Early in the morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord what be my God, and this stone, whcih I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. —Genesis 28:18-22a

Great Response to Teaching

Grant Bayfield, and his filipino co-worker, Allan, have been teaching through the Bible starting in the beginning and moving towards the life of Christ for the Manobo people of the Philippines. They are about halfway through the teaching and the response so far has been fantastic.

Grant reports, “The people are very involved as they listen, often shouting out comments and questions, exclaiming in awe at God’s amazingly powerful acts, and emotionally banking with every twist and turn of the continuing Bible story!”

“From their comments, we can see that the people are very clear about the main things we are trying to get across to them — that we are all sinners, and that the punishment for sin is death; that God is all-powerful, holy, everywhere all the time, and loves us and wants a close relationship with us,” writes Grant.

Testing if God is “The Real One”

Dagasu, however, has not been interested in attending the lessons. “A while back, he decided to do a test to see if the God we were teaching about was the real one. He had had such a ramshackle house for as long as he could remember, and could never get out of debt enough to fix it up. So he prayed and said that if it was done and had a new roof by the annual village festival this year, he would know God was real and would start listening to the teaching,” explains Grant’s wife, Marianne.

“He ended up having a great corn harvest, so he had plenty of money to fix up his house. Then Grant happened to be going to the city, so was able to bring his roofing tin back for him in time … and the house was completed the day before the festival! So he made good on his promise and started coming the very next lesson!”

Praise God for answering this request and showing himself real to Dagasu!

Pray that Dagasu would continue coming to the lessons and would put his trust in Jesus Christ as his Saviour.