The end of another year draws near and thus far the Lord has helped us. James has written in his letter 1: 17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Fa-ther of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change”

We thank God for everything that He has done and will do for us.

Additions to the membership. We have no addition to our membership this month but the Lord willing, in January, 10 persons will give their conversion testimonies. There are also a good number of people inquiring about church membership. We praise God for all these blessings. All glory be to Him!

Ordination of Larry Malabayabas. Larry is a former pastor of a church in the prov-ince of Marinduque. Since becoming Re-formed in his theology, he desired to take up theological training at Grace Ministerial Academy. He is now in his third year in GMA. For two years we have been sending him to preach at Providence Baptist Church in Tondo, Manila. Recently the church wrote to us asking if we could send Larry to become their pastor and in the Lord’s providence on the 10th November Larry was ordained as their pastor. Pastor Ellis con-ducted the ordination service. Please pray that Larry will be greatly used in this church.

Couples’ fellowship. On the 30th November, our married cou-ples had a wonderful time together. Brother Glenn Manuel led the discus-sion on limiting closeness to other people to protect the marriage. It was a very meaningful and fruitful discus-sion. May the Lord continue to strengthen the bond of our couples. Praise God!

Youth Fellowship. We are thankful for our young people who were able to attend the “Annual Youth Camp” in November. It was a blessing for them in strengthening their relationships with youths from other churches. They were also blessed with the opportunity to hear the preaching of God’s word. We are very encouraged by them because a good number have become members of the church and three more have now come forward applying for membership. Please pray for wisdom for the elders as they assess their profession of faith. We give all the praise to our gracious Lord!

Sunday School year-end program. This program is a conclu-sion of the year’s Sunday School. We invite the parents of children to join. It is fascinating to watch the children of different levels present their parts. Brother Armando Dalut preached and ex-plained the basic points of the gospel to children and parents. Please pray that both parents and children will be convicted by the preaching and that the Lord will save them from their sins.

CRBC year-end fellowship. This activity is a tradition every December. Members gather for fun and sharing light moments and deli-cious food. We praise the Lord for making this activity a happy time.

Scott, Emily & Daniel Delohery. Scott finally found a

job in the USA and on the 11th December Emily and Daniel went to join him. We praise God for granting Scott the job he needs to provide for his family. Please continue to pray for them as they continue to find ways to represent CCM to churches in the US.

Morong, Rizal outreach. Morong is abut 50 kms from Cubao. We have a CRBC family who hail from this place. In the Lord’s providence in 2012 we began a mission work there. Since it was

far from Cubao and we had no avail-able worker at that time we asked Pastor Olan Mendoza, pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church in Taytay, Rizal to take over this work. Taytay is about 30 kms from Morong. A num-ber of people were baptized through the ministry of Pastor Olan. But since Pastor Olan’s church has now grown and he has several ministries to at-tend to, he decided to return to our church the oversight of the work in Morong.

The Lord willing by January we will begin to oversee this work again. Please pray for Erwin Cadalin, one of our church workers and GMA graduate who will be as-signed to head-up this work. Pray that he may be given the wis-dom and the strength for this important task. Pray also for CRBC as this will be an additional work load for us. May it please the Lord to establish this work as an independent congregation.

Cubao Reformed Baptist Church

December 2013; Vol. 4, issue 7

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

“When we begin to question the love of God, we need to remember who we are. We have absolutely no claim on his love. We don’t deserve one bit of

God’s goodness to us…I know of nothing that will so quickly cut the nerve of a petulant, “Why did this happen to me?” Attitude as a realization of who we

are before God, considered in ourselves apart from Christ.” -

Jerry Bridges

News & Thanksgiving . . .

Presentation of Pre-school class Presentation of Pre-school class Presentation of Pre-school class Presentation of Pre-school class

Sunday School Year-end Program

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Christian Compassion Ministries (CCM). Some changes are happening in CCM. Sadly Virgie Biala the

Director of the homes leaves us after 13 years to marry John T. Sparrow. She moves to the UK in January. John T is of course very active on the CCM UK Trust and is responsible for the CCM Website.

Social Worker Analyn Ablao assumes the position of Officer in Charge of the Homes and we expect that she will after a trial period be appointed as Director. For Analyn filling the shoes of Virgie is a tough act to follow but we believe that she is very ca-pable of doing this. A new work schedule for house parents has also been implemented mainly because of Government policy. Please pray that the staff will adjust well to this new schedule.

In the Lord’s goodness, a male Social Worker Lowey Aristartes has begun to work in the Homes. He is particularly responsible for the boys. We also rejoice that Edgar and Ginia Escabillas have settled in well and are doing a fine job acting as parents to the boys. They are also in the process of becoming church members.

There are new children being cared for in the homes. Most of them are very young. Please pray that these children will be happy living in the CCM homes.

CCM is in great need of new Social Workers. We need at least four as Xander Maniwang is leaving CCM. Although he will be still be with us in the church. Please pray that the Lord will pro-vide us the right people to work as Social Workers in CCM. It is extremely difficult to find evangelical Christian Social Workers.

December has been very busy. First, we had the CCM annual staff party which was held on the 6th in a restaurant in Marikina. Second, the CCM Homes had their party on the 10th held at the roof top of the Home’s building. The children gave some presen-tations that we enjoyed. They also enjoyed playing some games.

Thirdly, the largest event was the EAP year-end celebration. More than 500 recipients attended (one parent with their spon-sored child). We have to rent a school auditorium to cater for so many at once. The event was from 7am to 4pm. Each year we have a different theme and the different communities put on a presentation. The theme this year was “Christmas of nations”. It is simply amazing how the different area groups prepared for their numbers. The group that emerged as grand winner was the group that presented Christmas in South Korea. The first runner up was China, while the second runner up was Ireland and third runner up was Mexico.

Drop—In Ministry. The Lord has been blessing this ministry. We cannot thank

God enough for what he is doing among the homeless. On the 14th November, we celebrated the 10th year anniversary of the Drop-In. There were about 250 attendees from our friends from the streets of Cubao. Brother Matthew Gamston, who pioneered this ministry was the guest speaker. A good meal was served and a video presentation of the history of the Drop-in-ministry was shown.

On the 10th December, we had the year-end party. Again, there were about 250 recipients attendees. There were several first timers. They played parlour games and they enjoyed it very much. Pastor Mon preached on 2Corinthians 8: 9 on the theme of getting rich spiritually. The audience participation was amazing. They all were shouting Amen to the message. Please pray that it may truly yield fruit of conversions.

The Monday Night Bible Study for the drop-in people is well attended. We are amazed by the desire of these people to listen to the Word of God. Please pray for brother Armando Dalut who is leading this bible study.

Grace Ministerial Academy (GMA). We praise God for the opening of classes for the second se-

mester on the 12th of November. Pastor Noel Espinosa gave a very inspiring message for the students. We also thank God for yet again using Dr. Ian Densham in teaching a modular course on the Pentateuch.

GMA is currently on a holiday break. Please pray that the stu-dents will be helped with their assignments during the break.

Please continue to pray for Pastor Noel Espinosa who has a dual ministry as full-time Pastor of Grace Baptist Church and Princi-pal of Grace Ministerial Academy. Lately, Noel has not been so well physically but we thank God for sustaining him and strength-ening him to carry on with his dual role.

Annual Pastors’ Conference Our Annual Pastors’ Conference will be held in the will of the

Lord, from Feb 4—6. The Conference over its 23 years of existence has been used of God in the work of Reformation among the churches. May it continue to be so used to the glory of God. Our main preachers are. George McDearmon from the USA , Norman Hopkins from the UK along with Noel Espinosa our GMA Principal. As usual we expect to distribute at least nine good books to the delegates.

CRBC Ministries . . .

Drop-in year-end program

CCM Homes Party

Relief Work in Eastern Visayas . . . Typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) ravaged a large part of

the Central Philippines. According to reports this is one of the strongest and most d e s t r u c -tive ty-p h o o n s e v e r known. I t has c l a i m e d more than 6,000 lives and de-s t r o y e d hundreds of thou-sands of h o m e s both large and small. It created a storm

surge like a tsunami, lifting the water 20 feet or more high before it plunged into the towns and villages along the shore line.

When our church heard this heart breaking news, we immedi-ately discussed a quick response to this devastating occurrence.

We hurdled several difficulties: first the need of funds to help, the second was the problem of distance, and third was unavail-ability of transportation. There were no immediate air flights to Tacloban because the airport was partly destroyed.

We decided to send two teams to make a survey and assess the possible help we could give. The first team was led by Brother Er-win Cadalin and Pastor Ismael Montejo. They went to Samar, Eastern Visayas. The bus they rode took more than 2 days to reach their destination. The second team was led by Levy Lihig, Henry Ca-nas and Pastor Mon Macapagal. It was providential that there were by then flights available that made it easy for them to reach Tacloban airport. They went to the island of Leyte, the center of the destruction. They were also joined by an American team from Texas who primarily installed water purifiers in different locations.

When we arrived at the airport we immediately wit-nessed the destruction. There really was no more airport, so to say. The buildings were down and there was no elec-tricity to run airport equip-ment. We thought we were in a time machine that brought us back to when electricity had not yet been invented.

We traveled almost 100 kms from the airport to Abuyog, Leyte. It was a pitiful sight all the way, many houses were flattened, there was no electricity, no food, no stores, worse there was no real life among the people. They were simply roaming around beg-ging for help.

Seeing the place where the storm surge had occurred was a very distressing sight for the volunteers. Tears naturally flowed from our eyes. We passed by the mass graves and the bewilder-ment of cars and trucks thrust into houses by wind and water. We asked, what can lift such heavy things like toys and throw them so far away.

We distributed food and water to as many areas as we could. We also took the opportunity to preach the gospel to every place where we distributed the relief goods. Having seen the massive devastation, the volunteers knew that what they were doing to try to meet the great needs was really so meager. It was, just a drop in a vast ocean. They won-dered what more they could do. The whole island is in a state of calamity, such as they have never seen nor known before. The whole team were overwhelmed with pity for the people they met. When we returned, the members of CRBC met to discuss what we could do next to help meet the vast needs.

Please pray for us as we explore how we might go about this. We want to thank everyone who has contributed so gener-

ously to our relief effort. In the will of the Lord this will continue well into the New Year. Reconstruction is a long-term process.

This report is simply a summary of what has already been written by Pastor Brian Ellis and Bekha Macapagal. Please see reports posted on our CCM website. — www.ccmmanila.org

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6. The Lord willing a number of churches in the Manila area will gather together for Prayer and Fellowship on January 11.

7. Please pray for our Annual Church meeting and proposed plans for 2014 that we may know the will of our Lord and that all we do may be done for His glory.

8. We give thanks to the Lord for the number of applicants for membership at the present time. This is most encouraging and humbling. May the Elder’s be given wisdom and discern-ment in their interviewing such applicants and in recom-mending them to the church. A number of them are young people who if accepted will be baptized.

9. Continue to pray for conversions among our many contacts in our Bible Studies, in CCM, among the homeless and among our children and regular attendees to our church services.

10. That the Lord our God will be magnified in all we do.

1. Please continue to pray for our next stage in our relief work. We are planning to help with reconstruction of homes, working through and with some of the evangelical churches in the areas of Samar and Leyte. We would also like to try and provide some kind of livelihood for families. All is easier said than done. Pray for much wisdom.

2. Maylin Balairos, house mother in the CCM Girl's Homes is now back with us from her visit to her niece Happy in Swit-zerland. She had opportunity to present the work of CCM in several churches. Praise God for His mercies.

3. Jill Pascual, wife of our deacon Joel is expecting to give birth early in January. Please pray for a safe delivery.

4. We are preparing for our Annual Pastors’ Conference on the 4th — 6th February. The theme for this conference is “The Man After God’s Own Heart.” please pray for travelling mer-cies and help for our speakers coming from the UK and US.

Prayer Requests. . .

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Distributing relief goods near Tacloban Leyte

Our American brethren installing water purifiers

Destruction was widespread