Friends in the Philippines
This is an article I wrote for the Friendly Word, an Irish Quaker magazine about my recent trip to visit Friends in the Philippines…
In September, as part of a wider Asian trip, Joy Haydock (Grange Meeting) and myself spent a week in the Philippines. We visited the Quakers there and saw the work that God is doing through the Filipino Friends.
The first Friends meeting in the Philippines started in 1978 in Pasig City a suburb of the capital Manila. The church at Pasig became very large, with over 700 members, coming from all across the Metro-Manila area. In the 1990’s several meetings were formed in other parts of Manila so members could attend meetings closer to where they lived and Philippines Yearly Meeting was born. The Yearly Meeting is known as the Philippines Evangelical Friends Church (PEFC) and is now made up of 27 churches, all of them programmed and pastoral.
We stayed with Jaime and Lydia Tabingo who have been involved from the start. Jaime was the first pastor of Pasig Friends Church and is also the Executive Pastor of PEFC. His wife Lydia set up a Kindergarten and Pre-School at the church in Pasig. Jaime and Lydia have been recognised since the early 1980s as missionaries in the Phillipines by Evangelical Friends Mission in the USA. PEFC is unusual in that it has been founded and directed from the start by Filipinos and not missionaries from overseas. Staying with Jaime and Lydia gave us a great insight into the life of the Yearly Meeting and we also experienced the great warmth and kindness of the Filipino people through their generosity.
It would be impossible for me to tell you everything we saw and learnt about the Philippines and the Friends there in such a short article, but perhaps I can share two experiences, one a struggle and the other an inspiration.
We spent a lot of time with John and Lois Ocol, both of whom were at the Triennial in Dublin. They are Young Friends and John shared with us a problem for the wider society in the Philippines that had manifested itself in the Friends church too. As you will be no doubt aware many Filipinos are working abroad. Basically, anyone with the skills and the means to go overseas will leave the country, the majority do not return. Friends in the Philippines have lost many of their gifted youth leaders to the detriment of youth ministry in the churches. These young people are also potential leaders in the churches as a whole, they would have been potential elders and committee clerks but as I mentioned many will never return. I invite you to pray with John and Lois for strength and wisdom to continue their work among Young Friends despite many of their co-workers moving overseas.
Just one of the many inspirational characters we met among the Friends in Manila, was Pastor Rodel. He has been the pastor of a small church at Angono, of around 20 members that was started about a year ago. It was delightful to meet the pastor, his wife, Laya and their three children who all lived in the back of the church building, a small concrete building with a corrugated iron roof. Before he trained to be a pastor, Rodel had been an engineer. He was not content to leave his engineering past behind him when he became a pastor so he has set up a “technical mission” at the church. Every Saturday local people are invited to bring their broken electrical appliances to get repaired for free and while he is meeting his clients he has the opportunity to share the gospel with them. Some have gained a much more eternal free gift than having their television fixed, the free gift of salvation in Jesus. The pile of stereos and computers in the corner of the church is testament to the success of this mission. Please pray for Rodel, that he would touch his community with the transforming power of the love of God.
It is always a privilege to meet with Friends from other countries and even more so to visit their meetings and share with them in worship, thanksgiving and prayer. It is something I would encourage all Friends to do.
