How We Got Started: The Philippines
The Birth of the Movement in the Philippines
The seed that produced a Charis Alliance presence in Asia was planted long before any missionaries were sent. The people of southeast Asia had charmed the heart of a young sailor named Jay Bell. After three tours of duty during the war in Vietnam, Jay returned to the United States and found the Lord. He eventually became the university pastor of the Grace Brethren Church of Long Beach. This church had already been involved in Asia since 1923, when they sent two of its members, Mr. and Dr. Walter Scott Elliott, to develop a church-planting movement in China. God's moment had not yet arrived, however, and after just two years, illness forced the Elliotts to return to the States.
In 1980, Jay and Jan Bell went on a month-long reconnaissance team to Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines—and God touched their hearts for the people of Asia. In Jay's words, "We began praying that God would use our church to launch church-planting in Asia. It was our dream, our vision." Just four years later, the church teamed up with Encompass World Partners to send Clay and Kim Hulett to the Philippines in 1984.
When the Huletts arrived in the Philippines, soon to be joined by Ted and Vivian Ruiz, they learned that life revolved around neighborhoods called "barangays." The barangay is a municipal unit. The vision of the missionaries was to see a church in each barangay. After Clay Hulett finished his language study, he prayed that God would lead him to the barangay where he and Kim should begin their ministry. Clay says, "On June 1, 1986, I got off a jeepney at a random intersection. I had no contacts, I knew no one. I didn't know which way to go. I could have walked south on this street, I could have walked east, I could have gone north, but I chose to walk west, and the ministry was started."
The barangay was called Calumpang. There, Clay soon met Rey Paz. They began studying the Bible together, and Rey would become both the first Filipino convert and the first Grace Brethren pastor.
The Growth of the Movement in the Philippines
In 1995, Ted and Vivian started targeting the Sumulong Highway, a traffic-choked road that winds among squatter settlements, new subdivisions, warehouses, and storefronts up into the hills east of Manila. They made their first contacts through sending two short-term teams, and as a result of their efforts, six groups of believers began meeting in homes. Since then, this ministry has spread to other communities and beyond the boundaries of Manila through multiple generations of believers.
In 1999, 17 Filipino church leaders and three missionaries met for the first Filipino Charis missions conference. And in 2000, a Filipino missionary-sending agency was formed, led by six Filipino members.
As the years progressed, our movement in the Philippines has become increasingly self-sufficient, with the churches healthily collaborating to help each other succeed. Crispin and his wife Marites are a local couple who have planted multiple Charis churches and continue to do so.
Today there are 6 churches and 4 Points of Light in the Philippines.
A Call to Prayer and Support
The first church planted in 1986 lost its facility during Covid. They are currently looking for land to build a church.
Rey Paz says, “The greatest challenge for our churches in the Philippines is the rapid growth of charismatic churches and other large churches. Our pastors also lack sufficient budgets to continually present their testimony to the people”.
Some of the churches are working together to send out church planters to other towns in the Philippines. Pray for God to call workers for these future church plants.
Pray for more young believers to be trained for the ministry.
