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Acts
Today—The Crusade in the Philippines
By Kevin Brown I first heard about the evangelistic crusade in the Philippines in late summer of 2000. Bro. Gordon Mallory, former (United Pentecostal Church) missionary to the Philippine Islands (PI), had visited our church and shared with us his dream about having a massive crusade there. Having had the privilege to attend the UPC World Conference in Manila, Philippines, in 1985, I was excited to hear about how much the Filipino church had grown since then and the great things God was doing there. Needless
to say, when my pastor, Bro. William Sciscoe, gave the invitation to
attend the January, 2001 Crusade, I was again excited about the opportunity to
be a part of Apostolic history in the 21st century and began to make
plans to attend. My
group arrived in Manila, the country’s capital city, on January 3, 2001,
having left the U.S. on the morning of New Year’s Day.
Fortunately, all of our luggage arrived with us.
The group of people from our church met in Manila with nearly 1,000 other
Apostolics to be a part of this country-wide crusade. We had been divided into 36 different teams, with each team
holding a crusade in a different city of the country. We would all have simultaneous services during the upcoming
weekend and were expecting a mighty outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
We
stayed in Manila for a couple days to get acclimated to the drastically
different weather (temperature in the mid-80s Fahrenheit), as well as the new
time (13 hours ahead of EST), and then headed off to our respective cities. My
group arrived in General Santos City (GSC) early Friday morning, January 5. GSC is one of the larger cities in the southern part of the
island of Mindanao, the second largest in the Philippines.
We were met by many of the church people who held up a large
“welcome” sign. They were so
eager to greet us, and they all wanted to help with our luggage.
We jammed 5 ½ trucks/vans/jeepneys full of people and baggage and headed
to our home for the next three days. Our
group of 10 met up with the 11 people from Bro. Jim Dillon’s church in Salem,
Oregon, and together we formed a team, anxious to take GSC by storm. We
had the rest of the day to get settled into GSC and spent some time scoping out
our area of the city. We found a
“mall” close by and were able to purchase some goodies to take home with us.
Soon
it was time to head to church for our first crusade service.
We arrived and were greeted by the warmest and most friendly group of
Christians you could ever meet. We
were treated like “superstars”. They
took us to the front row of our gathering place, a city gymnasium, with air
conditioning (Thank you, Jesus!), and then sat us on the platform and gave us
each of bottle of water for the service. There
were several preliminaries as one would expect, but soon we were enjoying the
preaching of the Word. At
sermon’s end, the invitation was given for those who wanted to receive the
Holy Ghost to come to the front. After
about an hour or so, over 100 people were filled with the Holy Ghost.
Needless to say, we were all so very excited about the great number, but
we didn’t know what God had in store for us yet.
On
Saturday we met at 9 a.m. to be a part of a motorcade to go through the
marketplace of GSC. We piled into
jeepneys (an elongated jeep with a truckbed, benches and a hard top, but open on
the sides) and trucks and drove through the city with a motorcycle police
escort, passing out flyers about the next two day’s services.
This was so much fun because we were able to mingle with the
congregations of the many churches of GSC.
After
the motorcade, three of us guys went back to the marketplace to shop for some
souvenirs and had a blast! This was
the place where all the locals went to buy their food and household items. We were able to barter with the sellers and had a lot to show
for the money we spent. (Of course,
the 50:1 ratio of Filipino dollars to U.S. dollars helped a little.)
To get back to the hotel, we took a “tricycle”.
Of course, this was not your ordinary tricycle—it was a motorcycle (dirtbike)
with a side and rear cart with a third wheel.
Outside of almost standing this contraption straight up when we went up a
hill, the ride back was pretty uneventful, but painfully slow. Service
Saturday night was much different than the previous night. The crowd had grown
to several thousand, and it seemed that the spiritual air was much clearer—we
didn’t feel the opposition that was present on Friday.
After a blowout service, which took place with no official preaching,
over 1,200 people were gloriously filled with the Holy Ghost.
We were just ecstatic! We
were experiencing something we never had imagined! Sunday
morning, all of us young ministers were able to go out to different churches in
the area and preach. This was quite
an experience. Again, the people
were so hospitable and genuinely happy to see us.
When I arrived at the church, they called me up to the front, where they
pinned a fern/flower on my shirt and then proceeded to have the entire church
march by and shake my hand—and there were over 85 people present for this 9
a.m. service. We had a great time,
and I didn’t even have to have an interpreter.
Although they all couldn’t speak it, they could all understand English
pretty well. After service, the pastor fed me. I chose the egg sandwich over the fried chicken. But I did just limit myself to the bread and egg; I had eaten a large breakfast, knowing that I shouldn’t eat the food. Thus, I could honestly say that I was “full,” even after only one large sandwich. Sunday
afternoon’s service was one that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.
The air was now filled with great expectancy.
The crowd was close to 10,000, but most importantly, Jesus was in the
house! Again, we had several preliminaries, being the last service
of the Crusade, but before too long, Bro. Sciscoe was able to preach.
He talked about faith, and actually prayed for many people during his
preaching. The time came for the
Holy Ghost to fall. Bro. Sciscoe had everyone repent first. What a sight to see 10,000 people on their knees asking for
the blood of Jesus to cover their sins. After
just a few minutes of repenting, everyone stood, and the word of faith was
given—instantaneously, hundreds began to speak in tongues!
People who had never before spoken in tongues broke forth immediately.
I had never experienced this kind of outpouring; I had seen videos of
other major crusades, but it’s nothing like being there firsthand and seeing
it for yourself. After
about 10 minutes of staying on the platform, we all starting making our way
through the crowd, laying our hands on as many people as we could, praying for
them and helping their faith reach up to receive the Holy Ghost. It was amazing to see the hunger on the faces of people of
all ages. Although you couldn’t
understand them if they were at first praying in Filipino, it was so obvious the
instant the Holy Ghost took over. Their
countenance changed, and an excitement overwhelmed many of them. The
GSC churches were very organized when it came to praying with people; they had
ushers blanket the place so that as soon as someone would begin to shout or
dance around, they would grab a chair and literally force
the person into the chair so they wouldn’t trample anyone right next to them.
It was so jam-packed with people praying that we didn’t want any
casualties at the altar! The ushers
(who were Filipinos) were the ones who did the organizing and counting of those
filled with the Holy Ghost. At the
end of the service, more than 5,000 were filled with the Holy Ghost for the
first time! Hallelujah to Jesus! For
the last 30-45 minutes of the service, we had a time of rejoicing.
We had several praise “trains” snaking through the congregation who
were all singing and shouting. What
a marvelous time of celebration and thanksgiving to God for what He had done. On
Monday morning our team returned to Manila, along with the other 35 teams, to
meet one last time and share with the others what God had done at a large
banquet of over 1200 in attendance. During the course of the evening, Bro.
Mallory and the Filipino General Superintendent of the UPC took turns
introducing all the teams and announcing what city they had gone to and then
reading the reports of what happened in their city.
It was so wonderful to hear all the great reports of thousands upon
thousands receiving the Holy Ghost and also many experiencing miracles. At the end of the night, the total number of those receiving
the Holy Ghost was in the mid 60,000s—and this was without all the final
reports being received. The latest
numbers I’ve heard confirmed at the time of publication is about 94,000—and
more and more confirmation reports are still trickling into “base camp” in
Manila! My
thanks to everyone in the U.S. who were praying and fasting for this crusade. The results you just read would not have been possible
without your support and prayer cover. None
of your efforts were in vain. Most of all, thanks to God for pouring out His
Spirit just like the book of Joel said it would happen!
To God be all the glory! ninetyandnine.com ã 2000, Kevin Brown -------- Kevin Brown lives in Columbus, Ohio. |
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