How We Ended Up Serving a Church in the Philippines
Above, church goers in the Philippines display Bibles they received from Abundant Grace
As a pastor, I get lots of emails from pastors and ministries overseas asking for money or help, and I assume they are scams so I delete them. However, an email back in late 2019 caught my eye as the pastor had simply asked for commentaries, Bible dictionaries and concordances. I had extras of all of these in my office, which I never used. We corresponded, and our church shipped a big box of study materials to the city of Cagayan do Oro on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
A New Friendship
The pastor, Rebecco Regino, emailed me pictures of him and his wife proudly displaying all of the books we had sent them. He enthusiastically said they wanted to become “Abundant Grace Church” in their city. I had to explain that we didn’t do things that way in Newfrontiers, but that we could develop relationships and make sure we share the same vision and values.
I was able to find a Newfrontiers church in the north of the country in Quezon City and I connected with a leader named Leo Dequito. He was enthusiastic and said they had a vision to start churches in that part of the nation. Plus he was headed to the area to visit family and said he would try to connect with Rebecco, which he did. He confirmed that Rebecco was a genuine and earnest believer and pastor.
Provision in Times of Trial
Then, the pandemic hit. A friend of mine with a church in the Philippines sent me a heart wrenching story of his wife distributing food to families during the lockdown. She expressed that she was moved to tears because the people had no savings and no way to earn money. She was worried they might starve! This made me concerned about Rebecco’s church, so I emailed him. He said they were in tough straits as they, too, had no savings and were relying on the help from some government and non-profit agencies. He shared that they had 75 families in several congregations in the city, in the villages on the outskirts of the city, plus three outreaches to tribal people in the mountains. Our church sent $1500, which enabled him to buy rice and necessities for all the families. He shared pictures of big 110 pound bags of rice being portioned out to his members.
I got the idea of trying to bless them in a bigger way and asked how much it would cost to get every family a big bag of rice, thinking they might cost $20 a bag. It turns out they cost $55 a bag including renting a truck to move dozens of 110 pound bags–way more than I expected. He added that if we funded basic necessities the total would be $75 per family for a total of $5625. I told him I was not sure we could raise that much, but I shared the vision with our church and we took an offering.
We raised $7700! Praise God–a great amount for a church of 60+ people.
Discipleship 8,000 Miles Away
In addition, Rebecco had started to Zoom into some of our meetings. He asked if I would be willing to teach some of his leaders via Zoom. Our elder team prayed about it and felt it was an open door from the Lord. We helped them purchase a big wall monitor and a year’s worth of good internet service. I started the year teaching the foundational messages that I shared with new members at Abundant Grace at 6:00am on Sunday mornings so they could watch at 6:00pm in the Philippines. I emailed Rebecco notes which he printed out for the messages. Since then I have also been showing them the Alpha course.
Rebecco is a real evangelist and discipler. He uses my notes to teach several Bible studies each week. He travels several hours every week or two to visit the tribal people in the mountains where there are no churches. A number of people have been saved and baptized through his efforts.
Vision Ahead!
About the time all of this came to pass, Sam Poe had a word for me about reaching generations, nations and denominations. We baptized two young adults in the fall of 2020, and I have continued to help organize pastors and churches to pray for awakening in Boston.
All this is God’s doing–I never dreamt of ministering in the Philippines, but the Lord had His own plans!
Dave Hill, Pastor
