my younger brother with his heart full of love for Jesus being baptized! He had made his decision after hearing all the messages God intended him to learn by using me – his brother! Oh, how glorious it was to see my brother leave his old life behind and live in the newness of life with Jesus! Though my brother was only 13, he had faithfully attended every night and sat on the front row with a heart full of interest in the presentation. Every time I made an appeal, my heart thrilled to see him raise his hand in response.

“After his baptism, I greeted my brother with a huge hug, tears wetting my eyes. My mission for coming to Cebu was fulfilled! My whole family heard God’s Word and others were also baptized with my brother to show their love for Jesus. It had been my constant prayer for my family to hear the all great truths of the Bible. I learned that God truly answers prayers!

He added: “Your family is a very workable field for you to labor in. Seek to reach them for Christ before it is too late. Pray earnestly and God will help you find ways to bring them to Him.”

There were so many blessings that came as a result of Kevin’s seminar! The church was greatly revived, the conference learned more about PAFCOE, his family heard the whole message, his brother was baptized and he was given an opportunity to share more to that church and even to the surrounding churches.

So just a few weeks ago, Kevin was the speaker for a 10 hour Equipping Seminar for the Cebu City Association of Churches with an average of 70 people attending each day from the nearby churches and some from even distant ones. He said, “It is my desire that the little flame kindled in that little church would blaze higher and higher and light all other SDA Churches in the City on fire to work for the Lord. In the seminar, I taught the people how to study the Bible and follow the Spirit of Prophecy, how to make a sermon and how to preach, and how to give a Bible study. The attendees were so thankful for all that they have learned and are very excited to start sharing God’s word. Now there is an army of people equipped and ready to share God’s word in Cebu. Now, I can do my work in Manila with peace of mind knowing that seeds have been planted and the work of the gospel can go forward even faster in my hometown. Praises and Glory be to God Almighty!”

What a joy to have God answer your prayer and dream to be the instrument God will use to bring your family to Jesus! Never think that it’s hopeless to work for your family. God might want to use you – yes, you to reach them for Him!  If you have family members who are not in God’s true church and you are, pray and ask God what you can do to work for them. He just might answer your prayer by using you!

More stories are coming soon!