In 2006, Angel Boloico, a Filipino lay member of the La Sierra University Church, called me. When we got together, he asked us to hold a major series of meetings in his hometown of General Santos City, nearly the southernmost city of the Philippines, on the island of Mindanao. Because there have been security concerns in the southwest portion of Mindanao, there were some questions that had to be answered! But finally details were worked out. The Quiet Hour, Elder Ralph Watts, and PEP (Partnership for Evangelism to the Philippines)/Dr. Benny Banaag agreed to be the co-sponsors of the series, along with the Southern Mindando Mission and South Philippines Union Conference.

In February I added a day trip to General Santos to another trip to do a Week of Prayer at AUP in the Philippines. The entire mission office staff, led by President Wilson Catolico, were on the runway, with banner and flowers and songs, to greet us! We toured the 10,000-seat basketball stadium where the meetings would be held. We met with all the relevant leaders, and hammered out the master plan and budget: (1) 60 laypersons would be hired for 3 months on stipend to do the ground preparation; (2) 40 Adopt-a-Ministers from all over the Mission would be brought to the immediate vicinity to give Bible studies; (3) 32 satellite meetings would be held, P$10,000 each; (4) Jeepneys would be provided to bring all of the nearby interests to the meetings.

The official meetings began on Friday night, June 29. Attendance held throughout the series at between 1200 and 1600, with of course more on the weekends and for the baptismal Sabbath. Volunteers handled security, funneling everybody through one door, badges for everyone, circling among the vehicles parked outside. My son Alex (16), our tech person Fred Torres, and I and the rest of the team had Adventist volunteer security people with us every minute we were off the Mission compound.

Many other volunteers handled the greeting, ushering, flowers, and, of course, provided terrific music. The best of south Philippines music came from the nearby area, but also Afterglow and other groups from Davao, and Sons and Daughters from Mountain View College, eight hours’ drive away.

A parallel Youth Series was held at the nearby Nursery and Christ the King Churches by Pastor Jesse Seibel, youth director and pastor in the Hawaii Conference, and Pastor Iki Taimi, who pastors a new young adult church in the Southern California Conference. Angel and Vida Boloico also had their daughters (Shilhi Seibel), Sarah McCash (and her husband Sam), and son Sonny there, who participated in the drama each night at the big venue, along with a friend, Roy Tabingo, nephew to the Union president.

Nearly every day we were taken to various small churches to visit with interests, encourage the laymen and church members, and see the physical needs of the churches, which (nearly all) had never been completed. Because all of the new members will be attending one of those churches, we are desperately trying to raise a few thousand dollars to bring up those churches to a representative level so that the new members can be kept and new interests will be attracted.

We also took a day to visit Matutum Academy and the new College of Technology on that campus, about an hour away from General Santos. The College is a courageous attempt to train young people in auto mechanics, as nurse aides, IT technicians, and as teachers, to broaden the base of Adventist professions in the Philippines. The needs were tremendous—kids sleeping on tables, cooking their own food on little pots behind every building, the shop racing to build bunk beds out of scrap iron—but there were smiles and laughter everywhere!

Back at the main venue, the crowd held steady, in spite of periodic cloudbursts. Every night the program was filled with great music, a health or family talk, drama, and the message. Alex Smith manned a video camera, allowing the preacher, translator, and musicians to be seen on the large central screen by the whole audience. On one side was PowerPoint and texts in English, the other with the local Visayan language, Cebeanu, prepared by a local pastor every afternoon. I would prepare the sermon, e-mail it to the US, the English version of the PowerPoint would be prepared by Jenni Subriar over here, e-mailed back, given by flash drive to the Filipino pastor, and by 7 p.m. the two computers would be loaded and ready to go for the duplicate presentations! It was absolutely hectic, but it worked!

Because the (REAP) meetings could only be held for nine nights, the messages had to be squeezed into covering the most critical topics, hoping that the ground preparation (SEEK) and follow-up (KEEP) would fill the gaps. On Thursday night, the appeal was made, and more than 330 people signed cards for baptism. What a moving sight, to see people streaming from all over the stadium to the front, until every spot was filled between the platform and the front row. The next night another 100 people signed cards.

On the final Sabbath of the meetings, the crowd was shifted to a sports complex, where approximately 6000-7000 church members, baptismal candidates, and their friends and family attended. The worship service was early, then there was a mass baptism in the swimming pool. Twenty-four pastors lined up in the pool, and the candidates lined up. In less than an hour the entire group of 1102 had been baptized and welcomed and prayed into the Body of Christ! They were all reminded that they could never forget their baptismal "birthday:” 07/07/07. In the two weeks since the conclusion of the meetings, the number of baptisms has swelled to 1367!

During the afternoon we had a wonderful two-hour concert of the all-star ensembles of music, followed by my final message of encouragement to be faithful and stay with the church, based on the messages to the Seven Churches in Revelation. After an hour of picture-taking and autograph-signing (!), the churches were taken down, the backdrop was lowered, and these meetings were over. The choir from Mountain View put on a concert outside at the mission, and everybody gathered to celebrate an incredible 10-day experience together.

Many thanks to the donors and leaders of The Quiet Hour, to PEP, and to Ralph and Pat Watts and the Foundation for helping make these meetings a reality. It takes hundreds and thousands of people, from donors, to volunteers, to pastors, to make something like this happen, and we want to give honor in the Name of Christ to all who sacrifice to do this.