This is Orlan(center) on the baptized by Jillian(right) together with arni(left).
This is Gracel(center) Baptized by Joanna(left) together with Divine on the right.
This is Jonathan(center) baptized by Me(right) with arni on left.
This is Ivy(center) whose Joana(left) who made her a disciple, Joana baptized Ivy together with Jana on the right.
“What a nice ocean!”
This is the first word I said when Direk and I where talking in the shore watching the waves splashing against the sand. We came to play skim boarding along with Jomie and Resty. Direk is a 10 year old young boy, a very smart kid, he thinks like an old guy, he is aggressive and had a big confidence .While kuya Molong standing at a distance watching of what we are doing and Jomie setting on the other side of the shore together with a 16 year old Resty.
“Do you know who created this?” I ask Derick while we sat on a rock.
Direk exclaimed directly, “Jesus Christ .”
“ Do you know why Jesus came on earth?” I ask again,
“He came to save us” he responded.
So are you save now?
“He responded with a calm voice, no because I have a sin”
So I stop asking him questions instead starts to explain him clarifying what God has saved him already.
“For example,” I started giving an illustration, “I will buy you something and i will give it to you as a gift. What you will do if i will give it to you?
“I will receive it and say thank you” He replied
“Yeah you’re right! Exactly, give me five!” I said raising my right hand slapping to his left hand in the air.
“You are already saved, Jesus died for you because of your sin and also to mine. He forgive all your wrongdoings in this world and it is paid already. You will do nothing to deserve His gift, only you will “BELIEVE” of what He did on the cross for you.
“Are You save”? I ask him again.
So he responded with a delightful face, “Yes I am now!”
“Do you believe that Jesus died for you?”
“Yes I believe.”
“So now that you believe, what is your response to what He did for you?
“I will also share to others and make them a disciple of Jesus so that our world will be in peace.”
“Give me five!” For a second time we raise our hands in the air and slap each others palm. I am amazed after he said that to me, WHAT! A YOUNG BOY! Talking about “making disciples” and “world peace?!!”
I believe that my generation until my forth generation would not be a part of delaying the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I only need 12 of this kinds of people, like Jesus to change my world and I will be done here on earth. If I am still young then, I would ask God to transport me to another world and make disciples there.
Just kidding…
“Also you need to repent,” I continued, “of all wrongdoings you did and be baptized. Repenting is like facing your sin and then turn behind it.” I felt saying praying for him and he willingly followed me in prayer. So we prayed…
“Baptizing,” we go on talking spontaneously, “is burying your old self and then you will become a new creation. Because you are dead in your sins. You need to be baptized and be born again.”
Direk interrupted me and said, “So if I will be baptized I will bury my sin in the Water?
“Exactly!” I exclaimed. I’m telling you, he’s a smart kid.
“Are you ready and willing to be baptized now?” I ask then.
“Yes, I am ready.” He replied back.
So while we’re getting ready to get up in the rock that we sat on, he had something on his hand awhile while we talk, a white shell. While I held his hand to support him to stand up he stop me instantly and says, “Kuya Albert wait, I will first bury this shell because this is my sin and I will leave this.” So, he dig on the ground beside us, put the shell down, and covered it with sand. Then we stood up together heading to the waters. Jomie and Resty followed us after a minute and we baptizes them both together.
We prayed a short prayer, thanking God for their lives that is now His. We dump them in and gave them a big hug after. Welcoming them into the family of Christ.
What a great learning that I get from this 10 year old boy. Smart kid that he can speak English straight as if he’s talking normally. We ended up having great fellowship together with kuya Molong, Jomie, Resty, Direk and me playing skimboarding.
Hmnnn….think just around 6 minutes that I made Derick a disciple of Jesus. Why? Because I finished first than Jomie making Resty a disciple. LOL
Since it was a long holiday here, Jomie decided to visit there place in the province of Bohol. Jomie wants me to come with him and so I decide to come in there place. Even if we have no enough equipment to travel and not enough money to go. We borrowed kuya molong his traveling bag and many things that we needed for us to use. We bring also a tent given from our extended family in Australia Carl porter and his friend Phillip Walters for us to use to sleep because the house there can only fit for just 3 people, the mother and father of Jomie are living including his grandmother who is 90 y/o. This is our first mission trip, only the two of us without kuya Molong. We go together, we even don’t know where are we going to go because Jomie haven’t recognize the place anymore, we even don’t know what we are going to ride. The only map that we have is the Holy Spirit that lead us there. Fortunately we came safe and smooth.
We start to roam around the place and go from house to house, since the neighbors are quite far it is a remote and a mountain area we need to walk a little bit. Most of the houses there is a hut made, because of poverty the only source of there needs is farming. If they do not work hard in the farm they will starve, we even experience to work in the farm to harvest rice with mud from your feet to your knee it is very difficult but it is fun and exciting to mingle different people and share them the gospel while working in the farm.
We visit from house to house praying the sick, talking, laughing, sharing with them about what happen in their lives and sharing them what Jesus did in there lives. Some of them are interested and some of them are not, but still we continue to share with them to let them know the GOOD NEWS! In the evening even if there is no electric lights there, there are some young people would come and sleep together with us in the tent. And some of them sleep in the hut near our tent, we discussed many things. there one situation that we are inside the tent ready to sleep and then suddenly Jomie said, what was Jesus really purpose of coming here? A seconds of silent after jomie say that, no one response. suddenly there is one guy name Dennis lying in the hut said, He came to preach the gospel and heal the sick and I added, He also came to save us all. Jomie smile and look at me while we are in the tent and Dennis in the hut. And Jomie asked dennis again, Dennis are you saved?
For our dear Jesus’ sake, we must not have barriers. The way Paul said it was, “A curse be on everyone that does not love the Lord.” There should be no other curses. We must get rid of the walls, the barriers, and the titles. So if there is a church in your town, and there is power in the Blood, then we can be Christians together without having a name. The church we are a part of has been there for over ten years and we have never had a name, truly. When someone asks us, “What is the name of your church?”, we say, “We love Jesus.” If they are a Baptist, then there are no walls. They don’t think of me as the competition, and I invite them to just love Jesus too, with no titles. When someone asks one of our children, “What ‘church’ do you go to?”, they don’t know how to answer that except perhaps with, “Everyone I know loves Jesus.” If someone asks, “What ‘church’ do you attend?”, our children just say, “What do you mean?” They are part of Church every day. They don’t attend “church.” We are the church. And the children know this in their hearts, even when they are very young.
It is very important that we not have titles in our lives. It needs to begin with you and the lives that you reach out to in the religious world. Beg them to please not have walls or barriers. If there is still power in the Blood, we must not have walls. Having a name that is not in the Bible creates walls. Some people say, “But our name is in the Bible. Our ‘church’ is called the ‘Church of God’, and the Bible says that the Church in Corinth is called the ‘Church of God.’ So, we have a name that is in the Bible.” That’s not good thinking because Paul did not call the Church by a title. What he said was, “This is the Church that belongs to God.” It was not “The Church of God in Corinth” but rather God’s people who live in the city of Corinth. It was a description and not a title, and he also called that same group of people by two or three other names. Because it’s a description, there are many names for the Church. But when we make for ourselves one name and become that name, we have trampled on the blood of Christ because we have made walls between us and other people that love Jesus. If you are willing, the best answer when someone asks you, “What is the name of your ‘church’,” is to say, “I love Jesus. Do you?” That is the best answer. Then there are no barriers except whether or not they love Jesus. This is God’s way and the way of the Bible. We are not separated by names. As the apostle said, “Little children, love one another.” This is the thing that we do. We take pride not in our “church,” but in our husband, Jesus. Amen?
Someone I know was talking to a “pastor.” The pastor was very shocked when this person told him that they were the Church. The pastor had only thought of “church” as something that you go to on Sunday morning in a building. So when someone asks you what “church” you are a part of, you can ask God to give you wisdom for how to answer the question. There are hundreds of different answers. As you read the New Testament, you see that the believers could have answered that question hundreds of different ways too, because they had no title. If you ask God for wisdom for how to answer the question, God can show you what to say. But if you have a title and they ask you, “What ‘church’ are you a part of?” you only have one answer—the title. Now if you have no title, you can help draw them closer to Jesus by explaining to them that Jesus is alive and His Body is the Church. It’s not something you go to, it’s something you are. It’s a Family, not an organization. You can say all of these things when someone asks what “church” you are a part of—unless you have a title, because then they won’t believe you. They will think you are just like everyone else that goes to a building, except that maybe you believe different things than they do. But if you have no name, as the Churches in the Bible had no one particular name, then when they ask the name of your “church,” you can tell them about the wonderful Family and Body of Jesus, and His Life living in His people.
One Sunday morning, we’re at Kuya Molong’s filipino hut and discussing about sin and my father joined in, sharing about what Christ has done, salvation and life. My Father understood directly what salvation is and baptism, but what he has a hard time getting it is the topic about sin.
My father is about 47 years of age, married to my mom for 18 years. His main work was in the market slaughtered house. He would wake up early morning around two, and start heading to his job. It was a very tiry job that earns only about $6 per day, that if he’s lucky to slaughter a couple of pigs, if not then he earns only half of that rate.
My dad has vices such as drinking beers, smokes, gambling, he’s life was just as miserable as anybody else. Until he gets sick, his body becomes so thin, no flesh almost was left. A suspect of maybe because of what he did, commiting many sins of his body, causes the decease that afflicted his life.
My dad is a hardworking person, loves his family, and make some sacrifices for it. I got 4 sisters and one half-brother in which he send us all to school. I felt sorry for my dad, until last week, while having coffee together with other extended family, my heart rejoices!
A detailed account goes like this:
“Do you believe that you are saved already?” Kuya Molong asked. “Jesus came to pay for your sin which is death on the cross. That was done already 2,000 years ago, you just have to know so that you may believe.”
“I don’t know, I am not sure if I am saved or not” was his reply.
“Why?”
“Because I know I will sin still after this. I am a slave of sin.”
“Yes, you are indeed a slave of sin.” Kuya Molong says. “And Jesus has sets you free, you are no longer a slave of sin but you are a slave of Jesus to do righteous acts. You may sin, but you are not a sinner anymore. The difference is that like of a pig, after you bath them they go back to the mud rolling around. Or like a dog, after he vommits will ate it again. Jesus, died for you sin yesterday, that’s when before you were born and commit any sin, and He died for your sin today, and the sin that you will commit tomorrow. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Hmnn….oh..” probably a deep thoughts swallowing his mind.
Kuya Molong shares an interesting story about a little boy playing in a lake that says, “Danger: No playing, wild species are dangerous” and suddenly a crocodile approaches him and starts bitting him, but not long his father saw the crocodile coming towards his child and attacking it, he dives in and saved his child without harm. His father also came out alive out of the water but looses his right leg.
Kuya Molong then pauses with a question: “If you were that child, are you going to come back in that lake and play again?
“No way,” dad answered.
“In the same way, are you going to come back sinning while Jesus cost his life for it?
Of course his answer is no.
Kuya Molong then ask, “Is sin still your problem now? It’s not Jesus problem now, He deals with it already in the cross for you. Do you believe that Jesus has done it for you on the cross?”
“Yes,” my dad answered with a nod on his head.
“Now that you believe, you are saved. Being a disciple of Jesus will cost your life as well, Jesus said that if you follow Him you will deny yourself and take up your cross. Death is the goal of the cross. Since you are dead in your sins, we’re gonna have to bury you or else you will smell bad soon enough.” Everyone gets a laugh while sipping the warm coffee, dad too. He added his thought that “of course if a person is dead the next thing we will have to do is bury him!”
“In order for Jesus to give you His new life, your old life has to be burried along with your sin. Are you willing to do that?” Dad nodded his head saying, “Yes.”
“So, shall we go now in a nearby beach and let’s have your funeral?”
“Yes.”
We, I, Jomie, my dad, and kuya Molong rides on his single bike, yes all of us fit on his bike, remember my dad is so thin? We then head up directly to the sea in which we dump already a lot of old rotten smelly old sinful flesh for a couple of months there.
Kuya Molong ask me to baptize my own father, which it’s a priveledge of doing so. Three of us formed a circle to pray, specifically to cut off being a slave of sin to my father. Then we hurried down the water and with the help of Jomie we started baptizing him. It’s been awhile that Dad didn’t swam in the ocean, we live for many years in the mountains. Dad while enjoys swimming, kuya Molong ask him what does he felt. “Feels like I’m floating, not heavy, certainly bad elements has gotten out of me!”
“Yah,” kuya Molong replied, “being a slave of sin and sickness has ended. You are now a follower of Jesus!”
We all enjoyed swimming for a couple of minutes before we headed home.
What a memorable Sunday morning at 9.45, August 15, 2010, while the church in front of that nearby resort is playing around their games, we bury someone, a dear brother in the Lord, my father.
Mabuhay! I am Albert, a 17 year old guy from the Queen City of the South, CEBU, Philippines. This is my personal site of HOW I Make Disciples [MD] of Jesus through my friends, my BARKADA! Barkada is a wonderful Filipino social group of friends that treated each other as family without control and hierarchy, but only relationship, trust, love and respect for each other. Feel free to scroll around and if you can write some comments I be encourage, or shoot me an email.
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