Siquijor Church

God moves in ways that are sometimes too big that we can easily recognize it was him or in subtle, unexpected ways like how he reached and built a church in the province of Siquijor. 

It started with our sister, Daisy Alam, randomly visiting her hometown in Siquijor in 2013. There she bumped into her cousin, Eleazar, and invited him to attend the worship service in a nearby town since there was no church yet in their place. They both attended the Dumaguete Church Anniversary Service. And moved by the warmth of the fellowship, Eleazar studied the Bible and eventually got baptized that same year. 

After a while, Eleazar attended a discipleship conference in Manila, and upon going back to Siquijor, he felt that the Spirit was moving him to reach out to his friend who was in jail. Eleazer shared with his friend how his life changed. His friend was stirred and asked if he could study the Bible too and even invited five more of his friends in jail.

With the help of the disciples from Dumaguete, they frequently visited the Siquijor District Jail, and by God’s amazing grace, five out of the six friends who studied the Bible got baptized. 

After all this amazing series of events, Eleazar did not stop reaching out to people. He convinced his family members to study the Bible too! And so, the number of disciples in Siquijor grew! 

This growth led a sister who used to be part of the fellowship to learn about the church and reconnect with the disciples. Amazing how God moves!

Our church grew from just one brother to 23 members now (including the five disciples in Siquijor District Jail) and still striving to grow as a loving family of Christ in their province. With your prayers and support, Siquijor Church will officially be inaugurated this September 2022.

Masbate Church

We may plan great things to move God's Kingdom, yet it is inevitable to meet bumps along the road that might discourage us. But for all that, there will always be a glimpse of hope that good things can come out from the not-so-good ones. And that is how our Church in Masbate was born. 

Bicol is a large region in the Southern part of Luzon, where we have a church in its capital, Legaspi City. Legaspi Church has been continually praying and working on planting churches in their neighboring places such as Naga, Sorsogon, and Masbate. Part of the 2020 vision of the Legaspi Church is to start ministries in their neighboring provinces and cities. So they sent out a missionary team composed of single disciples to Naga City to start the ministry there. In due course, a few disciples from Manila also moved to Naga City to be part and be of help in evangelizing the city.

A brother who was part of the original mission team in Naga City struggled and left the church. Time flew and the pandemic hit, this same brother reconnected with the church online and was restored to the fellowship. He then started to reach out.

With one man's repentance came so many souls that were brought back to God. They are now continually becoming the light in the province of Masbate. The growing church in Masbate is proof that only God can turn things upside down and bring people and situations into their perfect places. 

It is indeed astonishing to see how Jesus is building his Church through the disciples braving and embracing the mission.

Tagum Church

Kindness can go a long way, but it can go even beyond when God intervenes and make things happen. This is how the story of Tagum church inspired disciples who heard how this small ministry was born from one person’s heart and love to literally setting up the church and its church building! 

This 2022, new churches will be planted in the Philippines. And one of those is in a city called Tagum. Tagum is 1.5hrs away from Davao City and is one of the flourishing cities of Mindanao. Tagum is a city blessed with many fruits and now the people living there are ripe for the harvest.

The dream to plant a church in Tagum started in Davao, where some of the members of ICOC Davao are living in Tagum. One of them is Verlyn Kho. She became a disciple in Manila in the early 90s and then went back to Mindanao and worked there as a government nurse. Verlyn is naturally evangelistic. Making the most out of this pandemic, she shared her faith with patients in quarantine and continues to do so. Many of her patients became interested to know God and have now studied the Bible. She also bought a 180-sq. m. land and decided to donate half of it to the church. So now the church has land to construct a church building. They will be one of the few churches of ICOC Philippines that will have their own church building.

The Tagum Mission Team will be led by Eric and Sherilyn Abalayan, veteran leaders from ICOC Davao. Currently, there are 14 disciples set on planting the church. These are members of ICOC Davao who are continuously growing in number and are now ready to be sent off. 

The dream for our churches is the same - for every church to grow in number and maturity, continually planting seeds of faith until they shoot up and multiply in people’s hearts. With your support, you can make this dream a reality.