TO GIVE weight and meaning to their instructions on evangelism to the lay men, P. M. Diaz, lay activities secretary of the South Philippine Union Mission, and Z. B. Ferenal, lay activities secretary of the Southern Mindanao Mission, accepted the call and challenge to hold an evangelistic campaign in Surallah, South Cotabato. Their main objective was to introduce the Gift Bible Plan in connection with the campaign.
Surallah is a new, fast-developing town where we have a church membership of about thirty. This flock is one of about fifteen other churches and companies under the efficient supervision of a young and courageous district leader, Nellie Alipoon. With the three as regular members of the team, preparations were made for the meetings to start the first week of February. The penetration tract, Life at Its Best, was distributed with the handbills. Streamers across the main streets invited people to come to the Life at Its Best lecture series and offered a free Bible to all who came.
When the meetings started on Sunday, February 2, the vice-mayor gave an inspiring address, praising Seventh-day Adventists for their concern and Christian con duct. He also stayed to hear the opening lecture, "These Tragic and Tangled Times." After the first meeting, the tabernacle, which was constructed with a $225 mission budget, became too small to seat all the listeners. The second week, when the gift Bible was offered to those who wished to receive Bible studies following The Bible Says lessons, it became necessary for us to assign the seats to the regular students. The rest stood in the aisles or outside.
As the beauty of God's wonderful truth was unfolded before the people each night and intensive visitations were made every day, calls for Bible studies increased beyond the capacity of the team to care for them. Some homes, kilometers away, could only be reached by walking. Some religious groups, as usual, prepared public entertainment programs to attract people away from our meetings. We also had stonings of our tabernacle and living quarters. Some ministers dared to have confrontations with us in the homes of our interests who were their former members. But the people kept on coming to our meetings, even on dark and rainy nights.
94 Graduates—94 Baptisms
We maintained a hundred and twenty in The Bible Says group classes. It was regrettable that during this campaign the Bible Society ran short of Bibles in the vernacular, hence several who could not understand and read English were not en rolled. Ninety-four of our gift-Bible students received their certificates during the first The Bible Says graduation in the South Philippines, held on March 15. M. M. Claveria, new union president, was guest speaker. It is with humble hearts and ascribing all the glory to God that we share with our readers the joy of having baptized ninety-four in the first baptism. Four more were baptized a little later and Miss Alipoon, all alone in her district again, is preparing about twenty-five more for the next baptismal service.
A younger sister of Miss Alipoon dreamed that she saw her picking up many fish in a net that was washed ashore. We never thought that in Surallah, the town that topped all municipalities in North and South Cotabato provinces for crimes in 1968 and where about ten people died in shooting frays while we were there for the seven-week series, that this dream would find fulfillment. We solicit your fervent prayers for the new believers in Surallah.
