HOW IT ALL STARTED

Our church has a remarkable yet humble beginning. None have expected what had happened later on and how its former members were scattered to reached many.

How ICWL started.

We once called ourselves "Sarado Catolico" then and our original leaders were the ones who actively served at the Mendoza Village little Chapel, near the Salvatierra and Gonzales residence. It was sometime in 1994, a different kind of spiritual revolution was sweeping through the minds of the attendees. I remembered some signs but I did not expect that something dramatic was going to happen:

- I heard the song "tupang ligaw" as if God speaks while it was being played.- At one instance, a taxi driver just entered the Catholic Charismatic gathering inside the chapel. He shared Jesus and the truths in the Bible, contradictory to the teachings of the Catholic Church. He was so peaceful even though some of the so

-called leaders then got angry with him.- A different kind of film was shown within the Catholic chapel entitled, "Burning Hell." Other films were followed related to “Rapture” and “Tribulation.”

- The start of something big happened when known drunkards and gamblers attended a Life in the Spirit seminar one Saturday on 1994, as invited by Sis. Leony. Unexpectedly, the speakers did not arrived so someone suggested an alternate who, accidentally were present that day. We didn’t know that this person is a Born-again Christian. What I noticed was the drunkards and gamblers who attentively listens to what the speaker were sharing at that very moment. He was an ordinary thin man yet his words seemed to have life. I saw how a sinner truly repented. The speaker's name is Bro. Oliver. He became our first Pastor. He was able to beat the religious Goliaths at that time. He did not even finished college and not even a Bible school graduate. After that day, unexplainable things happened. Lives had been transformed and the young ones and “black sheep” of the community started serving God with fire and boldness. The rest is history. Something also happened at the chapel. The religious fanatics posted a sign, "for Catholics only." Because of that, people followed God, joined us or choose to be left behind. That chapel dried like a dead tree as of to this date. Many from the so called "Sarado Catholicos" on that subdivision were unbelievably born again and started what we call now as In Christ We Live Family Christian Center.

Because of that remarkable transformation, persecution and threat from hard headed homeowners followed. Even our relatives threatened us. But instead of giving up, the revival got stronger like a wild fire. We became the talk of the town and treated like a type of Israel surrounded by angry and large powerful nations. But God is bigger and stronger. He did not abandoned nor ignored us. After several months, Bro. Ermin was introduced to us. He was a hardened criminal changed by God. Because God gave him a ministry even without education and honor, he gave us a break. The young people then exploded with enthusiasm and our reached got wider and wider as times goes by.

Just like any church, we were not perfect and unexpected occurrences happened from time to time. But as I have said earlier, history follows. The Pastoral leadership was formalized after a few months. The leadership was handed down to Ptr. Jun Isaguire and later on assisted by Sis. Thelma Pantig. Since then, many Preachers and Pastors served in and through our church. I was too young then but the memories and sign of our new birth were as fresh as if it only occurred yesterday.