A Vessel of Honor

I was a young professional with a plum career when the Almighty Father called me into the Kingdom’s fulltime work.

A 22-year-old and a breadwinner to my struggling family back in Davao del Sur, my parents depended solely on me. I had little siblings when I left home. It broke my parents’ hearts. It also broke mine.

But when the Almighty Father calls you, there is that irresistible pull that would bring you toward the path that He has prepared for you all along.

Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy was fresh from his spiritual training in Tamayong and his every dealing with the pioneer workers and members was intense. I had my mentorship and spiritual training with the Appointed Son of God under circumstances of poverty and rigid spiritual dealing that if you are half-baked in your commitment, you will fall along the way.

He would talk about faith and about not limiting the unlimited God that we serve. My critical thinking would sometimes veer away from the spiritual plane and would solve things with my finite and carnal understanding.

Pastor Apollo would instruct me being the first finance officer of the ministry to give the 90% of the collected weekly offerings as his tithes.

The accountant in me would kick in. What will the workers eat when we have but 50 pesos collection every Sunday and I have to give the 90% as tithes?

I would resist. Pastor Apollo would discern this spirit outright. He would rebuke me and teach me to just obey although I could not understand it with my mind.

In the law of tithing, you are supposed to give just the 10% but Pastor has sternly instructed me to give the 90% and budget the remaining 10% for all our needs including our weekly food allocation that is why most of the time, we had nothing to eat.

When ordinary believers are taught to give God only the 10% of their income and blessings, the Appointed Son of God had such an enormous faith that he would give his 90% even in the midst of penury and adversity. I had learned to obey through his guidance.

It was the beginning of a million more miles of walking by faith with the Appointed Son of God.

One day, there will be a crusade in Villamor, Agdao, Davao City. We needed to make more pews to accommodate more people.

Pastor came to me with an instruction, “Ingrid, produce money to buy lumber wood.” My mind went blank. Where would I find the cash to buy lumber when we had given almost everything for tithes?

I was a new worker. Greenhorn. Tenderfoot. The thought of me doing a fundraiser was not only shameful but also ridiculous. Me, Ingrid, a professional accountant would sell raffle tickets? But the spirit of obedience was imputed in me and was gradually strengthened by the Almighty Father.

I launched a fundraiser. It was a raffle draw for a radio cassette. I sold tickets to former officemates who ridiculed me and made fun of my new odd fashion – long skirt and long hair sans makeup.

“What happened to you, Grid,” they would probe. You left your rosy career to only sell raffle tickets?”

But when you are committed to doing His Will, the taunting and words of discouragement would all be nothing.

In no time at all, the tickets were sold out. The money was produced to purchase the lumber woods for Pastor Apollo’s crusade. The winner of the raffle draw is an engineer who came to know the Kingdom ministry through those raffle tickets and is now a Kingdom minister. Pastor Apollo preached on the night of the crusade and how the venue overflowed with people.

Even when the Kingdom was small, Pastor has always taught us to think big, to expand, and to not be contented with our parochial mindset. For him, there is always room for expansion and improvement. There is always room for growth. And on that humid night in Villamor, it was the necessity of adding more pews for more people.

When you have set your mind towards expansion, you will find ways and means in order to reach your goal. That is hiking, not camping. Because mountain climbers find satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment not by camping but by constantly climbing no matter how challenging and punishing it may be until they reach the summit.

What could be your lumber wood of challenges and mountain of impossibilities can be surpassed and surmounted if only you would see the world through your eyes of faith.

For “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)