This month, our whole province is under a lockdown where we are not allowed to go out except for essential purposes. We cannot even go buy what we need unless we secure "Covid Pass" in our Barangay/Village Halls. This is very disappointing for me, for every brethren because we are not allowed to have the worships together. But on the other side, I am happy that even with this lockdown, we have many ways to preach the gospel. I hope that this month, I did the work I needed to do. Here are some of the things I did for this month.
April 4 (Sunday worship at Tuguegarao)
For the first Sunday, there are brethren who are still not aware of the lockdown that's why some of them joined us for worship. We did that live streaming and I shared the link to our brethren at Palca and Dagupan because I cannot go there. They informed me that officials came to them and told them that we are not allowed to have any gathering. They cannot watch it live because of the weak connection in their area. They needed to finish loading the whole video before watching.
Brother Jerome preached in our worship about "Christians and the Civil Authorities during this time of Pandemic". I am trying my best to make our live streaming work.
April 7 (Midweek Home Bible Study)
We still have our midweek study even with this lockdown. We did the study at the house of brother Rody again. We studied about "Zacchaeus". Just like before, our whole family is there. This time, we did it different. Everyone of us will share any verse or anything that we learn from the chapter. By this way, we are sure that everyone will learn something in our study.
April 11 (Sunday Worship at Tuguegarao)
Our attendance this time is smaller than the first week. Our towns situation got worst. One of our elder, brother Flor Constantino shared the lesson to us. The lesson is about "Things a man can do". After the sermon, invitation was again extended and two precious souls came in front to confess their faith. Our new sisters are Geizel and Christine. Geizel's husband, Nelson had been christian since his young age and his wife is coming with him in the church for almost three-four years already. We are very happy that she finally decided to obey the gospel. Brother Nelson is very happy also because of that.
April 14 (Midweek bible study)
We had an opportunity to invite brother Jimmy Duque to be with us in our midweek service. Still, a few came to join us because of the lockdown. He preached about "The seed is the word of God".
April 17 (Visitation at Palca and Dagupan)
My wife and I visited our brethren in Tuao. We needed to secure documents from three different offices just to go there. At first, they really do not want us to have the permits. I went to them three times and on the last try, they finally approved my request. I also distributed the benevolence given by our brethren. They are asking our prayers because most of them are only in their homes, they can go out but they cannot go to work. There are also times that authorities are catching violators and penalized them. Sister Felisa Simangan asked us to pray for her husband who have stomach problems. They are afraid to bring her to the doctor because of Covid. She is also asking for prayers for her son because he met a motorcycle accident. His companion died during the crash and he was traumatized by the situation. I tried to visit the village halls to ask for permission regarding our worship, unfortunately, they still won't allow us.
April 18 (Sunday worship at Tuguegarao)
Our town's officials became more strict than the first week of the month. Our attendance became very small because of this. It was my turn to preach to the congregation. I shared to them the lesson about "Why does God allow suffering?". The elders asked me to prepare a lesson about this.
April 21 (Midweek bible study)
This time, nobody came in church except our family. The towns situation is not good. We still continue with our bible study. We opened the book of Proverbs in chapter 3. After reading the whole chapter, each of us shared again a verse/verses. I am happy because even my kids/nephews/nieces have good explanations on the verse they choose. I am praying that behind this pandemic, good things will happen to them and one of it is gaining more knowledge of the word of God.
April 25 (Sunday worship)
It is the last Sunday of the month and it's brother Rody's turn to preach. He shared the lesson about the "Church in Sardis". I again changed the template on our live streaming because that's what the elders asked me to do. This time, only our family is in attendance. Some of our brethren are already infected by the virus including brother Flor, one of our elder, and his family. We have more than 1,000 active cases of Covid in our town. Our town is only small and that number is already big for us.
April 28 (Midweek bible study)
We decided that we will start to study the whole book of Proverbs. If the lockdown continues, we will do this because we cannot invite any preachers outside our town. We studied chapter 1 and everyone again shared their thoughts regarding the chapter.
During this month, I started to make videos of short lessons that I am sharing on our group chat on facebook with our brethren at Palca and Dagupan. I also wanted to make zoom meetings just like what others do but their internet is very weak. It will be useless if we do that, we will not understand each other. With the videos I am sending them, they can just wait until everything is downloaded and watch. I am making two-three videos every week.
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