A good friend of mine asked me about our Night of Thanksgiving service, and I thought, if he had some questions, I am sure others do too. FIRST, The Philippines does not celebrate "Thanksgiving Day" like other countries that do celebrate it. Well, to be honest there are tons of holidays here already. But I do think it would be wonderful to thank God for His blessings as a country or even as a people or a nation. This is not the case here in the Philippines. So, we teach our people the importance of being thankful to God and we took advantage of a Philippine holiday that was closest to the week of Thanksgiving Day (USA) and moved our Wed. night service to a Tuesday night service for that particular week. SECOND, the activities that we did. We had a wonderful time of getting together starting off with a meal at 4PM (dinner) - we provided the main meats (roasted chickens and roasted pork bellies with an additional bucket of fried chicken, bottled waters, a few snack items) meanwhile others brought a dish or dessert. We ate good! Fun games started immediately and went on until 6:30PM. At 7PM we started our mid-week service with a song and testimonies of thanksgiving and praise to God. At 7:30PM I preached a short message, and we ended with observing the Lord's Supper. THIRD, we had some special guests join us for the evening. Our prayer is that they would get saved, and return and be fruitful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The last time we had a Night of Thanksgiving was about two years ago, prior to the pandemic. So this Night of Thanksgiving was very special to us. Please pray the Philippines continues to move on pass the pandemic stage and onto an endemic stage. The president of the Philippines (Marcos Jr.) will decide if he will discontinue the emergency status or extend it further into 2023. We hope that he ends it, and sooner too.
We sure are thankful to God for who He is! We love him not just for His blessings but for who He is and for being God almighty and unchangeable.
Merry Christmas,
Bro. Bill
P.S. This coming Sunday we are expecting potentially two special guests: one is Nanay (or "Mother") Elena and her grandson, Brent. The other is a lady who is temporarily staying near Manila Bay (methinks she is from California). Both have the potential of visiting our work in Tuktukan this Sunday (12/04) - I pray that there would be many other visitors, too. AND may many hearts be turned to the Lord in true repentance and faith. Thank you, dear friends for praying for us. Be well!
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