Team,
It has been a wonderfully tiring few weeks and now it’s time to head home. I left Bacolod around noon today and am now in Manila at a guest room until my 6:25 a.m. flight.
We had a Sunday morning breakfast with our Bacolod Central Church team. It was a pleasure to see the group one last time before heading to the airport.
  Sabbath was LONG and HOT, and the celebrations ran long, too, but everything worked out well.
The baptism took awhile . . . baptizing 11 individuals per cycle in the college swimming pool. According to information from each of the teams, 340 people were baptized by the local pastors. I should have confirmation on the number soon. Heaven rejoices in what took place today and so do we all.
 We had dozens of jeepneys at the college campus, delivering the folk who were to be baptized, and many of the church members, too. I’ve tried to capture the flavor of the day with a few pictures of the jeepneys and also those who rode in them.
I was especially impressed when all the newly baptized candidates lined up in rows and knelt for a prayer of dedication.
One young woman shared her testimony on how she had come to the meetings. She was present the night of the fire and somehow an ember landed in her eye. She was afraid she would be unable to continue attending the meetings, but did somehow. She explained that the devil had wanted her to give up, but she stayed with the program and she and two others in her family were baptized on Sabbath.
 I want to express my thanks to each of you who have held us up in prayer over these last days. The folk here have worked very hard to make the meetings a success and God has blessed their efforts.
It is Sunday morning in California and Sunday night here in the Philippines. I arrive in LAX around 9:15 a.m., so may stop by The Quiet Hour in the afternoon before heading home to sleep.
Hope all is well there.
Mike
Bacolod email reports: March 10-12 | March 16-17 | March 19-23 | March 30
Manila email reports: February 29 - March 3 | March 4-5 | March 6-7 | March 9-10 | March 11-13 | March 17 |
