Precious Memories, How They Linger, How They Ever Flood My Soul!

"Precious Memories, How They Linger, How They Ever Flood My Soul!"  ~  That is the opening line of a beautiful old hymn and it is a perfect description of my memories of the "Friday Night Family Bible Studies" where, as a Babe In Christ, I began my walk with our Lord in 1987.

Each of the Friday Night Family Bible Study homes shown in the photo collage below holds special memories for me.  And each one added bricks in the foundation of my Christian faith as I grew toward maturity, a foundation I have been building over the past 35 years and will continue until He makes it complete at my homegoing or in the Rapture - my Faith "Home Built Upon The Rock" (Matthew 7:24-27).  

In 1987 I had met Pastor Sam & Ida Lacanienta at a Saturday evening social at the home of Lolita Mueller.  That Sunday Dory and I visited the Filipino-American Church of Irvine (FACI) where they were the pastoral couple.  And I immediately felt the Godly Christian love which had attracted us to Pastor Sam and Ida the previous evening.  

That Sunday in 1987, love seemed to flow from God, through Pastor Sam, filling the congregation - and from all of them that love seemed to embrace me.  At that time, for most of my fifty years, I had been in and out of many different churches - but I had never experienced such Godly love before, in any church.  And that love I felt is what kept me coming back.  I have often said that they loved me to the foot of the cross where I truly met my Savior.
 
The next Friday Dory asked if I wanted to attend their Bible study - and I asked, "What is a Bible study?"  I was 50 years old, had been in and out of numerous churches of all denominations since I was a young boy first attending a Nazarene Sunday School near my home in Alabama - and no one had ever mention "Bible study" to me before - nor invited me to one - nor even told me that they exist.

That Friday evening Dory and I went to the Bible study at the home of Ed & Ligaya Nibut and once again the love I had felt at the church worship service seemed to surround me.  I continued to attend FACI Bible studies and it was in those Bible study discussion groups that I grew close to the Lord - until after six months I knew I wanted to be a believer, I wanted to be a child of God and follow Jesus Christ. 

Even though we rotated homes each month, since my first Bible study was at the Nibut home - I always feel that I was saved in the Nibut Home Bible Study - and after six months, it may have been in their home.  Regardless, when I speak of being saved, I always say I was saved in a Bible study in the Nibut home.  And that is why Ed & Ligaya Nibut will always be so special to me.

For a long time Pastor Sam was leading four Bible studies each week and pastoring two churches.  Even Superman could not keep that schedule going forever - so Pastor Sam announced that he would appoint four elders to lead Friday Night Bible studies in their homes ~  Ed Nibut, Ruben Abesamis, Fred Almeda, and Ed Fabian. 

At first I was upset.  How do we go from having a great Bible study leader like Pastor Sam - to having four "new to the job" study leaders?  And there were a few rough starts.  Any time we go from having one very accomplished study leader to having to break in four new ones - it is human nature for us to resist.  Change is never easy.

Yet in hindsight, I can see that was the right thing to do.  For soon we had FOUR really good Bible study leaders - and Pastor Sam could be an occasional visiting study leader at the different groups, and spend more time planting new churches along the West Coast.  In the photo collage below you can see the Fil-Am churches Pastor Sam & Ida planted on the West Coast.  He and Ida would plant the new church, get it going, commission a pastor to lead that congregation, and was available when anyone needed help.  That is how new churches are planted.  And once again, in hindsight, I can see that is how we grow the family of God.

The first "new leader" study Dory and I attended was led by Ruben Abesamis - and that study was a perfect example of "we have a new leader so we will just watch and see what happens."  I cannot remember which book we were studying through - but Ruben was having to do ALL the talking, all the verse reading, no one would say a word.  The funny thing is we all knew and loved Ruben, we all respected him as a leader in our fellowship - but no one had seen him lead a Bible study.

As I was watching, I could sense that Ruben's throat was getting tight since he was doing all the talking - and I have "been there, done that" in giving computer sales presentations and seminars in my professional life.  So I asked a question just to get us started - and it worked.  Others started making comments, asking questions, etc., and we had a great Bible study.  I do not know how the other three study groups fared that first Friday night - but knowing the leaders and knowing their spiritual maturity, I am sure all went well. 

Over the years I did spend time in each of the different study groups and can tell you that in no time at all, we had four very effective "Conversational Family Home Bible Study" groups actively "discussing" God's Word every Friday evening.

For a long period of time, Dory and I were in the study group at the home of Fred & Nattie Almeda and there I had an unusual but very inspiring Friday night Bible study.  One week Dory was on a business trip to eastern Canada and I was going to Bible study alone.  I arrived at the Almeda home only to find that the study had been canceled because Fred & Nattie had to be away.  I was disappointed and ready to just go home - when their teenage daughter, Audrey, told me, "Why don't we have a Bible study?"  It was only this young high school girl, her younger brother, Arnel, and me - and no way was I ready to lead a Bible study back then.

Audrey, who has a lovely singing voice, played the keyboard and led us in singing.  Then she led a Bible study in the book of John.  My Friends, never doubt a believer because of his/her age.  I will tell you that I left the Bible study that evening asking myself, "What could I have done for the Lord if I had become such a believer as a teenager?"  Yes, I doubted myself, but then I can only believe that it was God who put on my heart, "Bill, you wandered in the secular world for fifty years before becoming a believer.  You can use that experience and knowledge to reach out to others still in the world."  And God is always right.

At the Fabian Home Bible Study one evening, we adults were sitting in chairs and on the sofa, and the children were in the middle on the floor - a pattern Pastor Sam had established long before.  We had a visitor from another study group who loved to play the guitar and lead the singing.  But the only problem was that he only knew about ten songs - and none were from the song book we were using in that study group. 

Normally we would call out the number of the song we wanted to sing next and whoever was leading the singing would move easily into that song.  That evening another member, Gary, and I kept suggesting songs - and our visiting song leader just closed his eyes, ignored us, and continued to play his ten song repertoire. 

The more he ignored us, the angrier I became - and anger tends to show in one's face.  Imagine my guilt when I looked at the faces of the young people sitting on the floor in front of me.  They were looking up at me, supposedly an adult Christian believer - angry over a silly song selection. 

That evening Mommy Olga Robertson, well known for her long prison ministry in the Philippines, and her son, Shalom, had joined us for Bible study.  Dory and I were good friends with Mommy Olga and Shalom, and had great respect for both.  So seeing Shalom's young face looking up at me with such a questioning look was like a knife stabbing my heart.  Even though Mommy Olga is now enjoying her reward in the presence of our Lord and Shalom is an amazing adult Christian now who, I am sure, has long forgotten that evening - the disappointment I saw on that young man's face that evening has stayed in my heart.

Soon the singing was over and we continued the Bible study with no more problems.  After the study was over and the visiting troubadour was leaving, I followed him out the door and said, "I need to apologize to you, for during our study I became very angry with you."  And he just looked at me with an arrogant look and said, "Oh, really, I never noticed" and walked away.  It took all my strength to stay calm.   Dory and I enjoyed many Friday Bible Studies at the home of Ed & Jean Fabian, a very Godly couple who had no idea that little drama had played out in their home that evening.

How about the Cabrillos Home Bible Study?  Yes, that was an active study at the home of Romy & Liza Cabrillos, led by Mark Lacanienta, and held on Saturday evenings.  Dory and I were not as active in that study, but did visit several times.  One time in particular stands out in my memory.  Let me explain what led to that one memorable study.

In 1965 Pastor Chuck Smith and his wife, Kay, took a leap of faith and moved from a non-denominational church in Corona, California, to a small church of about 20 members in Costa Mesa, California - Calvary Chapel.  At this new ministry, they began to notice the many young people in Orange County who were blowing their minds and their lives on drugs. 

Pastor Chuck and Kay began to reach out to them and began to bring them into Calvary Chapel.  Realizing that these young peoples' drug affected minds would not grasp the more mature hymns - Pastor Chuck and young Mike MacIntosh began finding and promoting Christian musicians who could create music the young hippies with minds confused by drugs could understand.  That effort led to Maranatha! Music, a record label of praise and worship music birthed at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

The praise and worship music of Maranatha! Music became so prevalent that it almost drove hymns from Christian worship services, in Southern California and in many churches across America.   Praise songs and choruses took over the Worship in Music in churches and older songs, especially hymns, were relegated to Christian history.

Then Focus On The Family started broadcasting a short radio performance telling the story behind the beautiful hymn "It Is Well With My Soul" -  the story of Horatio Gates Spafford, who lost all four of his young daughters when the ship they were on traveling to England sank - and as he crossed the Atlantic to join his wife who had survived the tragedy, he wrote the words of a poem that a friend set to music which became - "It Is Well With My Soul."

As Focus On The Family continued to broadcast that tragic, yet beautiful story, as people could relate the words of that dusty old hymn to the lives of real people - the hymn began to be sung more and more in churches and became very popular with people of all ages - for now as they sang, they could relate to this man, Horatio Spafford, his immense loss, yet his willingness to put his deep sorrow into the hands of God.  And that is the meaning of the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul."   Now as we sing, we, too, begin to understand what it means to leave our sorrows in the loving hands of God.

Touched and amazed by the difference that short radio story had on people, in the mid-1990s, Dory and I got together with our Christian Friend, Gary Whitlatch, a gifted musician, and put together a similar presentation on the story behind the hymn "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."    It was our way of helping believers, if only in our local Filipino-American churches and Bible studies, understand why this song was written, and hopefully to encourage them to look at it, not as a dusty old hymn - but as a living testimony of how God works in the lives of those who love Him and know that they need Him.
 
The song was born when Christian musician, Thomas Dorsey, while on a ministry trip to sing at a revival meeting in St. Louis, received a telegram from Chicago that his wife and baby had died in childbirth.  Through the pain of his double loss and his love for God, this song "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" was born.

When I discussed the possibility of doing a short presentation based upon "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" Gary wanted to do it for his Bible study group at the Cabrillos home.  For the presentation I wrote the script and, with Gary on guitar and acting as co-narrator, I read the part of Thomas Dorsey, Gary read the part of the background narrator, and Dory led us in singing.   We performed this short presentation at the Cabrillos' Home Bible Study in Buena Park, at our Fil-Am Church in San Clemente, and at several of our Bible studies.

Obviously our effort did not have the impact of the Focus On The Family presentation of "It Is Well With My Soul" - but if nothing else, I personally found a greater respect for Thomas Dorsey, secular jazz pianist turned, by the grace of God, into Thomas Dorsey who sang and played the piano for the glory of God.  And as a plus, I had an opportunity to work on the project with my Friend and very special Christian brother, Gary Whitlatch. 

This is not my story so much as it is the story of how God moved through Pastor Sam & Ida Lacanienta.   What began as a Home Bible study with one family, the Fred & Nattie Almeda family, grew and became the Filipino-American Church of Irvine (FACI).  Then working under the umbrella of the Baptist General Conference (BGC) as the coordinators for church planting among Filipino-Americans in Southern California, Arizona, and southern Nevada - Pastor Sam & Ida became a very effective church planting team.

In 2007 they felt the call to return to their homeland, the Philippines, for ministry there - and they were very busy in ministry activities.  And, true to her church planting heart, Ida was instrumental in planting a new church, the Talakag Church on the Solid Rock, a sister church with their previous church in Orange County, California, the Church on the Solid Rock.

Circa 2013, Ida was called home to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  But the church she inspired, Talakag Church on the Solid Rock, is still very active with Pastor Sam as their leader / teacher - and they have built their own beautiful church building.  So although I share many of my memories in this blog, this is really the "Pastor Sam & Ida Lacanienta Story."

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill Gray

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