PHILIPPINE UPDATE – JUNE 22, 2012

Greetings to you all in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thank you for your continued support for the Advent Christian work in the Philippines.

This “update will be in three parts, the usual brief reports from some of the pastors, a report from Dr Nely Gamayon and one from Bishop Efren Miranda.

Reports from Pastors

Pastor Reniel Comajeg writes;

“It is with great joy that I report to you that the Macajalar Bay District Summer Youth Camp held at Barangay Tignapoloan, Cagayan de Oro City was very successful. The Youth Camp was well participated by the member churches of the Macajalar Bay District. We were only expecting 50 campers but the Lord has given us 71 + 19 staff, pastors and leaders. We were also able to have the people in the community joined us in our evening rally and the last day activity including the Barangay Captain of the area and its Council. All in all the average number of people in our evening service was about 125-130.
After the first evening rally, I was given a letter by one of our church members in the area saying that she was just told to give the letter to me. The letter was all in Cebuano; however, I like to share it to you. The letter mentioned how blessed he/she is even if he/she is not a born again Christian. The letter mentioned also that he/she now has a clear understanding of what it means to become born again although he/she had not mentioned that he/she accepted Christ as personal Lord and Savior that night. He/she also thanked us for holding the camp in their Barangay as he/she is sure that he/she is not the only one blessed with the activity but many others also. He/she also said in the letter that he/she could not give anything (finances/ vegetables/ fruits) in return as a way of saying thank you to the camp staff as he/she is limited in his/her budget but I think his/her response to the Gospel message is far more important than any material stuff.

Thank you all for your prayers and let us together thank the Lord for the success of the camp and let us pray that the seed that was planted on the lives of the people that heard the Gospel message will grow.

I am now doing planning and organizing for the BPACCI national youth camp for April of next year.

Blessings,  Reniel.”

Photos above : On the left “Camp Community Service ” and on the right  “Installation of newly appointed Youth Officers ”

Photos below : On the left “Camp Leaders” and on the right “Campers”

Pastor Benjie Ragas also wrote about the camp;

“The camp was succesfully headed. We have 79 delegates not including the staff. The camp bring changes the life of our young people especially in seeing Christ-likeness in their lives. The camp also made a great impact especially to the different churches in building a unity to one another most particularly the fellowship. As of now we are looking forward our upcoming youth monthly fellowship at Sta Ana, Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental. The new elected youth officers has already done their meetings. This coming Saturday we will elect our new president of our district. Please do pray for the following items; 1. The new elected youth officers will be guided by the vision of our conference. 2. We will choose the new president in our district. 3. Our upcoming youth fellowship at Sta Ana. 4. Our church plan for baptism of 3 souls.

Once again thank you for your unfailing support…

Yours in Christ,  Benjie”

I said in the last “Update” that I was able to spend a few hours with Pastor Roy Rocha at the airport on my way to Cagayan De Oro. I was also able to spend four hours with him on my way home. This time it was at “The Mall of Asia” again between flights.  Pastor Roy writes;

“Hi Friends,

I thank God for all your prayers. Your prayers really made the difference in my family and ministry. There are lots of things that we thank God for but we could not mention all, but one thing for sure, it all happened because of the prevent prayers of the saints like you.

I praise God for the opportunity to mentor student form Oro Bible College. He is going to be with me for around for four months and half as an intern. Richard Pelin, who was my intern last year, is now with me as my assistant Pastor. I am excited to what God will be doing here in our ministry.

A sad experience: at around 2 am. of June 12 this year there was heavy rain and all of us were in deep sleep. We did not hear anything that a robber broke into our house and ran away with 2 cellphones and a bag. We were sad but most of all thankful t our God that we were safe. Many stories of robbery here that ended up killing all the residents. God’s protection was upon us. Thank you for praying for us!

Please pray keep us in your prayers. May the hand of our mighty God will continue to cover us from harm.

Please pray that our ministry will flourish now that Richard is with me. We are praying to harvest more souls this year.

In Christ,   Roy

From Banilad, Cebu, Pastor Jonathan  Navacilla writes

“Thank you partners for all your prayer support! We just had our youth retreat last month, and it was an amazing time for our young people to spend time with God. We had our retreat at one of our churches located in Kawit, Medellin, Cebu, about 4 hours of travel from our place. It was a great time of bonding and refreshment not only to the youth, but also for me.
God is also working mightily in our basketball ministry. We initiated a “Basketball Evangelistic League” which started last month, and at the moment we are in the semifinals. This league has four teams (all unbelievers from the community) led by some leaders in the church. We require the players to attend Bible Studies once a week before they can play. Each team has 15 players. So we have 60 people regularly attending Bible Studies every week. God has been using this ministry to reach out especially young men for His Kingdom. We ask you to pray with us in this ministry, that these contacts will come to know the Lord deeper and be consolidated in the Church. Pray that God will continually provide for the weekly rental of the Basketball court.
It’s an encouragement to know that there are people who are supporting us in prayer! Thank you.”

It was a blessing for me to be able to attend Jonathan and Flor’s wedding on May 17. This was a time of rejoicing and witness to the goodness of God.
Again I thank you all for your faithfulness in prayer and giving to the Philippine work.   I trust that you will continue to know God’s hand on you as you serve Him day by day.

Yours in the Master’s service

Grant Aldridge