Churchs of Jesus Chirst Initao
Friday, October 23, 2009
This is the Jesus Chirst Free church in Initao pastored by Pastor Delano.
Pastor Delano
Don Arco Beach
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
After ministering in the two churches in the town of Initao, our party traveled to the beach to "take lunch."
This was certainly a beautiful place to have a quick lunch before we went to minister in the two mountain house churches, of Pastors Saluna and Jalagat.
Lake Apo
Pastor Jonald Magto and Pastor Jered Ramada
This picture was taken on beautiful lake Apo, "Apo" means elder or grandparent. This lake is a "rift lake" formed by plate subsidence related to movement along earthquake fault lines and is about 26 meters deep. There was a little hut that was built on the water. We sat on the hut and had a relaxing afternoon, eating maurung, before visting the famiiles that make up an outreach church in this mountain area.
Pray in the name of Jesus Christ
Monday, October 12, 2009
When I was in Valencia I taught a leadership conference. There were 29 leaders who attended.
I taught them the basic doctrine of one-God and that his name is Jesus Christ. I taught that prayer, baptism, and salvation is in the name of Jesus Christ. That was on a Monday, on Thursday this pastor went to lake Apo with me. He told me that I had "changed his life." That he knew that he had to add the "anointing" (Christ) to his prayers. He said is was going to always pray in the name of Jesus Christ!
Pastor Teresito Tupaz 
This is Will.
He was a confirmation for me. I divided my 20 days in the Philippines between Iligan and Valencia. I was in both places for about a week, not counting travel days. I first had planned to leave the country from Valencia. But after spending a week there, I felt that I should cancel my final speaking engagement at the church of Pastor Benito and return to Iligan. Several factors made up this decision...but it was personally hard for me to cancel a meeting so I struggled with the decision. This was the first time I was traveling "on my own" without and escort. When I got on the bus to travel to Iligan, this young man sat next to me and began to ask me who I was...they all understand the word "missionary" so I told him I was a missionary. He asked me what church and I told him "non-denominational but Christian." I said we believe in Jesus Christ and I preach "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever." He said, "Oh so you are Apostolic, so am I." I knew he was not talking of an "apostolic denomination" like we have in America, but that he believed in Ac 2:38baptism. We talked for about an hour about the oneness of God and the "truth."
Of all the thousands of people I could have sat by on this journey...God allowed a fellow brother and believer in Jesus Christ to sit next to me.
He got off at a stop before I did and left me with the words, "see you in the Kingdom my friend and brother." 
This is Christian.
Pastor Jered took me to a small village in Valencia. We visited the home of Edward Suarez, he owns a field of sugar cane. This picture was taken in his back yard. He had a Rambutan tree and when he found out I liked the taste of Rambutan he wanted to give me some from his tree. The fruit was ripe at the top of the tree but we could not reach it. So Christian was hailed from the street and promised some fruit if he would climb the tree and pick me some ripe fruit.
Rambutan is white, sweet and has the texture of a grape, it is about as big as a large grape. 
This is how the following website describes Rambutan,
http://www.philippines.hvu.nl/fruit3.htm
"Rambutan fruit has a thick skin that is covered with fine, short hairs. It's a small fruit, not bigger than the size of a hen's egg. Inside is a small seed covered with half transparent flesh. The color of rambutan is red or yellow. The fruit has a soft sweet taste. The name "rambutan" comes from the Malay world "rambut", which means 'hair'. There is a great demand for this fruit. This resulted in the establishment of many plantations, among others on the islands of Mindanao, Panay, southern Luzon (region Batangas) and Mindoro."
Nilson
Friday, October 9, 2009
This is Nilson. He was a good friend to me when I was in Valencia. He is an English major in college and has just finished his final exams. He helped translate to me what people were saying and he knew English word origins. I told him he should teach me English! We discussed regional english and regional expressions. I tried to explain to him about the south and our drawwwwwlll. I don't know if I got "ya all" over to him.
We had a lot of fun talking about such phrases.
Nilson has studied leading in worship and the whole team in Valencia is held together by him.
His life consists of school and church. He goes to the church every Saturday and practices with the band. Then all day in Sunday worship. Whenever I asked about where Nilson lives I was always told, "it is very far." ?? So considering how the Philippino must travel I know it is a great sacrifice for him to get to the church both Saturday and Sunday.
Most memorable thing about him was the Sunday that I preached "Jesus Christ" as the salvation name. Nilson got up and was leading in worship as I was praying for the people and he started singing, "I belong to Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ is my God...Jesus Christ is my Saviour." He received a seed of the word of the gospel of "Jesus Christ" and that was worth all to make my journey to Valencia.
Pray for Nilson as he seeks God's will for his life. 
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