Mabuhay, mga panauhin at mga kapatid! Welcome to our new webhome, sharingvillageone.org. 'Church of God Fellowship Manila' is now Church of God Sharing Village. Moving time is tough work, whether moving site, more so moving house, across towns, cities, oceans. But it’s good to keep moving as we build on the sure foundation of the Living Word. For just like men and women of faith past and present who waited for the city built and made by Almighty God, we are pilgrims after all!
Despite warnings from the Lord Jesus Christ, men persist in framing scenarios and gripping predictions that drag on people’s natural fear of pain and death, which then turn them off from the true faith when dates turn out to be botched and calculations unfounded. But what exactly IS the “great tribulation”? As Raul Hipe observed during the Sabbath message of July 19, thlipsis (Strong’s 2347) the Greek word used for tribulation has more to do with real, non-stop, current and still-to-come conditions that wear away true believers by constant pressure. However, non-followers have no pain to fear from this tribulation, as everything will be “normal and perfectly okay...” (The Day of the LORD will change that though...) Click on the mp3 linkbelow to find out more about...
“Hmmm... maybe someday we'll see Ralph Hipe play the violin with his sister Arielle at the piano...” but here they are, not someday, but there, on the Sabbath of July 19, in perfect harmony, guided by the scribbled notes in smudged colored ink written by Kuya Ralph in an actual music notebook! Their own short composition,“Sabbath Sunrise,” sandwiched between “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and “Think On These Things” ...
Here’s a peek into how this brother and sister put together their precious offering to the Almighty God, as told by their mother, Vivian Hipe:
“3 weeks ago, Raul (their Dad) found Ralph and Arielle scribbling in a music notebook and picking notes on the keyboard...
How can we comprehend the great works of The One “whose ways are higher than our ways, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts”? We are as nothing, counted as dust on the balance. When troubles come, we see little else, and as tests of faith hit the heart, brothers and sisters we love begin to trade-in the pearl of great price, with nothing but a shrug and not even a backward glance.
And you would think, if this is all you looked at, that after several days and nights of this, there is nowhere for everything to go but down.
Yet it is those same people who are left, who are capable of anger as they are of compassion, capable of questioning as they are of accepting, capable of building as they are of cleaning up, who choose, despite all contrary forces visible and invisible, to HOLD ON to GOD “Who is our refuge and strength... Even though the earth be removed, And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea...” It is they who live to see the morning, and find this reason for thanksgiving...
With their father Elmer home from months of seafaring work, the Perona family (Edelmia & Eric and their mother Miadely) worked together for the first time to prepare a Hymn Singing and Scripture Reading format for the Sabbath of July 12...
Our dear friend Robert Cooper also sent us a deeply strengthening letter after the storm that raged across our islands:
“For sometime now, I wanted to write you a longer letter to help, and encourage ... but tears would only come. What should I say, what could I say? And it came to me, share this Letter ...”
