Originally the NPUC team was scheduled to go to Cagayan de Oro on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines. When that didn’t work out we sent some financial assistance to help with meetings there and refocused on San Pablo City.

 Here is what happened in the Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao area as reported by Albert Gulfan, the President of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists.

Dear Brethren,

On behalf of the Southern Asia-Pacific Division I wish to thank you for the support you have given for the Evangelistic campaigns in Cagayan de Oro City and other sites in the Northern Mindanao Conference in South Philippines.

Pastor Rick McEdward who preached in Iligan City, Pastor Myron Iseminger in Manticao and myself just finished our meetings last Sabbath, March 22 with a large MASS BAPTISM. I held the meetings at Grand Caprice Restaurant and Convention Center in Cagayan de Oro as we could not afford the Atrium originally planned for Jere’s meetings. We had an average of 1,000 people coming to my meetings each night. It was videotaped and was broadcast over the local Adventist Television station at the Union headquarters one hour later. We had a very good response. Last Sabbath, we had a baptism of 1,672 souls at a Mass baptism at the Pelaez Sports Complex. The conference leadership prepared ten boxes used as baptistery filled with water by the city’s fire department trucks. The baptismal service took more than one hour and I had to repeat the proclamation and prayer 64 times. We ended at about 12:30 and had lunch. More than 10,000 people came to the Sports Complex on Sabbath from all over the Conference to celebrate the mass baptism and hear me preach my last sermon on Sabbath morning. There was another baptism in another place of 225 with a group from Canada but did not join the mass baptism anymore because one of the team members drowned in a river in the village where they constructed a chapel. Including the people who have been baptized before the campaign proper started, Northern Mindanao Conference has already close to 3000 baptism from January up to the time of our series.

Again, thank you very much for helping us with financing the meetings. I collected offerings during my meetings and it was a big help too.

I am praying for the meetings that are now going on in South Central Luzon Conference area. I wish I had time to visit some of the groups there but I came home from Cagayan de Oro on Sabbath evening ad flew to Maryland at 6:20 in the morning.

I am praying for Jere as well. It is our prayer that God will bless and heal.

So long and best regards.

Sincerely,

Pastor Gulfan