CHURCH ACTIVITIES FOR THE PAST MONTHS

CORNERSTONE CHURCH NAGGASICAN WEEKEND AWAY

Cornerstone Church Naggasican weekend away and planning was held on the first Saturday of June 2009 at Gethsemane Garden Resort and Hotel, Ramon, Isabela.

The church pastors, officers, deacons and their families have a simple service in the morning and eating fellowship at lunchtime. After which, the pastors, Ptr. Danny, Ptr. August and Ptra. Teresa, together with the officers and deacons have a meeting and planning while the children enjoyed swimming at the pool.

The weekend away had strengthened the bond, relationship and friendship of the church workers, children and young people as well. As a result, everybody were more encouraged and inspired now doing their respective ministries and serving the Lord.

CELEBRATION OF FATHER'S DAY

Pastor Danny was the speaker during the Father's day celebration at Pangal, Echague

The speaker at Cornerstone Church Naggasican was Pastor Mark. Part of the celebration is the giving of tokens to all the fathers present during the service. Simple messages appreciating the fathers were given by the wives, sons and daughters. For Pastor Mark, Ptr. August and Ptra. Teresa gave their very heartwarming messages. The fathers were truly blessed this day!

SINGAPORE TEAM VISIT

A team of four from Singapore Cornerstone Community Church visited the Cornerstone Churches. They were Renae , the team head, Jeremy, Jody and Gayvin. Their four (4) days stay here were so hectic as they went around the Cornerstone Churches, from the Main Church to Naggasican, San Isidro, Ramon, Cauayan etc...sharing their life testimonies, sharing God's Word, hospital visitation, jail visitation, feeding program and more.

We were so blessed and encouraged with the presence of the team.

HOUSE TO HOUSE DAWN WATCH AT NAGGASICAN

It has been three (3) weeks now since we started having a house to house dawn prayer at Naggasican. The Lord is doing great and amazing things in the lives of the people at Naggasican. Even unbelievers are now requesting for a dawn watch prayer in their houses. Amazing isn't it?

NET IS BACK…PRAISE GOD!

So sorry if we haven’t posted articles on our blog for the past two months. Our internet was down and it’s very hard to find time blogging on internet cafes…so noisy because of computer games and very slow to download pictures. We have switched to PLDT internet line and it is much better, much faster. So, here we are again and we are posting old but relevant news that you have missed for the past two months.

CCN 3RD ANNIVERSARY

The celebration of Cornerstone Church Naggasican was indeed great! We celebrated on April 11, 2009, a Saturday and at the same time my __th birthday.

We started the service with the cutting of ribbon at the Church door and dedicating the church building as Strachan Center…yes, because the building was constructed through the generosity extended by David and Grace Strachan and family and the joint manual labor of the Cornerstone Church Pastors, brethren, women, men, young people and the Scottish/British Team. All the church members, visitors, friends and pastors placed their hands on the wall of the church and prayed before the Lord as we dedicated the building with Pastor Mark officiating the church building dedication ceremony.
After the church dedication, a thanksgiving service immediately followed. The distinguished speaker is no other than Bro. David Strachan who is with us last December 2008 but was touched by the Lord to come back together with his family, Grace, Peter and Grace Louise, to celebrate with the Naggasican brethren and be a blessing to everyone.

During the service, the deacons and officers of the church were also dedicated and prayed over. The deacons are Bro. Ferdinand Cumarat, Bro. Joseph Manio, Sis. Jane Mangadap, Sis. Betty Martinez, Sis. Grace Viray, Sis. Rose Linglingon, and Sis. Jonalily Cumarat, The church officers are Sis. Grace Viray, head of the Women’s Ministry, Bro. Ferdinand Cumarat, head of the Men’s Ministry, Bro. Jimboy Aguilar, Nelly Oquialda and Jessica Gabriel as heads of the Youth Ministry, Sis. Helen Bibat as Treasurer and Sis. Jane Mangadap as Secretary.
After the service, an eating fellowship followed at lunchtime. Surprised gifts were given to Ptr. Danny like sets of Gibi shoes from David and Grace Strachan, a song and flowers from the young people, chocolates and imported lotion and soap from his relatives from Bagabag (We were surprised to have them! ) and more from friends and brethren. A big cake with a picture of Ptr. Danny was also given by the Strachan family. Everybody were able to partake of the big cake. After which the young people started throwing icings on one another.


Parlor games were played in the afternoon to the delight and amusement of the young and old. Bro. Robert, the son of Auntie Jenny, who came all the way from Brunei gave pleasure and joy to the children as well as the young people as he gave away candies, imported and whistling balloons and lighting balls.

To everybody who joined us in the big and not only double but triple celebration, thank you very much and God bless you all!

MEDICAL MISSION WAS HELD AT CCN

A whole day medical mission by Dr. Harvey Dhilon and family was held at CCN on April 6, 2009. More than a hundred patients were being checked up by Dr. Harvey and were given medicines. Sis. Jill, the wife of Dr. Harvey, son, Lal, and Peter Strachan, son of David and Grace, facilitated the giving out of prescribed medicines. Young people from Cornerstone Church who are nurses and nursing students helped during the medical mission. So many indigent families were blessed with the love and care extended by the Dhilon family to Naggasican people.

Thank you to the Dhilon family for being a blessing to the Naggasican people. We hope to see you again soon!

CCN... TRULY BLESSED!

The Lord is really so awesome and amazing and is quick to answer the prayers of the saints. Just recently, a big surprise and blessing was given by the Lord to Cornerstone Church Nagassican, a brand new laptop and DLP projector from UK. Last December 2008, David advised me and Ptr August to pray for the needs of the Church. After their brief stay in the Philippines, they proceeded to Singapore where they met Pastor Yang who spoke about something to this effect: “Christians should give their best to the Church and workers’ needs... not just second hand for the Lord.” Thanks to David and Grace. May the Lord return back these blessings to you a millionfold! I cannot imagine how quick the Lord answered our prayers. We started praying for the needs of the church, and that includes the laptop and projector, last December 2008 when we had the nine (9) days night service, followed by the Jericho Prayer Walk and sustained overnight prayer on Friday and daily dawn watches. After four (4) months, the Lord answered our prayers. Wow! Isn’t it so amazing! And the Lord instantly gave it because He knows that it is needed and shall be used at once. Yes, the laptop and projector were used during our Cornerstone United Service last April 5, 2009. It was a great united service because we had a very young speaker in the person of Rev. Edward Issitt as our Distinguished Speaker, the AoG UK World Mission Director for Southeast Asia who delivered a message about “The Call of God.” Many responded to the fiery message including my wife Jane who knelt before the altar of the Lord on that wonderful occasion. Then, a video production as tribute to Uncle keith and Auntie Anne (UK Missionaries) was shown with the title: Unforced Rhythm of Grace.” Then, on April 8, 2009, the laptop and projector were used again during the surprise birthday party given to Ptr. Mark and Sis. Mary at the 48 Steak Haus- masterminded by David and Grace with me and Jane as accomplices with the participation of all pastors and their wives in formal attire. A Video birthday production entitled “Tough Secret” was also presented for the birthday celebrants. Moreover, on April 11, 2009, 3rd Anniversary of Cornerstone Church Nagassican (and my __th birthday), it was used again in featuring a video presentation on the history of the Church in Naggasican. On April 13 to 16, 2009, it was used during the Kids’ Camp of AoG Section IV held at the Naggasican Elementary School and to the upcoming AoG District Youth Camp on the 20-24th of April. How great is our God!

With these anwered prayers, the brethren of CCNaggasican are more encouraged now to sustain their daily dawn watches, eight(8) prayer watches and overnight prayers, praying not only for the Naggasican church but for other Cornerstone churches as well for the great revival and transformation of our churches, our communities, our cities, and nations.
Thank you very much again David and Grace! God bless you!

CONNECTING THROUGH THE INTERNET AND VIDEO PRODUCTION by Sis. Jane Mangadap

The Lord is victorious in my life as I finished my training and earned Certificates of Achievement on Connecting through the Internet AIMM Web Evangelism Seminar and Connecting through video AIMM 2009 Video Production Seminar conducted by the Asia Pacific Media Ministries on February 19 to 27, 2009 and March 2 to 6, 2009 held at the APMM Training Center, 29th Floor, Raffles Corporate Center.

An invitation was extended by the APMM to Ptr. Mark Ritchie to send a representative of the church to the said seminars and I was so blessed that I was chosen and approved by Ptr. Mark and the Cornerstone Church leadership to attend. The seminars were really superb, first of its kind and superlative.

My first day was a little bit embarrassing be

cause I was so very late, about 2 hours. Our facilitators and trainors then were Americans and they really started on time. But even if I am late, I was able to catch up. It was so surprising to know that we were only ten (10) trainees, 2 Americans, 1 Vietnamese, 2 Chinese and 5 Filipinos, but all are under the Assemblies of God. All of us were required to bring a laptop that are wifi ready. The speakers and facilitators for the first three days were Dr. William “Bill” Henessy, the person behind the Network211, Project10Million and facebook, and Dr. Keith Sorbo, the person behind the Teranghidup.com. They are Website Masters. The topics being shared were: - Bringing Christ to the nation and across the world through the internet - Design an evangelistic website with follow-up system and discipleship process - Deepening the faith of believers - Encouraging site visitors to attend a local church - Encouraging more e-responders in the project10million and have a prompt response to every inquirer - Sharing of life testimonies in facebook.com - Adapting journeyanswers.com to your local language/culture - Building a team - Finding ways to drive traffic in your website by all means - Being creative and looking for new avenues .

The next five days of the seminar on Connecting through the Internet was more exciting as we have Dr. David Nolent, Director for Evangelism, as our speaker and facilitator, Dr. David Nolent is 33 years old and has been serving for six (6) years with the TopC Ministries (3 main websites) as Director for Evangelism. He is the person behind the ConnaitreDieu.com (lookingforGod.com) with websites translated into 13 languages. The topics of Dr. Nolent were: •GLOCAL INTERNET EVANGELISM - Building a Global Internet Website and reaching local people • INTERNET: a tool or a mission field? • THINKING MULTI-LANGUAGE - The need to have other language versions • ADAPTING CULTURALLY YOUR WEBSITE • MEAURING THE EFFICIENCY • COMMUNICATING THE RESULTS TO PARTNERS • PORTALS TO FEED NEW BELIEVERS AND PUSH EVANGELISTIC WEBSITES •DEVELOPING CREATIVE MAKETING TOOLS The most exciting part of the seminar was the hands on workshop on basics to build an Internet Website. Three softwares were introduced and taught to us by Dr. Nolent in building up a website.

The second seminar, Connecting through Video, was more exciting and invigorating. The Speakers and facilitators were Jeff Gregory of APMM and Henry Marsh of AGWM Media Commission. We were taught on how to produce Christian videos for our church ministry and the video production process, the preproduction, production and postproduction.

We were twelve (12) trainees on the video production and only two of us from the previous seminar, Connecting through the Internet, were retained.
The rest were new faces. The trainees were 2 Americans, 1 German, 1 Chinese, and 8 Filipinos, 2 are employees of the APMM, Alena and Alvin. We were grouped into three and were given two (2) days to make and edit a short video production. On the last day of our seminar, we watched, criticized and assessed our group projects.

I have learned a lot from the seminars and I shall definitely share and re-echo these to a team of five or six persons from Cornerstone Church with basic knowledge and know-how in computer and video production. Certainly, Cornerstone Church will go Glocal…building a Global website and reaching

Local people.

Launching of Cornerstone Theatre For Christ

The launching of creative dance and drama production of the CORNERSTONE Theatre For Christ (TFC) last January 31, 2009, Saturday, 6:00 pm at the Sefton Village Fire Center was indeed a success. Many were blessed as forty nine (49) young people from the Cornerstone Churches – Santiago Main, San Isidro and Naggasican performed creative drama, tableau and dance showing stories from the Old Testament (the creation and fall of man) to the birth, crucifixion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

The production was so amazing that many were truly blessed and touched with the message of hope. I do appreciate and thanked my wife, Jane, the choreographer and director of the TFC, for her patience in teaching and motivating the young people to use their God-given talents for His glory.

I remember when Jane and I were still working at the Catholic Parish before or way back 1984, we were both trained in theatre arts specifically developmental or street theatre as employees of the St. James Parish under the supervision and direction of the Diocese of Ilagan. Jane was trained by the Teatro Obrero under the Communication Foundation for Asia (CFA) while I was trained at the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA). We were then progressive and all our plays and dramas were against injustices, marginalization of the poor and militarization. As members of the WEST Commission of the parish church, we organized/started the Dance Drama Organization of St. James Parish composed of young people. From then on, Jane shared her craft to many young people and even on her workplace. Then, the Lord spoke to her last year to organize a theatre arts group in the church and used creative dance, drama and songs for evangelism. She redirected and switched the manner and style of theatre arts that we were doing before in the secular world into a much more meaningful and relevant subject and concern, that is sharing the gospel of salvation to all people of Santiago City and beyond. Please include us in your prayers. All glory belongs to God!