A spacious building and pastor’s wedding for EFC-Gensan
Digging for our humble beginning would lead me back to our first Sunday worship of six people in a small rented house in Dona Soledad subdivision, General Santos City on November 12, 2005. This birth of our small church is filled with hope, power and God dependency. This rented house church thrived through evangelism, bible study and invitations until the limited space was engulfed by the attendance.
The need for a much larger space was prevalent in every prayer meeting and in our personal devotion. Trusting in God’s provision kept us “Kingdom Driven” rather than considering set backs in our hands. On the next year of a budding church, God led us to transfer to a nearby place ( Lanton, Apopong ) since vast membership lived in that location. We landed in an abandoned Sari-sari store (Multipurpose building). On this year, we conducted our first film show crusade entitled Hell is Real. During the event, a woman came and maliciously disrupted the crusade by pulling the microphone plugs and generally created chaos. Truly our adversary, the devil, was unhappy with the salvations of souls in that event. But through God’s power, the woman just left the premises and the crusade ended successfully.
“If God is for us, who can be against us? ” was indeed an appeal for us to stay confident to face the realms of darkness. Convictions of the Holy Spirit sprouted in the hearts of everyone who attended the church services every Sunday. It was on the same year in 2006 that we invited our first guest speaker Pastor Tony Angelias ( EFC-Kidapawan ) to speak in our church service. Never did we expect the attendance to double. The Holy Spirit moved mightily. The Sari-sari Store building later couldn’t contain the growing attendance of the church. Thus, the need to transfer was greatly considered for the second time.
We moved from one place to another throughout the years, looking for a much larger building for our place of worship , until God provided us with His unwavering favor. An abandoned warehouse of about 300 Square Meters was rightly God’s answer to our fervent prayers. Members were overjoyed upon seeing the building that was so spacious. Pastor Wee and Pastor Christine came to see the building and affirmed that it is a very good place of worship. However the prospected building needed enormous renovation for flooring, electricity and water line installations, comfort room construction, and painting. Once again, that led us to bend our knees seeking the Lord for financial provision. God never failed our expectant faith. Our sincere gratitude went to Pastor Wee and Pastor Christine for initiating funds for the expensive renovation. We thanked God for JECPP, EFC-Davao, EFC-Tagum, EFC-Kidapawan, EFC-Mati, EFC-Marahan and all Davao Region churches who helped us in our renovation. Our young people came to church every day to help mix the cement, paint the wall, and carry loads such as hollow blocks, sand and cement while the adults brought snacks and lunch to our young people and laborers. It was indeed a display of Psalm 133:1 “ How good it is when brothers live together in unity ”.
We finished our extensive renovation in more than two months , yet blessings never stopped from coming. Pastor Wee called me up to say that Rev. Robert Lim wanted to give money to help us upgrade our sound system and instruments. I couldn’t contain what I felt inside. I wanted to cry. I lifted my hands in praise to God. On December 04, 2011 we celebrated our 6th Anniversary and Thanksgiving with Pastor Fabian Sumampong ( EFC-Polomolok) as our guest speaker. It was also on this occasion that we celebrated our first service in the newly renovated place of worship, making us ready to usher more and more souls to His Kingdom.
In these recent two-year span of my work here in GenSan, our faithful Lord gave me double blessings. After establishing our place of worship in 2011, He again gifted me with a companion in the ministry. On August 20, 2012, I was happily married to my lovely wife Jane, and God provided everything for our beautiful beach wedding. Now, we are doing our “King’s business” hand in hand as the Holy Spirit empowered us to do the ministry with great joy even in trials.
(written by Pastor Albert Poliño, Jr.)