FROM TRANSPORTATION TO TRANSFORMATION

Working a salary job got me tied up into working on the start-up church and captivated from traveling as before. This was in the year 1989. We named our church Worldwide Pentecostal Church of Christ and registered it in the State of New Jersey. The physical address of the church was 499 Wayne St., Jersey City, NJ 07306. I worked for nearly five years for the Hudson County Welfare and did acquire civil service eligibility. WPCC started with just my family and in the period of over four years we ran an attendance of around a hundred people. After moving the church in Staten Island in 1995 I decided to quit my job and moved to San Jose, California. Lemuel Jones, my oldest son, took over the church. He was twenty years old. Jones officially took the church as pastor in 1996. I felt led by God to pioneer a church in San Jose, California and made my base at the house of Carl and Lita Calderon on Marco Drive.

People were questioning me why I chose San Jose, California. And I too wondered at that time. Today the thing is very clear in my mind the reason why God transported me from New York to California. A huge transformation was going to take place in my life. Venus ocassionally visited California and I too came back to New York from time to time. The people that led to my transformation were Carl Calderon, Manny Angeles, Sam Medrano, Agustin de Guzman, Rod Llorente, Jim Lass, and, John Formoso. It was in San Jose that God put me on the crossroad of business and church. Manuel Vizcarra, pastor of the First Apostolic Assembly church in San Jose, allowed me to use his auditorium for our Sunday afternoon gathering, and Mr. James Lass, who also was a minister, but he was a successful businessman, opened my eyes into business. I marketed his sceptre software, one that helped designed the Boeing 777 jets, in Tokyo and Sydney. Great was the transformation that took place in me in these times that the Lord God would literally speak to me for hours about the things that were coming and, rather, than keeping in the realm of the church, He drove me to participate in the worldly affairs of business. Pastor Jim Lass owned a six story building in Stockton, California and he was just trying me whether I knew some people there who would be interested to buy the building. I thought of the Rev. Kenneth Haney who was pastoring the CLC in Stockton. So I called Rev. Haney and scheduled a meeting for him to see the building called Marina Towers. Jim Lass met with Haney and I was ecstatic thinking I would make a real huge commission as promised. But Jim ended up giving the building to Rev. Haney for free.

I was surrounded by spiritual people who were also business minded. Carl Calderon, the owner of the house where I stayed, was a true Christian, along with Lita, his wife. Carl was a good businessman. He exported printing machines to the Philippines. Lita was a full time registered nurse. Manny Angeles was also a very spiritual person. Endlessly he would talk about God. Yet, endlessly, he would also talk about business opportunities, being that back in the Philippines he was a very successful businessman before he was converted to the Jesus Miracle Crusade. Among the gifts of God in the form of a man were Agustin de Guzman and John Formoso. It was John Formoso that turned my life around. From the viewpoint of the world, John Formoso was the one that got me out of the church to get myself entangled in the world. But, to my version, it was John Formoso who became my deliverer. He was my business consultant.

At this time, going on my three years in San Jose and Sacramento, the Y2K bug, supposedly the coming of the end of the world, was furiously filling the airwaves and people's conversations. It was definite that the computers would crush when the year 2000 sets in. I got infected with the virus. I set my sight on the rapture without any reservation of turning back. When I would go to the Philippines, I would hammer so hard in my preaching at my church in Caloocan that the end of the world was taking place only months away and that the rapture was going to take place on the eve of December31, 1999. So I had to be with my church in Caloocan when the rapture takes place. The family was second and the church was first. Of course, God was first and wife and children were second. So, I had to take care of the church.

The culmination months into the Y2K were filled with intense prayerfulness and Bible readings. There was not a moment that I couldn't hear the voice of God. Even when a cat would run across the room a voice would tell me of some spiritual significance or premonition. I did not wat to miss the rapture. I wanted to experience flying in the air to meet the Lord there and be with Him forever and forevermore. Even the celebration of Christmas that last year of the 2000 millenium was devoid with joy. Why be happy when the end of the world was taking place only days away? So, finally, after all the announcements were made, we were gathered in the Caloocan church on New Year's eve of 1999 and 2000. We purchased a big clock and put it in front of the congregation so that we can time up the rapture. The big bang which will usher into the rapture is going to take place definitely at exactly twelve midnight. Are you kidding me? We were praying very loud and crying some profuse tears. With eyes bulging out by tears, I managed to glimpse at the clock. It was now eleven. The minutes and the seconds were all incorporated into my breathing rythyms. I would be hearing the trumpet sound any moment. As twelve o'clock was fast approaching, our prayers and worshipped intensified. Then finally it was twelve. We paused. We listened. We breathed deeply. Nothing. Still nothing. Nothing happened. Little did we know that in Sydney, Australia, twelve midnight took place two hours before us. The rapture did not materialize.