There’s an old saying that says “If you want to go faster, you go alone. But if you want to go farther, you go together.”
Working alone in the vineyard is much harder than working together with co-laborers. Danao city is a progressive city even in the religious realm and the ministerial association is well established and actively collaborates with each Christian church. This month I did a courtesy call to the ministerial association to work together with other pastors and workers of God. I praise God for the warm welcome from other pastors and their unity with the desire to reach the whole city for Christ. I am learning from other local pastors and gaining a better understanding of the culture of the people with better strategies and contextualized approaches in the ministry of this particular area. I pursue working with other local pastors because they know the people and places better than me in this new ministry location.
Reaching the poorest of the poor communities and doing children’s ministry among them can be expensive and challenging. We praise God for His sustaining grace and provision for our regular children’s feeding ministry this month. Despite the challenges that we face, our feeding program continues, and we are able to feed over a hundred hungry kids. From the faces of these children, you can see their inexpressible joy because their hungry stomachs are being filled. Through the feeding ministry, doors are being opened for us to plant the gospel into the hearts of these young ones and their respective families. As of now, these children are regularly attending our outreach and enjoy learning the Word of God. Pray for good weather every time we conduct a feeding program because we do not have a covered place to gather in.
- Pray for God’s continual provision for this ministry.
- Pray for the life transformation of these children.
Last month I shared about my health crises and challenges, particularly on my liver, lungs, and heart that have caused difficulty breathing. After almost a month of taking my medications, I felt better and grateful. I thought I was already on my way to complete healing. But things did not go as I expected. I recently encountered three successive nights of severe difficulty breathing, to the point that I collapsed and my wife rushed me to the nearest hospital in the middle of the night. Despite what happened, I praise God that I was able to survive by His grace. Right now I am still taking my medications and I need to do laboratory testing, ECG, and chest x-ray so the doctors can do a thorough study of my case. Despite all these challenges, life and ministries must go on. I continue to do the work of God that He has entrusted to me.
- Pray for my complete healing.
- Pray for God’s provision for my medications.
- Pray for strength to continue doing the daily tasks despite the health challenges.
One of the greatest challenges in the city and community where we are ministering is the children who are roaming around everywhere. They are the most vulnerable individuals and yet the most neglected ones. This month we are grateful for the Lord who sustains our children’s ministry and added volunteers to our team so we can help minister to these kids. We went deeper in our lessons. We have large group activities including singing and dancing, stories, games, and all such fun. But now we also group the kids into smaller groups to have more personal conversations and discussions; this also gives them an opportunity to build healthy relationships with their small group leaders. Currently, the kids are so excited and interested to meet with us every week, not just for fun and food, but most importantly for life lessons from the Word of God. As of now, there are over a hundred children that we minister to in the community.
- Pray for the salvation and spiritual growth of these children.
- Pray for the salvation of the parents and the siblings so that the entire family will come to faith.
- Pray for God to give us more volunteers.
Two is better than one, but more than two is even better! The success and fruitfulness of every ministry rely on the power of God through His laborers in the vineyard. This month, we continue to praise God for how He graciously sustains us by providing volunteers with a big heart for the work of God. One volunteer came from our former church plant and others are from the community, who are joyfully helping us in ministry. Though some of them are not yet believers, they are joyfully volunteering to serve and minister to the children. Through many, the work becomes light and our relationship with the community is becoming more open and getting stronger. Not only that but the children that we are ministering to are also now helping us in their own simple ways and they are doing it with joy. Rather than just being recipients, they are now becoming our little volunteers.
- Pray for continued growth in the Lord for each of our volunteers.
- Pray for a deeper sense of spiritual bankruptcy of our non-believing volunteers coming from the community so they will realize their need for a Savior.
- Pray for strength and protection as we continue to do the ministry.
- Pray for my physical healing.
- Pray for salvation and life transformation for the people in the community.
- Pray for God’s provision, wisdom, and strength. We are praying about starting a weekly feeding program intended only for the malnourished children in the community.
- We are also praying that we can give school supplies to over a hundred children in the community this month before the school year starts. Pray for provision and wisdom.
- Pray for God to provide a covered place to gather every week.
Pastor Lito Jamisola’s Testimony
My name is Joselito, and I was born in the city of Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines. I grew up in a family that believed in multiple religions. My father was a devoted Roman Catholic, my mother a backslidden protestant, my eldest brother went to the Iglesia ni Cristo, my two older brothers attend the Seventh Day Adventist church. The rest of my siblings and I did not care about church growing up and usually went with the flow of what the different family members were doing. Often there were debates in our home, and these discussions created curiosity and questions in my heart. This was when I started seeking the truth.
On April 8, 1996, Pastor Ramil Rodriguez from Masgad Evangelical Free Church came to our home and shared the gospel of salvation to my entire family and me. At that moment I understood the message of salvation and realized my sinfulness. I surrendered my life to Jesus and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. From that day forward I began going to church and was involved in the ministry and continued to grow in the knowledge of God’s word.
After my conversion I became active in the church, one day during my devotion time I meditated on Matthew 9:37 “Then He said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” I was convicted and felt disturbed by this verse, I then prayed and asked for advice from my pastor. After a few years passed, I became convinced that the Lord had called me into pastoral ministry. I decided to go to Bible college to further my training and preparation for the ministry. I am excited to take the Gospel to the people of my city who do not know God and am prepared for Him to bring many to Salvation.
It was in August of 2016 that God impressed on my heart the desire to plant a church in my community and the surrounding areas. It was a big struggle for my wife and me because we are part of a church and were very comfortable with the ministry we did. When I shared my vision with my wife, she was hesitant about leaving the church that we loved. The thought of starting a church from scratch was frightening. My wife was financially scared not knowing or understanding how we would support the ministry and ourselves. In February 2017, I attended a church planting training in Tacloban, my heart broke, and I wasn’t able to sleep. While I was in the hotel, I cried out to my Lord, “Lord if you called me to this ministry, please call my family too.” When I went home I said to my wife, “God called me to plant churches, will you go with me?” My wife without hesitation said yes! So, we took a two-week vacation to spend time with the Lord and to seek his guidance on this new journey. God is so good and sovereign even in the small details of our life. In the latter part of 2017, God used Pastor Cris Paño to introduce me to White Fields, and it was a great joy and privilege to become part of this big family, White Fields.
In January 2018 we had a vision casting with my core team leaders. God impressed into our hearts a clear mission, vision, and core values. Our primary goal is to make disciples; we desire to lead atheists or unbelievers to become disciple makers of Jesus Christ. Our mission statement is, “Leading people to have a personal and growing relationship with God.” Our vision statement is, “Multiplying healthy churches in our community and beyond.”
Our target area is in the town of Consolacion Cebu. Consolacion is composed of 21 Barangays, and Tayud is the biggest Barangay with a population of 20, 000 registered voters as of a 2015 survey. Barangay Tauyd itself is a vast place. I prayed for God to lead me to a specific community in the area. I praised the Lord that He led me to Sitio Bankeruhan, Tayud Consolacion Cebu. More than 200 families are living in this very remote coastal area. When I saw the place, my heart ached upon seeing the people living below the poverty line. My heart desired to go to the remote sites where most pastors and ministers do not want to go. God moved my heart to lead these people to have a personal and growing relationship with Jesus Christ. My vision is to reach out to this entire community in Christ not only for their spiritual status but their way of living as well.