First Healing Service at Toledo, Cebu, Philippines
Organized by Rev Butch Nacua and Rev Ramil
Location: Universal Church of Christ
14 March 2010
Kingdom Praise Assembly is situated at the Mandaue City, Cebu. Pastor Butch Nacua is the pastor in charge of this new congregation of young people and Pastor Neo Duran is the Assistant Pastor. On 14 March 2010, 18 young people, including Pastor Butch's young son, Moses, surrendered their lives to Jesus after Grace and I ministered to them.
In the afternoon, we travelled to Toledo which was two hours from Mandaue. It was already dark when we arrived at Ibo, the ‘barangay’ at the outskirt of Toledo City. Pastor Ramil and his wife, Pastora Ahmey are the pastors of Universal Church of Christ which is really a Pentecostal church. They quickly organized the first healing service and soon people started to show up.
Grace had organized the young people and together they presented a Mandarin worship song The congregation was thrilled because that was the first time they heard a worship song in Chinese. My message that evening was about the danger of looking for the ‘anointed preachers, prophets or apostles’. Then I shared about the extreme teaching on the theology of prosperity and also the theology of poverty. The only appropriate theology is the theology of stewardship. The primary idea is to serve God with what we have. Then I shared about Elijah Challenge and the importance of using the authority given by God to heal the sick whenever we share the Gospel. As there was no LCD projector, I could only read the Scriptures without the benefit of visual aids. For further clarity, Sister Beth, who is one of the church leaders, helped to read the Scriptures in Cebuano.
When it was time to demonstrate the power of God, the Filipino shyness ran rampant. After much encouragement, five participants came forward. The rest of the participants were invited to lay hands and exercise their faith to heal the infirm. As the infirm were all Christians, I invited Pastor Ramil to lead them in a prayer of confession and repentance. The divine healing upon Christians is conditional while healing the non-believers is not. After prayer and instructions, the teams were ready to heal. Amazingly, everybody was healed at the first command. This was the first time that we had all the people healed like that. In most churches it usually took two or more commands to heal the infirm.
A lady was healed instantly of pain in her abdomen. Another lady was healed of the pain in her heel and joint. A man received instant relief from the pain in his arthritic knee and rejoiced at the miracle. A middle-aged lady was foot was also healed. She proclaimed that the pain had left completely. A young girl with pain in her chest testified that after the command, the pain was gone too. Later a few young people laid hands on a teenage boy and healed him of his shoulder pain.
That evening was an exciting night for the members of this church in Toledo. They rejoiced because now they could heal the sick in the name of Jesus whenever they share the Gospel. Many promised to invite friends and relatives to the next healing service.
Reported by Rev Albert Kang
Coordinator, Elijah Challenge Asia
