Candidates for the deaconate office. On July 6th our church will be vot-ing to confirm Glenn Manuel and Roderick Parco for the office of Dea-con. Please pray for wisdom and dis-cernment of the Lord’s will. May our church have unity of mind in this im-portant matter. Praise be unto God who alone is wise.

Addition to membership. Joseph Mangahas, a student in GMA and an able preacher was accepted into membership early this month. May the Lord use him greatly for His

June 2014; Vol. 5, issue 4

H O L D I N G T H E 1 6 8 9 B A P T I S T C O N F E S S I O N O F F A I T H

21 Harvard St., Cubao, Quezon City www.cubaorbc.org

"If we believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God and that He came into this world and went to the cross of Calvary and died for our sins and rose again in order to

justify us and to give us life anew and prepare us for heaven—if you really believe that, there is only one inevitable deduction, namely that He is entitled to the whole of our lives, without

any limit whatsoever." — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount)

News & Thanksgiving . . .

Cubao Reformed Baptist Church

Grace Ministerial Academy On 17th June GMA opened its classes for

the school year 2014—2015. Pastor Noel gave the message for the opening of classes from the book of Daniel.

With the retirement of Pastor Ellis from teaching the history class, a reorganization of tutors and subjects came about.

Pastor Gi lbert McAdam returns to teach the New Testament class which for this se-mester are lectures on Paul’s Let-ters to the Corinthians. While Pas-tor Noel Espinosa who used to teach the NT will now teach the Church History class — “A History of the Baptists”. Noel is also teach-ing the Dogmatics class on ”Apologetics. Brother Ricman De-nus still teaches the Greek and Hebrew classes.

The Lord willing Dr. Ian Densham is arriving to teach a modular class on the “Synoptic Gospels” the 22nd—31st July.

The Friday class which is open to male and female members of other churches has also started with the subject being “Baptist History”.

AS we have often said, GMA has been greatly used in the work of reformation in the Philippines. Most students are already pastors of their churches who have begun to under-take the work of reformation in their churches. Pastor Noel conducts mini-conferences in several places outside of Manila. However, this year we are slowing down a little because of financial constraints. GMA’s finances are in the red. Please pray that the Lord may provide for the needs of

GMA to further the work of reformation in our country.

Please pray for Pastor Noel who has not been very well physi-cally. He has been hospitalized for hypertension and hypo glycae-mia confounded by severe skin allergies. Please pray for his health. May the Lord grant him more strength for his work in the Kingdom.

May the Lord con-tinue to grant us His mercies in this ministry.

Testimony Lowey Artaste, a Social Worker with CCM, gave his conversion testimony. The Lord willing he will be accepted into membership in July.

The Lord willing we also expect Ms. Jean Borela to give her testi-mony also in July. We give all the Glory to God who is graciously adding to our church.

Worship services. There are several new regular attendees in our Sunday services. Some are professing believers but some are un-converted. Please pray that the Lord will save many of the friends who come to worship with us. Please pray too that the Lord may provide for the expansion of our Worship Hall.

The Ellis’. We are thankful to the Lord for bringing back to us Pas-tor Ellis and Necy from their vacation safe and sound. Pastor Ellis is now back preaching in the afternoon English service.

Joseph Mangahas

The Principal: Ptr. Noel Espinosa

Ptr. Ismael leading the service.

Opening service: Ptr. Espinosa preaching

Haiyan/Yolanda Relief Work, Tacloban . . . Page 2

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due sea-son we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Galatians 6: 9)

Paul intimates that along the way of doing good, we may get weary and lose heart. The motivation to persevere is that the reward is not from men or of earth but from God and therefore eternal.

We thank the Lord for His grace that sustains us to do good, willingly and untiringly.

The following is the account of what has recently been accomplished in our Relief Work in Tacloban, Leyte.

The First Team. Raymund Cano, Glenn Manuel, and Arnel Parco went to San Jose, Tacloban in the month of May to begin “Roof repairs to homes” in Baran-gay 89, San Jose. We heard from some other donors that some recipients who were given construction materials sold them instead of installing them in their homes. We therefore de-cided to repair the roofs ourselves. We hired 24 workers divided into four teams to do the work. Susan Fadul and Maribeth Cano

went with them to also survey possible help to Pub-lic Schools. They visited the National High School in San Jose and also the larg-est elementary school in the whole of Tacloban. They found out that even after 6 months since ty-

phoon Yolanda hit Tacloban, there was very little improvement of schools. These two schools have been largely neglected by the na-tional government and govern-ment agencies. There were only temporary classrooms made of plas-tic materials donated by interna-tional relief organizations. There is no electricity, with broken blackboards, and only makeshift wash rooms and toilets.

Our hearts were moved to do something for these schools. We decided then to initially provide school supplies to students.

The Second Team. When all the school supplies had been deliv-ered to our Tacloban Relief Centre, we de-cided to send people to finalize this work.

9th June. Bekha Macapagal flew to Taclo-ban by herself to inspect the school sup-plies and meet with the Principals of the schools to make final arrangements. The members of Abuyog Reformed Baptist Church helped in the repacking of the school supplies. They traveled two hours from Abuyog to Tacloban.

11th June. Deacon Louie Lim, Pastor Mon Macapagal, and Arnel Parco drove the new Isuzu flexi truck to Tacloban. They were joined by Debbie Denus and Armie Parco. It took them a 30 hours journey by land.

13th June. On Friday, we immediately embarked on finishing the repacking of goods. Deacon Louie supervised the work. The group of Cathy Gacutan, Analyn Ablao and Joy Putal (CCM Staff) arrived at about eight in the morning. At four in the afternoon, the repacking of school supplies was completed.

We all ate together at dinner time. Pastor Mon gave a short devotion on “Loving more, even if we are loved less.”

After dinner we started finalizing the repacking of surplus clothes to be given to families of students. There were about 30 boxes of used clothing. By 10pm we had completed the repacking of the clothes.

16th June. “The big day”: The ac-tual distribution of school supplies and used clothes at the two

schools mentioned. Two teams were formed. The team that went to the National high School was lead by Cathy while the team that went to the Elementary school was lead by Louie. The school begins at six in the morning with the flag ceremony. The principal spoke and intro-duced us to the students. Cathy spoke about the work of CCM to the Na-

t i on a l H i g h School while Pastor Jovert Vasquez preached the gospel. Deacon Louie explained the ministry of CCM to the students at the elementary school while Pastor Danny Baguio preached the gospel.

Before noon, the distribution of school supplies and clothes were finished. Praise be unto God everything went well and orderly.

All in all, we were able to distribute 3,100 bags of school supplies and 600 bags of clothes. We also gave some basic school materials for teachers. Please pray for

wisdom as we consider providing blackboards for the schools. Please also pray for the schools that they may be able to have electricity as soon as possible and that they may have the finances needed to replace the damaged electrical wiring. Above all please pray that the Lord will draw adults and children unto salvation in Christ.

At the present time we have been enabled to repair about 120 of roofs. This work is still ongoing as many need our help.

17th June. Tuesday: Social Workers Cathy and Analyn visited the Department of Social Wel-

fare and Devel-opment (DSWD) to inquire about the work being done in Taclo-ban. The DSWD

informed us of possible places where we can continue to help.

Please pray for us at CRBC and CCM that we will not grow weary of seeking to show the love of God to the people of Tacloban.

BEFORE the repairs

AFTER the repairs

The Principal handing a plaque of appreciation and recognition for the help we gave the school

Distribution of school supplies

Students display the relief bags

Page 3

CCM staff retreat. This was held from the 28th to 30th July at “Pranjetto Hills Resort and Conference Centre” in Tanay, Rizal, which is about 50 kms from Cubao.

It was indeed a time of spiritual and physical refreshment and renewal of commitment to the ministry of CCM.

The theme was “Moral excellence”. Pas-tor Ellis expounded 2 Peter 1:5—11 fo-cusing on diligence towards growth in Christian character which is a way of making our “Calling and Election sure”. He gave two messages from this pas-sage. Pastor Macapagal preached on the “Work of the Holy Sprit in believers” in the first session and expounded Gal 5: 22 on the fruit of the Spirit in the second session.

There was also time for fun and recrea-tion. We furthermore enjoyed the beauti-ful countryside. Some went hiking and mango picking while others pre-ferred to splash around in the swim-ming pool.

We thank the Lord for giving the staff this time together for three days. Praise God!

CCM Children's Choir. Through the hard work and patience of teacher Esther Sicad and the assistance of Girlie Nietes, the girls in the Homes held a Choir Recital at CRBC. This activity was a fund raising project for the construction of the new Boys’ Home . Members of other churches were very supportive.

There were two separate presentations. The younger girls ren-dered songs separately from the teens. But there was an occa-sion when they all sang together with the house parents and staff. It was truly enjoyable to see and hear these girls sing Chris-tian hymns and songs.

Their singing was excellent. However those of us who know them were moved by the tremendous change and growth that has hap-

pened in these girls. Most of them are all grown up and seem to be growing to be responsible young ladies.

After the concert there was a clamor from the audience to have another concert soon. It was decided to have another possibly in August. Please pray for the success of this fund raising activity. Above all pray for our girls that they may truly take to heart the messages of the hymns they sing. We thank the Lord that they are regularly under the

preaching of the Gospel so please pray for their conversion.

CCM requests:

The need for additional Social Workers, office staff and tutors. Currently a number of people have applied and been interviewed. We thank the Lord that one Social Worker has been accepted but we still need two more. May the Lord give us the people for these positions.

Please continue to pray for the plan to construct at least the first floor of the new Boys’ Home. May the Lord guide us through this project. However the money available is still far short of our need for this whole project.

School days are here again. The Social Workers have much to do with the schooling of recipients in the communities and in the Homes.

Christian Compassion Ministries (CCM) . . .

Drop-in Centre Ministry (DnC) . . . Praise God! The Drop-in Ministry has resumed its operation after the long summer break.

However we need more volunteers for the Thursday night feed-ing program. Please pray for devoted men and women who are willing to help these less fortunate people.

Brethren please also join with us in bringing before God’s throne the great need of salvation of these homeless people. Prayer Requests . . .

1. The Lord willing we will be celebrating our 35th Church Anniversary on the 9th of August. Our guest speaker is Pastor Ferdie Facundo of Trinity Bible Church of San Pablo City. There will also be conversion testimonies to be given by 3 members. May the Lord bless our celebration as we seek to give Him all the praise and the glory.

2. We thank God for the wonderful blessing to Reddy and Naomi Gonzales who are now in the UK. Naomi has just given birth (June 23) to a healthy baby girl, Phoebe Grace.

3. We also thank God for a successful operation for Armando Dalut who had a bicycle accident. This resulted in him breaking his left leg. He is now back at the church and the Lord willing very soon back to work.

4. We are considering drawing up a building plan for the ex-pansion of our Worship Hall. Please pray that we may be able to find an architect to make the plans.

5. Please pray for the ministry of God’s Word in our services and bible studies. For the three elders who are take turns in preaching every Lord’s Day. For our Evangelistic Bible studies and the men being used in these meetings. For our Sunday School ministry to children and adults. May God be pleased to bring many to repentance and faith in Christ our Lord.

6. For our members that we may grow more in holiness and that we may be guided and directed by the Word of God.

7. We have a growing number of young people in our church. Some have already become members but many of them are still lost in their sins. May God save our young people.

8. Please pray for conversions through our various ministries specially our ministry to the street people.

9. Continue to pray for the Relief Work in Tacloban that not only may we help people materially but above all spiritually and that they may come to repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The CCM Staff

Ptr Ellis leading a session