WORK FOR CHRIST IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
WORK FOR CHRIST IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS WORKING FOR CHRIST
IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
L. E. O’Neal
“Cayat co ti manuk.” I spent several minutes learning to speak and write this Iocano sentence. It means, “I like chicken.” Brother Canuto Vicente took me to a cafe and no doubt hoped to satisfy my interest in this food line. He placed our order in the Visayan dialect. When our meal arrived my share was six fried eggs and one half of a full grown chicken.
Brother Vicente’s attitude about the chicken holds true with many Filipinos about the gospel of Christ ; they go “all out”. Cornelio Alegre is a farmer with little of this world for security, but rich in faith and loyalty toward Christ. An American missionary approached him, intent upon subverting him from the truth. After Brother Alegre had given negative answers to the first advances, the man offered to pay him a “good” salary and all expenses to their national council at Manila if he would change churches. The promise was confirmed by a large roll of bills drawn from his pocket. That was in 1947. Brother Alegre is still preaching the pure gospel of Christ.
School teachers are under Civil Service, but where there is an evil will there is also percecution. Jesusa Mendoza was asked to help her school raise money by sponsoring a dance. She refused. The colony super-intendent called her to his office and issued this ulti-matum, “Cooperate with the dance or leave the colony.”
Sister Mendoza went home, packed necessities in a cart, and was on her way out. But the superintendent changed his mind for the time being. However, next year she was taken from her eight-teacher school in the colony and given a back-woods one-room school.
L. N. Belo, a very successful Filipino minister, was arrested by Constabulary soldiers as result of a type-written, unsigned letter which accused him of Com-munistic views. Brother Belo produced a New Testament to prove his faith but was cursed and slapped by the captain. When he showed documents proving that he was neither a Communist nor a Roman Catholic, he was knocked through a window opening with the captain’s fist and these words, “So you’re against my religion.” By the time I left the Islands Brother Belo had met opposition in seven debates and always baptized some of his listeners.
According to the Harvest Field the unperverted gospel of Christ first reached the Philippines in 1928. George Benson was on his way to work in China. He spent several weeks in Manila and the nearby island, Mindoro. This work resulted in about seventy baptisms. Brother Benson sent back to the States for workers. That same year the H. G. Cassell family answered this call, working in and around Manila until taken prisoner by the Japanese army in 1942.
During the thirties the Orville Rodman family worked in the central islands and also on the island of Mindanao. Four or five fine gospel preachers developed from the Rodman work. In 1945 Frank Trayler landed in the south at Zam-boanga City with American liberation forces as a Chaplain. When his division moved on he left behind forty-five people who had been buried with Christ and raised to walk the new life. A call was sent out for Zamboanga City workers. My family answered that challenge in 1946. When only a few months had passed we insisted that others come to this opportune field. The Floyd Hamilton family responded, arriving early in 1947. For three years the Hamiltons operated a school, teaching Bible and related subjects. Possibly five hundred in the Zamboanga City area are now Christians, forming seven or eight congregations. The Ralph Brashears family arrived also in 1947 at Tayug, Pangasinan, one hundred miles or more north of Manila. Ralph has a wonderful opportunity (teaching Bible in Luna College) and is making good use of it. During his first year several students, five teachers, and the daughter of the president were among those who turned to Christ. Sister Brashears teaches in high school. Southwest Church of Christ, Los Angeles, California, has the oversight of their work. At this moment the Brashears are the only Americans in the Philippines giving full time to the Lord’s work.
Some observations, showing the fruits of these la-borers follow: (1) Total number of congregations, about 82. (2) Approximate combined membership is three thousand. (3) Churches of Christ in Mindanao are fellowshipping once each year in an occasion similar to this. A few brethren from the central islands have participated, and I believe Brother Brashears and others from the north attended last year. The Co- tabato brethren began this idea in 1945. (4) Each local congregation with which I am acquainted executes the Lord’s will in the home community just as we do here. (5) Possibly there are twelve Filipino ministers who are doing a lot of good. Roman Oltaveros and others are supported by brethren at Port Arthur, Texas. Brother Oltaveros is one of my acquaintances and I know him to be a good speaker and hard worker. The Prince and Fulton Street Church of Christ, Berkeley, California, is helping two brethren to spread the gospel in the central islands; Filo- meno Bolongaita and Santiago L. Samion. The latter is especially successful in converting many to Christ. In Cotabato we have three seasoned ministers Fabian A. Bruno, and the above mentioned L. N. Belo and Cornelio Alegre. Brethren Ernesto Camaganacan and Antonio Villianueva are also working in the Cotabato Area. Seventeenth Street Church of Christ, San Francisco, California, is helping Jose Soler and others in the Zamboanga City area. Britton Church of Christ, Oklahoma City, is cooperating with the Seventeenth brethren in the support of Brother Bruno. By the will of God, my family is scheduled to return this year, leaving Oklahoma August 10. We are to be accompanied by another family, the Harold O’Neals. Harold is my only brother in the flesh and is now working with the church at Wilson, Oklahoma. We are being sent by the Fourteenth and Main Church of Christ, Duncan, Oklahoma. Orrin Utley is minister for the Duncan brethren.
Latest figures released by the Philippine government set the population at twenty million. Twenty million people who need the gosple of Christ, God’s power to save. Twenty million souls who long to be released from the bondage of financially fettered religions. Twenty million souls who shall stand in the presence of the Almighty God “in that day”. While we are sending the gospel to all the world make sure that we include the Philippines, both prayerfully and financially. The island of Mindanao is about the size of our state of Indiana and has a population of nearly three million. As you can easily imagine there are hundreds of orphans, mostly because of the war. As late as 1950 no organization, not even the Roman Catholics, had done anything for these children. Most of them are living from house to house; several becoming servants of the better situated families. Is that a challenge? It is to me. Our two last years four such children made their home with us. We did not look upon these boys and girls as burdens, but as opportunities to prove our fa'ith; Christianity. If we had possessed the proper facilities we could have had fifty of these children in Christian environment after a few weeks notice.
During 1949 Brother Bruno and I visited the Davao Penal Colony. This institute includes over a thousand prisoners and forty to fifty families of employees. Superintendent Acenas told me that these prisoners did not have access to any religious service and suggested that the Church of Christ send a family to the colony for that purpose. I believe this opportunity was published in some of our papers. No response. The Genesis account, “ . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” included the Filipino. And, “ ... in the image of God created he him,” likewise included the Filipino.
Manila is the capital and hub of Philippine life, a city of one million people. But there is not one gospel minister in the entire million. Besides giving the truth to this city, a family, or families, would greatly accelerate the work of Christ in the entire nation. We have a few scattered members there.
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world, Amen.” And “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned,” are words of the Christ deeply embedded in the hearts of some since the first century A. D. And I believe these words still have the quality, the force, and the power to move human hearts as in days gone by.
However, these words and the entire gospel do not have as free course in all nations as enjoyed here in the United States. A short time before World War II, all obtainable Bibles and related books not distributed by the Roman Catholics were used as bon-fire material in Zamboanga City; and that, in Plaza Pershing. Zamboanga City claims about thirty-five thousand population. To my knowledge not one business house offers Bibles for sale. In fact, the establishment which dared such a thing probably would be boycotted. One of my acquaintances, a newspaper columnist, made the mistake of writing that a priest, “is just a human being.” He was fired that the paper might live. This same newspaper can advertise for the merchants stat-
uettes so necessary for worship in Zamboanga City, and do so by use of the word IDOLS.
Ann, our oldest daughter, attended San Ramon Elementary School. When the statue of “the virgin Mary” passed by all school children must line the highway to pay their respects. Ann stayed home that day. The next day the principal passed out slips of paper and asked the absentees to write the reason for not attending school “yesterday”. Ann wrote, “We do not believe in idols.” The principal merely smiled. Had Ann been a citizen of the Philippines the reaction would not have been a smile.
There are only two channels through which residents of Zamboanga City may' get a copy of God’s word:
(1) The Protestant sects, who naturally accentuate their beliefs which are foreign to Christ.
(2) The church of Christ. Paul commanded the Galatians, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, ...” (Galatians 6:10). Orally or by book, spreading the gospel of Christ is a most valuable good work.
Centuries before Christ Chinese wisdom became isolationism when they realized that China was the earth’s greatest nation. Seeing they were isolated by nature on three sides, it was decided to build a great wall on the other frontier which would insure that the good things of China would be kept from the rest of God’s .earth. Those early people stayed behind that wall too long.
Many Christians in America have made that same mistake. To be sure, the wall we have built is not con-crete in its existence. Nevertheless, some Christians are behind a wall. The American wall is built of such material as:
(1) Protection promised by “Old Glory.”
(2) Freedom represented by our “State of Liberty.”
(3) “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” by our constitution.
(4) And even the luxury of a flourishing economy.
Let us not be overcome by the spirit of fleshly Israel. Instead, may we energetically and whole heartedly establish firmly the kingdom of Christ in every corner of this earth; looking forward to the only eternal luxury, everlasting life. In March 1947, I took time out to visit our brethren across the Moro Gulf in Cotabato. After getting ac-quainted in Cotabato City, someone suggested that we visit the rural community of Pinaring where Brother Ernesto Camaganacan worked for the Lord. Six of us loaded into a dugout known as a “river vinta” and with oars slowly made our way up Cotabato River. After about two hours we left the main stream and followed a small tributary to its source. We tied our vinta and continued on foot for about one-half mile. There in a coconut grove I saw a small house of worship. At several meters distance I could see some words on the trim-board of thei front gable. When close enough to read I stopped and these were the words, “For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12). From his throne on high, God sees the Philippine situation as it really is. And he will meet you there if you have the faith to go. And soon there will be other congregations of people wearing the name Christ.
God, enlarge our hearts that we may see beyond our own circle.
God, open our eyes that we may see across the
borders of our own nation.
God, quicken our spirits that we may feel obligated to sacrifice SOME of our American luxury.
And Lord, be merciful to the unconcerned.