When I moved to the province the cold contact method did not pan out.Most of the people I approached were scared or disinterested. Some would run away at the sight of the Bible,just recently I studied with someone in the mall who kept on pushing it away when I was showing a scripture,anyhow she let me do it.But it is not all in vain because when brothers and sisters from the missionary journey campaign came to invite people to attend the Sunday Service, someone responded in the person of Raymond Mora!
Our missionary team then decided to create more activities that will cater to the community and thus an avenue for proclaiming God's words.
Our first attempt was the feeding program held twice a week with the indigent and undernourished Kinder, Grade 1 and SPED students of the Lucena West I Elementary School. The program ran for the entire school year 2011 until March 2012. We saw close to 50 kids hurry to the HE (Home Economics) room with their moms to assist the volunteers in the first few weeks of the program.Attendance fluctuated and the moms did not reappear but we went on.
From that effort, the church have developed good dynamics with the school and it resulted with more programs.While volunteers are serving, God was making the seed grow in the heart of a teacher! Teacher Jercel , who would become one of the missionary's colleagues (Dianne who is now a DepEd teacher too). She was baptized in Christ today after about 2 years since the feeding program,October 6, 2013,which is also my birthday. Indeed it became a double celebration!
Another program that was sponsored by the church was the Health Through Awareness Seminar. It was conceived through the idea that people nowadays are more conscious about their health as more and more people are contracting dreadful diseases.We were joined by Dra. Milpa Fernandez (Anesthesiologist at Pangasinan Provincial Hospital) and Ms. Irene (Nutritionist-Dietitian at Lucena United Doctors Hospital and Medical Center). Renda's friend Elaine, who is a nurse was one of the volunteer nurses who helped obtain vitals of the attendees.She responded to God's call and became a disciple after a few months.Another volunteer nurse was her best friend Jennifer who followed suit soon after she got baptized.
Celebrating special events like Valentine's and church anniversaries were also geared towards having a great time with friends and families. In one of the Valentine's day themes, we had an acoustic performance,snacks and games. Friends of friends came and we were able to invite them again to other fun time activities until they became at ease with the group and a lot of them eventually studied the Bible.Unlike the others who didn't continue on, Erma and Rhona persisted. Renda had already invited Erma way way back to study the Bible but she didn't respond back then. However this second time around,she continued to take part in some of the activities in the church and invited her friends too, one of whom in turn invited Rhona who eventually became a disciple. Both just wanna have fun but in the process found the Lord, what a blessing!.
If you want to join our community service or worship service,drop us a line at Metro Lucena Christian Church