Pastor Jamisola’s Testimony
Pastor Alvin and his wife Melchora. His children Eunice, Carlos, and Ashly.
After my conversion, I became active in church ministries. I had the desire in my heart to work in full-time ministry, so after I graduated high school I continued my study at the Evangelical Theological College of the Philippines in Cebu. But sad to say, I was not able to graduate during that time. I was very immature and my life was controlled by feelings and emotions that led me to get married at an early age. I went back to my home town in Surigao and stayed there with my family. But I continued to have a burden in my heart for full-time ministry. So, my wife and I decided to go back to Cebu and continue my studies. I worked as a full-time worker in a secular job to support the needs of my family as I continued my studies in His word. I get so much joy in studying God’s word. During our church plant class at ETCP and even right after I finished the course I said to myself and expressed to God, “Lord! Many people can do my current job as a salesperson, but only a few can commit to church planting work.” Also, God’s word says in Matthew 9:37 “then He said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”. So it is the desire of my heart to be a church planter, this is my commitment to our Sovereign God.
Recent Ministry:
A Joyous Celebration: Water Baptism and Faith Declaration
Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we may also live a new way of life. Romans 6:4
As we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, we also celebrate the public declaration of faith of our beloved brethren who obey the Lord through water baptism. Two of them are my children, Carlos and Eunice. What a great joy for me as a minister to officiate the water baptism of my two children! Before the ceremony, I taught and explained to them baptism’s significance, meaning, and purpose. I was overjoyed by their decision to declare their faith in Jesus publicly. As a father, it is my joy to see them grow in the Lord. Pray they continue to grow in wisdom, knowledge, faith, obedience, and experience with Him.
Blessed by Life: A Journey of Faith and Healing for Ashly Mae
We are so grateful to the Lord for the gift of life to our youngest daughter, Ashly Mae. Despite the health challenges she faces right now, we are so blessed to celebrate her life. As of now, she is in the process of taking medication. The doctor gave her anti-epileptic medicines to control her seizure episodes and vitamins for her brain nerves. We took her to a private hospital for the doctor to perform a CT scan to check the condition of her brain. Praise the Lord, there is no evidence of brain damage, but we are still waiting for her EEG (electroencephalogram) result. She still has mild seizure episodes that last for a minute but, thankfully, are not as bad as last month. My wife and I are so grateful to the Lord for the sustaining grace, strength, and wisdom He has poured into our family through this journey. We are also thankful for everyone who prays for us.
Please continue to pray for the complete healing of my daughter, Ashly. Pray that her body will respond to the medicines she is taking. She is currently taking eight medicines per day, including her two vitamins. Pray for wisdom and strength for my wife and me as we care for her.
Grace Amidst Trials: Resuming Bible Study and Family Ministry
We thank God for his sustaining grace and mercy. After the loaded schedule of going back and forth to the hospital for the check-ups and laboratory tests of our child this month, we can resume our Bible study with the Diaz family. Praise God for their lives and eagerness to study His word. I also thank the Lord for the life of my daughter Eunice and for her being my partner in Bible study. As a father, it is my great joy to train and equip my child to do the ministry. Since my wife has a job and cannot accompany me to Bible study, my son Carlos stays with our youngest as she is on medication. We praised the privilege and great opportunity to serve him by feeding spiritual food to the Diaz family.
Weekly Children Feeding Ministry
We praise God for his sustaining grace; from the time we launched the feeding program until now, God has sustained us and the kids. The kids are excited to join our weekly feeding program, and we praise the Lord for the growth we have witnessed. We are grateful that what they have learned in Sunday school they are applying at home and school. They are now learning to pray, and some will volunteer to lead in prayer and sing and dance to worship Jesus. Our volunteer teacher, Cristy, and my wife made a series of lessons and Bible stories about character foundation. The children are also taught memory verses, and we are amazed that most boys are eager to memorize. Our goal and vision for the kids and youth we minister to is that they will grow in faith and total dependence on the Lord in every aspect of their lives. Our great joy is that these kids will grow in the Lord and become church leaders. Praise the Lord for sustaining this ministry for a year now.
Please pray for our kids’ good health and healing. Some of them are now having coughs, colds, and fevers due to the scorching weather we are currently having here in the Philippines.Pray for wisdom, patience, and strength for our volunteer teachers, Cristy and my wife, as they teach the kids.Pray for financial provision as we plan to buy tables for the kids to be used in their activities and during mealtimes.Pray these kids will grow in love and wisdom in the Lord.
Please help us continue praying that these children we minister to weekly will grow in the love and wisdom of the Lord. Pray that more parents will come to know Jesus through the feeding ministry and the lives of these precious children.
Previous ministry:
Family Health Challenges
Trials and challenges in life and ministry are inevitable, but the Lord our God is our helper, our only Savior, a great Redeemer-King, and a Way-maker. This month of February, we were bombarded with physical and emotional challenges. My father got admitted to the hospital, and we are in a mix of emotions about his condition physically and our status financially, while my brother keeps on calling me to see how we can find a solution to the hospital bill. My wife and I also seek a diagnostic center to check our daughter. In the second week of January, my daughter had a mild seizure every night, and we expected that she was dreaming or hallucinating. But on the second Sunday of this month, while she was sitting in the church chair waiting for us to finish our monthly core group meeting, she hallucinated with a seizure that got our full attention. This is not a dream or hallucination, for she is not asleep. So, the day after that, we brought her to the neurologist to find out her condition, and the presumption of neuro is that she has schistosomiasis. The doctor requested several laboratory tests. My daughter is eleven years old, and if it is possible that she got this kind of disease based on their study, it takes twenty years to feel the effects or experience the effects. The doctor also found an abnormality in her frontal lobe, so he suggested that we get a Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or CT scan to see the condition of her brain. As of now, we are in the process of working out her MRI, and we will do it in a private hospital to get the result fast so as not to prolong the condition of my child.
Please be with us in prayer for strength, wisdom, and financial provision for the ongoing treatment of our child. The Lord our God is our Helper, Savior, Great Redeemer, King, and Way-maker.
Celebrating One Year: Milestones in Our Children’s Feeding Ministry
We praise the Lord for His continuous provision for our children’s feeding ministry, sustaining it week after week. Despite the challenges encountered this month, we are immensely grateful as we celebrate the first anniversary of our ministry. It all began in February last year, and over the past year, we have witnessed remarkable growth and improvement among the children we serve. Physically, we’ve seen them flourish; socially, they’ve engaged in interactive games; mentally, they’ve absorbed integrated lessons; emotionally, they’ve learned to interact; and spiritually, they’ve embraced Bible stories, prayer, and memorized verses each week. We are grateful for the dedicated service of volunteer teacher Cristy and the youth who assist in teaching these children. Many of these children come from families grappling with poverty, often deprived of nourishing meals, as their parents, primarily fishermen, prioritize selling their catch to afford necessities like rice. However, we rejoice in God’s use of this ministry to extend His love and provisions to these children, contributing to the advancement of His kingdom.
Building A Godly Family: Highlights from our Couple’s Night Event
Amid packed schedules and facing various physical and emotional trials, we extend heartfelt gratitude to the Lord for the invaluable contributions of Dr. Jennifer Paño and Pastor Cris Paño as our dynamic speakers during this month’s couple’s dinner date. This gathering has drawn twenty-two couples from diverse areas of our Bible study groups, including some parents of regular church attendees.
Pastor Cris imparted wisdom on cultivating a joyful home environment, while Dr. Jennifer provided insights on effective child discipline techniques. Their expertise and guidance enriched the evening, offering couples practical tools to strengthen their relationships and family dynamics. We are grateful for the message to reach out to every couple present at the event.
Praying to God for this event, we connected with the fathers, for the majority is only the wife attending the Bible study.
Continue to pray that these children we minister to weekly will grow in the love and wisdom of the Lord. Pray that more parents will come to know Jesus through the feeding ministry and the lives of these precious children. Pray for wisdom and strength for my wife and our volunteer teacher, Cristy, our Bible student and a weekender, as they teach these precious kids. Pray for knowledge, wisdom, strength, and God’s provision to sustain our weekly feeding program financially. Please help us pray for strength, guidance, and protection for me and my family as we do the ministry together with our job and study. Pray for complete healing for my daughter, Ashly.
New Year Party and Weekly Children’s Feeding Ministry
We praise the Lord for the overflowing provision with which our feeding ministry continues every week and for His sustaining grace in the lives of these children. We are grateful for the people God uses to bless the children so they can be fed physically with nutritious foods and spiritually through God’s word. We celebrated our New Year’s party with the children, one way of thanking the Lord for His sustaining grace in this feeding ministry. We gave the children fruit and delicious meals, played group games, worshiped God by singing and dancing, and heard God’s word. Some children brought their parents to the celebration program, and we are glad the parents enjoyed themselves with their children. God uses this feeding ministry to be how we can access parents and minister to them.
Bible Study
We praise the Lord for sustaining our church last year and for another year to celebrate and be thankful for God’s faithfulness in the lives of our brothers and sisters here in Calero. During the traditional and cultural celebration of the Sinulog festival here in Cebu, we were affected; our neighbors played loud music and songs about worshiping their idol god. Through this, we are grateful to be still able to continue our Bible study every Sunday afternoon. On our first meeting this year, we thanked the Lord and looked back on His faithfulness and goodness for the past year and how the Lord has sustained each of us and our families.
We are so grateful to the Lord that one of our youth and a volunteer in our children’s feeding ministry, Cony, expressed her desire to study at Bible college. Cony and her sister, Genevev listened to the weekly Bible study I had at their parent’s home. Since then, the girls went to our first Whitefield youth camp, have been active in the church, and are now volunteers teaching the children. Cony asks for prayer for her desire to study in Bible school to become a Christian educator. She and her sister Genevev graduated from grade twelve last school year, but instead of going to college, both needed to get jobs to help with family finances to support their eight younger siblings; Cony is the third. Their father is a laborer in construction work and does not have a permanent income. We are praying as a church about how we can help her in her studies.
Bible Month Celebration
January is National Bible Month here in the Philippines, and as part of celebrating, we had a culmination activity during our children’s Sunday school and feeding. My wife shared the importance of Bible study with the kids, as in 2 Timothy 3:16–17. The children are taught about the authors of the Bible, its books, and how the Bible is used in daily life. It is our prayer to rejoice that these precious little children will know the Lord Jesus Christ, have a personal relationship with Him, and become the leaders and educators of God’s Word in the church. We pray that the Lord will use them mightily to become channels of blessings to their parents and families.
Prayer requests:
Pray that these more than 50 children we minister to weekly will grow in the love and wisdom of the Lord. Pray that parents will come to know Jesus through the feeding ministry and the lives of these precious children. Pray for my wife and for Cristy, a Bible student and weekend volunteer teacher, as they prepare and make curriculum lessons for this year. Pray for knowledge, wisdom, strength, and God’s provision to sustain our weekly feeding program financially. Pray for the spiritual growth and maturity of these young people. Please pray for the celebration of our upcoming third church anniversary this month of February. Pray for provision, wisdom in planning the program, our speaker, and good weather.
We extend our gratitude to God, our Savior and Lord, for abundantly providing for the Calero Church planting work despite our limited resources, recognizing Him as the ultimate source of everything. We joyfully celebrated Children’s Month with 58 active participants in our weekly feeding program. Although we delayed the culmination due to time and budget constraints, we praise God that, despite the challenges, we could still host a delightful celebration for these children. We emphasize their value and preciousness as children by serving their favorite spaghetti and providing fruits. Many of them have faced verbal abuse, child labor, rejection, abandonment, and broken families, depriving them of their rights. Yet, through the Calero Church planting work, we are grateful to God for allowing us to tangibly demonstrate care and love, offering hope and assurance of His love, care, and protection. In doing so, we aim to convey the message of how valuable and precious they are in the eyes of God.
Nurturing Hearts: Empowering Families through Child Protection Education
Recognizing the preciousness of children to God, we emphasize the need to cherish, protect, love, and educate them. During our Children’s Month celebration, we had the privilege of educating both kids and parents on child protection, addressing prevalent issues of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse in our community. Sharing Bible passages highlighting Jesus’ love for children, we aim to instill a sense of care and responsibility. Gratefully, my wife’s role as a child developmental worker equips her with valuable insights on child protection, which she imparts to the community entrusted to us by God. Seeing parents attentively listening and responding to these crucial discussions is heartening. Praise the Lord for this opportunity to impact the lives of both children and parents positively.
Elevating Worship: Empowering the Next Generation in the Exalting Ministry
In our commitment to train and equip the next generation for active participation in the uplifting ministry, we conducted a Praise and Worship Workshop Seminar at Gateway EFCP in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, this month. This seminar is a prerequisite for those aspiring to engage in the exalting ministry. As the interim pastor of the replanting churches in Lapu-Lapu since September 2023 and officially taking over leadership from January 2024 due to the retiring 80-year-old pastor, my wife and I aspire to organize the praise and worship team. We included ten young individuals from Calero Church Planting in the workshop to prepare our team for Calero. We are grateful for everyone’s enthusiasm, availability, and eagerness to participate in the praise and worship seminar. During the workshop, attendees are instructed on leading praise and worship with proper etiquette, selecting appropriate song line-ups, understanding the distinct roles within the team, including instrumentalists, and recognizing the significance of prayer and devotion in this ministry. We pray that the Lord instills a burden in the hearts of these young individuals to engage actively in the exalting ministry this year and equips them with the necessary skills. Despite interruptions in our training schedule last year due to the busy lives of our youth and many graduating students, we anticipate resuming training this year.
Please help us pray that these more than 50 children we minister to weekly will grow in the love and wisdom of the Lord. Pray that more parents will come to know Jesus through the feeding ministry and the lives of these precious children. Pray for my wife and our volunteer teacher, Cristy, as they prepare and make curriculum lessons for this year. Pray for knowledge, wisdom, strength, and God’s provision to sustain our weekly feeding program financially. Please help us pray for God’s financial provision as I enroll for the second semester of this school year. Please pray for our music training that we will organize starting next month. Pray for the availability of our young people, as some of them are working now, and the availability and passion of the youth trainers and leaders from our mother church. Pray for the spiritual growth and maturity of these young people.
Praise the Lord for the successful women’s district fellowship last month. Thirty-six women attended the event from five evangelical churches; three of these were White Fields’ church plants. It was a wonderful time of encouraging one another to grow in faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and to develop closer friendship with one another.
The theme was “A Woman of Courage and Strength.” They meditated on the life of Abigail in the Old Testament. My wife was the speaker, and the host church was the Light of Life Community Center. What a joy and encouraging activity to witness these women from different areas gathering together to praise and worship God and encourage one another in unity.
Praise the Lord that we were able to give four hundred and fifty pairs of slippers (flip-flops) to the kids at three areas of White Fields’ church planning including Calero Evangelical Free Church, Light of Life Community Center, and our newly formed church planting ministry in Danao, Cebu with Pastor Lito.
We thank God for the opportunity and privilege to minister to God’s people through slippers. Bro. Dennis was a devout Roman Catholic and wealthy man who had fully rejected God and pastors, and never gave his family a chance to enter a church or invite a pastor into their house. But one day, God cut off all the sources of his income, and he ended up in poverty which led him to depression. Because of his depression and shame, it came to his mind to kill all his children, his wife, and himself. But during that time, a pastor whom he had rejected was sent by God to their home where Dennis had already locked up his family in their room, ready to kill them with a pistol. The said pastor was in their house the whole night, ministering to Dennis until God convicted him and he repented. From that moment on, he became born again and praised God. His life and family were restored by God, even his wealth.
Bro. Dennis and his family are now living abroad. They are supporting students in their studies in Cebu. Dennis visited here in Cebu for three months and one of his goals was to give slippers to children and even adults with the printed message, Jesus loves me. So that every time a person wears the slippers, they will be reminded that even in their daily walks, God loves them and takes care of them.
Our weekly children’s feeding continues, and we thank God for providing grace, wisdom, and strength to the volunteers as well as the children to whom we minister every week. According to the parents, the children are always excited and thrilled about the coming each Sunday, some even arrive hours early instead of waiting till the afternoon for the program to start. We are excited that the older children are becoming active in the program too, they are now the ones volunteering to lead the dancing and singing during worship time as well as the games. We praise the Lord for utilizing this ministry to reach the children, to help them grow in their faith, and to become future leaders in the church.
- Pray for my wife, who is in charge of the children’s ministry, as well as our teachers, to have more strength, knowledge, and patience when teaching the kids.
Our weekly Bible studies continue, and we are struggling with the weather affecting the different areas. It is very hot in the morning with sudden heavy rains in the afternoon. Despite these challenges, we are continuing. I am amazed at the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the nine employees at my wife’s workplace and how God is changing them from not caring to being excited for their God’s Word.
- Pray for wisdom and knowledge as we do our planning and evaluation for the ministry goals of next year.
- Pray for wisdom and time management for my wife and me, I am a student, pastor, husband, and parent. My wife is an employee, mother, and wife. Pray also for our children’s academic accomplishments and protection.
- Pray for the Holy Spirit’s advanced ministering power in the lives of these people to whom we minister.
- Pray for the more than fifty children to grow in the love and wisdom of the Lord.
- Pray that through our children’s ministry, more parents may come to know Jesus.