Last July 12-16, the Lord gave us an opportunity to visit some of the churches in the Negros Island that's composed of the two provinces of Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental. We tried to squeeze in as many churches that we could visit of the over sixty churches on the island within the five-day period.
Negros Oriental:
Negros Oriental is one of the two provinces which comprise the island of Negros and occupies the south-eastern part of the island while the north-western part is called Negros Occidental. Even though Negros Occidental has started to receive and accept the Message since the late 1960's, Negros Oriental has not had the same opportunity until about 20 years after when an old Seven Church Age book was brought by one brother from Negros Occidental to the house of one Sister Cornelia to her home in a small mountainous village. It was the very same book that touched the heart and awakened the seed in her son, Bro. Yuri, who then tirelessly sought for more Message books and was baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ not long after. Since then, the Message has gone forth all over Negros Oriental and is continuing to grow and spread further as more ministers from Negros Occidental are tirelessly bringing in the Message to other towns that have not been reached yet.
There are nearly twenty Message churches in Negros Oriental as per our record, but I found out during my visit that they are spread all over its topography which is characterized by low, grooved mountain ranges and a few plateaus. This makes it difficult to visit each of these churches and which may have to require about two weeks. What I did was to visit the major and first few churches there that could be easily accessed and also visit our main distributing church in Dumaguete City. And since most of these Negros Oriental churches used to be and, continue to be, outreach churches, we directly visited the pastors of these two main churches to find out the needs of these outreach churches. We're excited to go back and actually visit these outreach churches, especially when we're told that some of them could only reached by foot across the forests for no less than 25 kilometers. The best time to come back would be when we have the new shipment of new Cebuano books. What an exciting opportunity that would be when we would be able to personally bring and deliver the books directly to these churches.
I left Manila for an early morning flight to Dumaguete on July 12 and was met by a local brother Bro. Rolando Dinauanao at the Dumaguete airport. Bro. Rolando pastors the only Message church at Dumaguete and it was our first time to have met each other, although we've been speaking over the telephone for years as he's our distributor in the Negros Oriental area. Bro. Rolando is a humble servant of the Lord and a real Christian to the people of Dumaguete. I could see especially as we left the airport how people know him and respect him and call him “Brother.” He rides a motorcycle which he rents on weekdays to ferry passengers around the city to help feed his family. He seems to be a normally quiet person except when you open up to discuss the Message and the Bible. Am so happy for Bro. Rolando's uncompromising stand on the unadulterated Message that he preaches.
We then directly traveled to the town of Bayawan, which is over two hours from Dumaguete and we were met there by a brother who led us to a hilly sugarcane plantation where a church is being constructed. It was my first time to know this church and to meet these brothers. They were so happy of our visit and could even hardly believe that they would ever be personally visited by any representative from Voice of God Recordings. From there we proceeded to the hilly part of the town of Sta. Catalina to come and visit the church there. Together with the three pastors, we rode on two single motorbikes and traversed the mountainous and wet roads into the most rural and mountainous part of Sta. Catalina, which is about 25 kilometers from the national highway. We arrived there late in the afternoon and had to stay there overnight at a brother's house. We had to bear the cold weather there being in the mountains and sleeping on the bamboo floor, but it was a natural coolness one would not trade to an air-conditioned room. I am so happy to know also that the Message that we've been sending has reached and come into the hands of the believers even as far as this area.
Early the next morning, we left the place and rode further into the interior, which is just about seven kilometers, going to a church where we met Sister Cornelia, who got the very first Message book that got into this area. We got an opportunity to fellowship with some of the brethren there and update them of the things that we're doing at VGR and also got to know some of their needs for materials. After that, we had to brave the strong rain as we rode on the motorcycles so we could go back to Bayawan on time and to travel back to Dumaguete.
Most of the ministers in Negros Oriental are hardly educated, in fact most of them have not gone to high school and hence the translated Messages into Cebuano are so precious to them and for their congregation. They long for more additional new Cebuano Messages that we can send to them.