Braulio Manikan is the Filipino forerunner of Baptist mission in the Philippines in 1898. He was living in Spain when he became a Christian through Eric Lund, a Swedish missionary that the American Baptists commissioned.
Preparing for sharing the Gospel to his fellowmen, Manikan and Lund translated the Bible in the local language. They came to Central Philippines, particularly Iloilo City because the Spanish-Filipino revolution had started in Luzon.
In 1901, the first Baptist church in the Philippines, Jaro Evangelical Church started.. Manikan and Lund’s mission work expanded and established the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches.
The Filipino who became a born-again Christian in the foreign land of Spain sparked the Baptist mission in the Philippines. Our parents and family are one of the thousand believers who became followers of Christ.
As a pastor living and ministering in South Canterbury, New Zealand, I consider searching for persons who will typify ‘Braulio Manikan’ as one missionary model for multicultural ministry.
He or she might be a foreigner who through the Wilson Street Multicultural Response ministry will get to know Jesus Christ and believe and receive Him as Saviour and Lord.
Then he or she will be missionary to his or her family and friends when he or she returns or visits his or her native country.
I believe that the power of the Holy Spirit, the explosion that kindled the start of the Christian mission is still present today.
It is the ever glowing, ever luminous, ever attractive fire that gives life to the church.
Devoting our time in the ministry of God through His church, gives meaning to our being followers of Jesus Christ.
The migration trend shows peoples from many nations of the world are coming to New Zealand.
Could finding the present-day ‘Braulio Manikan’ be one of our multicultural response?
[…] In Search of ‘Braulio Manikan’ in New Zealand […]