Nearly three years ago a community leader by the name of Pedro Calijan, of Bagtic, Tayasan, Oriental Negros (Negros Mission, Philippines), was impressed by a power working within him to lead his people to worship the true God instead of continuing the meaningless, superstitious incantations handed down to them by their ancestors. The impression that he got, which he ascribed to the working of the Holy Spirit, is that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. His acceptance of the Sabbath truth was strengthened when he acquired a Bible, which confirmed his belief.
A group of nearly 200 people (40 families) joined Pedro Calijan in building a meeting place of cogon, bamboo, and rattan where they assemble every Sabbath to worship Jehovah. Their regular Sabbath meetings aroused the attention of the town officials and the surrounding communities. Inquiries were made for their church identification, to which their only answer was that they were meeting as a group to worship God and that Saturday was their day of worship.
They were to be charged for subversive activities unless they would signify to what religion they belonged. They had been approached and invited by the different religious communions to be fused into their fellowship, but the group refused "unless they, too, would keep holy the seventh-day Sabbath of the Lord according to the Ten Commandments." The situation was serious. Pedro Calijan and his community looked wistfully to heaven for light and guidance.
Upon learning that there was a church that kept Saturday, the seventh-day, as the Sabbath of the Lord, Mr. Calijan, with some companions, got in touch with our district leader, Pastor A. B. Savilla, in Dumaguete City. They expressed their desire to join the Seventh-day Adventist Church. A few days later two colporteur evangelists, Arsenio Salazar and Toribio Talidong, struggled through the hazardous twentyfive-kilometer ascent and there found many earnest souls thirsting for evangelical refreshing from the presence of the Lord, Regular evangelistic meetings, house-tohouse visitations, and Bible studies were conducted by our Bible worker, Eliseo Doble. More joined the Adventist meetings from Sabbath to Sabbath.
The first baptism of seventy-five precious souls was held on September 12, 1964, in the very place where once superstition and idolatry held strong dominance.
"All over the world men and women are looking wistfully to heaven. Prayers and tears and inquiries go up from souls longing for light, for grace, for the Holy Spirit. Many are on the verge of the kingdom, waiting only to be gathered in."—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 109.
