HELLO!

THIS week, we give you an extra gift: This Special Report on the recent Feast Mercy Ministries Thanksgiving Gathering.

On Saturday, October 2, 2021, our founder, Bro. Bo Sanchez, led the roster of speakers – all expressing gratitude to those God sent to enable our Feast Mercy Ministries to obey His mandate to serve the poorest of the poor.

Bro. Hermie Morelos, chairman of our Light of Jesus Feast Mercy Ministries, presented updates on the Mercies, how well they have progressed despite the Coronavirus Disease (COVID) Pandemic, page 5.

Bro. Randy Borromeo, executive director of Shepherd’s Voice Radio and Television Foundation (SVRTV), which produced the event via Zoom, welcomed and expressed gratitude to our supporters for their good heart, page 4.

Bro. Monching Bueno, builder of Feast San Mateo, presented the abundant blessings God promised to cheerful givers, page 21.

The talks are generally in Tagalog but we translated them in English, for our International readers or viewers.

Here, we share this Special Report which we also issued in The Feast International, our online newsmagazine for our Feasts around the world.

Yes, we have endeavored to fulfill our calling as our Light of Jesus Family has anchored our core principle on our Lord’s mandate to His apostles: Go, and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-19).

We have endeavored to accomplish this mandate through a three-fold Ministry:

Mission— establishing The Feast, our faith gathering now multiplied into 700+ prayer communities throughout the world;

Media—print, broadcast, online–the means to spread the Lord’s Good News Gospel of Salvation;

Mercy—inspired by Matthew 25:24-26, our way of walking our talk by serving those in need.

As The Feast International points out, our Ministry has been inspired by the promise of our Lord Jesus on how we may inherit God’s Heavenly Kingdom: Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ —Matthew 25: 34-36.

All for His Glory,

Randy Borromeo

WELCOME AND OPENING PRAYER

RUBY ALBINO

Head, Marketing and Fund Raising

Program Host

Good morning to you all—our donors, sponsors, partners of our Feast Mercy Ministries, Feast TV, and Feast Conference!

It’s a very beautiful Saturday morning because you are here with us. We know you could have been sleeping late because it was a long week. But you’re all with us. It is amazing that we are able to do this inspite of the COVID Pandemic.

Thank you very much for spending with us your hours this Saturday morning and it is our prayer that God will speak to you today in this humble gathering we have prepared for you.

Welcome to our Feast Mercy Ministries online gathering. What we want to celebrate is your generosity—your help and service to our different foundations. We will present them to you and give you our mission updates today. We want to bless you because you have always been selfless and a blessing to us.

For these entire two hours, allow us to say Thank You, and we hope you won’t get tired of hearing our Thank Yous because as our title says, this is a Thanksgiving Gathering.

Above all, we want to celebrate God’s faithfulness because everything has closed but this work has not stopped. It is just continuing inspite the Pandemic because of your love and support.

Before we begin, let us pray:

Father, we pray for everyone in this room. Open each one’s heart to your message. We also include in a very special way all the intentions of everyone. We may not know what everyone is going through but we have this Community, this Family, and we continue to pray for Your grace, for Your mercy, Your healing, and miracles.

Be with us today, Father. Open our heart and mind and please keep love at the forefront of everything we are doing in our Mercy Ministries. Bless everyone, be in our midst today. In. Jesus’ Name. Amen.

RANDY BORROMEO,

Executive Director, SVRTV:

Good morning, everyone, it’s so great to see all of you! I see familiar faces—partners, supporters, and wonderful people.

I hope this gets to you and this gives you hope, and this encourages you to continue supporting us.

I just want to say Thank You! Without you, we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing right now.

During this Pandemic, my wife Thessa and I started a business we called Pot Belly—selling roast chicken, crispy liempo…

Last night, our son Ziki came up to me and said, “Dad, you and mom are doing so much and you get so tired. Dad, what can I do to help you?”

That melted my heart and I just hugged him.

Then, he got his mom’s cell phone and he went to his music room… Later, I looked at the phone and I saw he was searching on Google How To Make Your Parents Happy…

I just cried and hugged him and told him, “You are a good person. You have a good heart.”

Brothers and sisters, let me say that to you: You are very good persons. You have a good heart. I want to thank you for what you do so that our Ministry will continue to flourish.

And I just want to leave to you this promise in Proverbs11: 24-26: Give freely and become more wealthy; The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves will be refreshed. People curse those who hoard their gain, but they bless the one who sells in time of need.

I claim this promise for you because I know while you help, you are also concerned with your business, your livelihood—and that’s perfectly okay.

I claim this promise for you because I want you to know that God is happy the way you bless people. When you bless others, you yourself will be blessed. I thank you for your generosity. Generosity is not something you do or an event in your life. Your generosity is who you are.

From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of SVRTV and all the other Ministries, I welcome you to this Thanksgiving Gathering. As Sis. Ruby said, please don’t get tired of us saying Thank You, because we never will. And just claim this with me: The best is yet to come! God bless!

HERMIE MORELOS

Chairman, Feast Mercy Ministries

Our dear supporters, thank you very much for what you’ve been doing for our Mercy Ministries. You are the face, hand, body of the Lord reaching out to our beneficiaries.

One of our major programs is providing values formation for our Ministry servants. When we serve we give so much… How can you give when you are not receiving something? We need nourishment. So, we give value formation teachings to our servants so they can give something to the people they are serving. And they rely on the grace of God.

The tagline of our Light of Jesus Feast, our weekly faith gathering, is You are loved. In our Mercy Ministries, what we are doing is giving love. That’s what we are doing for our beneficiaries, the poorest of the poor —making them feel that they are loved.

God’s promise I’ve claimed is the one in Genesis 9:16: When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will look at it and remember my covenant with all living creatures. God promised this after the Great Flood during Noah’s time. God saved Noah, assuring him – and us– of His Presence during our difficult times.

My prayer is all of us serve as the Rainbow of the Lord for those in need.

On the succeeding pages, we give you updates on blessings that have enabled us to continue our Mercy programs.

It has been a challenging year for us, and we’ve prayed, “Lord, help us…” And as the days wear on, God has been sending us our needs. Truly, our God is a God of Provisions.

Hey, there is still hope. God still loves us. He still remembers us. He helps us help others. And we can do that through our selflessness and generosity.

God bless us all.

Anawim Home for Abandoned Elderly lies on a six-hectare property donated to our Light of Jesus Family. Of the six hectares, two hectares we allotted for cottages for our elderly and other facilities (chapel, kitchen, dining hall.)

The remaining four hectares are not conducive for such structures, so we have turned the property into a farm to plant vegetables and raise goats, hens and roosters so we would have free food which we used to buy for our lolos and lolas. Now, the money we save we are using for the medicines and other health needs of our elderly.

Bro. Bo Sanchez, founder of Anawim, attends to a lola.

Lola Violy, with other lolas, sing: Ang Anawim ay parang Paraiso dahil kay Brother Bo…

A caregiver helps wheelchair-bound lolo to go around resort-like Anawim grounds.

CARLOS DIMSON

Anawim Center Director

We have many challenges in Anawim. Foremost is funding. Without funds, we cannot pursue our projects for our lolos and lolas.

Your support, your help in cash or kind go a long way in serving our elderly.

Of late, the Department of Social

Welfare and Development (DSWD) required agencies ministering to the elderly to provide them not just ordinary beds but the more comfortable, medically functional hospital beds.

So, we launched Project Abot Kama. And we now have 90 hospital beds for our lolos and lolas.

ESTER PALACIO

Director

When you come to know the stories of our beneficiaries, your heart will be touched.

This drives me to push through with my mission.

The women went through a lot. One lady suffered abuse by her father and a sibling. Her ordeal stopped only when she got to Grace To Be Born.

This is big blessing for us – to be able to help those in need.

Longtime LOJ member, Bro. Ortega, here with wife Myrna and a child beneficiary, founded Grace To Be Born and most of our Mercy Ministries which Bro Bo, with the help of our LOJ Family, promptly supported. Both Bro. Rey and Sis. Myrna already passed away, but we have continued sustaining the Mercies.

JING APUHIN

Head

The impact of your help to our beneficiaries is that they are no longer in the place where they suffered abuse.

And they are now here in Jeremiah where they have family, girls their age who are now like siblings for them. That is why we call our staff who take care of them House Mothers.

We live by Divine Providence. Donations from The Feast members and other supporters really help us to sustain our Ministry. To all our mission partners, potential donors, thank you very much. We hope you will continue supporting Jeremiah.

Again, thank you, God bless you always.

Recently, new owners of the building where the Jeremiah shelter is located have given notice that they will already need the space allotted for the shelter. So, we have embarked on a fundraising drive for a new house for our Jeremiah girls.

JOE DEAN SOLA

Founder

Because of our Ministry, street children enjoy a better life.

Below right is Jim Boy who we have taken care of since he was in Grade 1.

He lost his father, he had no direction, he lived on the streets.

We took him in and now, I am proud to say he already has a seaman’s book as he graduated as a marine engineer. He is now helping a lot of kids, supporting He Cares programs such as our weekly feeding for hundreds of street children.

Bro. Bo Sanchez meeting with an earlier batch of Pag-asa scholars.

Amid the COVID Pandemic, Pag-asa has managed to, yes, continue giving hope to our young beneficiaries, granting them scholarships they so need to continue their studies despite the crisis.

On September 11, 2021, as chairman of the LOJ Mercy Ministry, I led a Zoom, gathering, presenting the new batch of Pag-asa scholars.

During the Zoom meeting, Bro. Samuel Uy, president of the Pag-asa ng Pamilya Scholarship Foundation, announced good news: During their meeting held last August, members of the Pag-asa Board of Trustees approved an addition of P4,000 to the allowance of the scholars. So, our elementary school scholars now receive P8,000, high school scholars receive P11,000, and college scholars receive P16,000 to P18,000.

THESS QUIAZON Mother of a Pag-asa ng Pamilya Scholar                 

We have received the Pag-asa scholarship for my youngest child. It’s a big relief for me for now I don’t have to think of my child’s school expenses. And I can now focus on the expenses of my other children. Pag-asa is fulfilling the dreams of my kids. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the love you’ve given us.

MARY CHRIS BARBACIAS: I am in fourth year, graduating student at the Antipolo Institute of Technology.

I feel very blessed to be one of the Pag-asa scholars.

My mother died when I was only 12 years old. So, only my father took care of us five children. I am now the only one studying. My elder sister helps my father with my expenses.

There are times my father and sister worry that they might not afford to help me finish college. But I tell them I have the Pag-asa scholarship.

Because of the financial assistance, I’ve been able to save money I used to buy a laptop, which I so need in my studies.

I feel so privileged and honored to be a Pag-asa scholar. I now have to tackle only two more semesters as a Pag-asa scholar. Promise, you will not regret granting me the scholarship.

MARVIN MALINAW: Because of financial problems, I almost was not able to go to college. Now, I am already in fourth year, working on a degree as Bachelor of Ethical-Teacher Education at the Marikina Polytechnic College.

Because of the Pag-asa financial assistance, I have been able to buy things I need in my Drafting Tech course.

My father bought me a second-hand laptop and with the money from Pag-asa, I was also able to have the laptop repaired.

Thank you very much, Pag-asa trustees and officers. Hindi ko po kayo bibiguin. I will not disappoint you. I am sure I will finish college and I can pay back the assistance you granted me by serving as a teacher.

MARITESS CORDERO

Board Secretary

We give our best to do whatever needs to be done. Like our monthly assembly for our beneficiaries where we have exciting programs for them.

Patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer hair loss.

At right, patients enjoying hairstyling event during an assembly.

We also go on home visits to check on the conditions of our cancer patients. Below, Bro. Alo Gelano, JCCFC chairman, comforting a patient.

We are grateful to our donors. They have financial needs themselves and yet they give, they still extend help.

DITAS ESPAÑOL

Director

The Light of Jesus Pastoral Care Center aims to journey with those who are suffering emotional and spiritual wounds.

And we offer them various pastoral care services via phone, face-to-face, or online.

In all, our aim is to listen, to journey, to give care, to minister to them, to pray for them, and just to genuinely love them.

Instead of simply giving toys, HAIL MARY gave sleepers which the patients needed so much more.

HERMIE MORELOS

Former President, SVRTV

Shepherd’s Voice Radio and Television Foundation is our broadcast arm spreading the Light of Jesus on radio and television.

SVRTV produces not only Internet TV shows. We also have a morning show, Gabay sa Bibliya sa Radyo.

The Light of Jesus Prison Ministry started in the late ‘90s when Babes Zambrano served a prison term at the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) for violation of a rule in the government agency she worked in. Helped by the Light of Jesus Family, Babes started a prayer meeting in CIW, and even as she was already pardoned for good behavior she continued the LOJ Prison Ministry. Above, that’s her with husband Ben hosting a raffle during a Christmas celebration at the CIW.

Today, Miriam Reyna heads the Ministry. Here she is having fun with the women she serves.

At the onslaught of the COVID Pandemic and the subsequent Quarantines last year, CIW decided not to accept visitors to protect the women from the COVID infection.

So, we had to stop our Light of Jesus Prison Ministry prayer meetings at CIW.

Recently, we regrouped and went back to CIW, inspired by the core principle of our Prison Ministry— the reasons our Lord Jesus said how one would be accepted in Heaven on Judgment Day as we read in Matthew 25: 34-36, particularly verse 36: “I was in prison, and you visited me.”

Way before the now popular Community Pantries, the Light

of Jesus Disaster Recovery Ministry, led by Bro. Marvin Tan (right, with supportive wife Liza) has been conducting relief operations for disaster victims. We recently formally levelled up this Ministry into a Foundation, especially as it has become more active in the wake of the COVID crisis.

SHELLIE JAVIER FOLLERO Fundraising Officer

To the question where supporters’ donations go, here are results of our recent fundraising programs.

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MONCHING BUENO Builder, Feast San Mateo:

I’d like to focus on Blessings Promised to a Cheerful Giver.

In the Bible, the word believe appears 272 times; pray, 371 times; love, 714 times; give 2,152 times.

Giving is love in action. And so, here are the blessings promised to a cheerful giver:

1.Generosity makes us more like Jesus. The more generous you become, the more godly you become.

• Generosity is the cure for materialism. As Timothy says:

3. Generosity increases your happiness:

4. Generosity multiplies money:

5. Generosity expands your influence:

6. God will bless your children and your children’s children:

 Let me tell you about Claire.

 You see, in San Mateo, we usually suffer floods. And so, we mount relief operations here. When people

line up for the goods, they ask about Claire. Claire is popular among the people because she is the daughter of Ma’am Del Rosario. That’s her (middle, in floral blouse) during a we-fie with us.

Ma’am Del Rosario is a teacher in San Mateo Elementary School where everyone goes, so everyone knows Ma’am Del Rosario who helps the people not only as a teacher, but also serves like a mother, loving them.

So, like when Claire needs help, people promptly outdo each other in helping her—because she is a daughter of Ma’am Del Rosario.

God will bless your children and your children’s children.

1. God brings protection: Many lost their jobs, their businesses. But look around you. You’re not the only one who has difficulties.

Many more are suffering…Many even lost loved ones.

I am sure, my friends, God did not want this to happen. He did not want us to suffer through this Pandemic. Without God’s grace, it could have been worse.

 But these are times when God is doing His best for us.

 2. Generosity will be rewarded in Heaven:

1 TIMOTHY 6:18-19

INSTRUCT THEM TO DO GOOD, TO BE RICH IN GOOD WORKS TO BE GENEROUS AND READY TO SHARE, STORING UP FOR THEMSELVES THE TREASURE OF A GOOD FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE, SO THAT THEY MAY TAKE HOLD OF THAT WHICH IS LIFE INDEED.

Dear supporters, what you are doing is a Holy act service of love in the Name of who is Someone above all names. He who brings hope and forgiveness. He who turns sorrow into joy and makes all things new…

You are supporting not just a movement or a ministry. My dear friends, you’ve opened up a channel for Jesus so that He can speak to our beneficiaries and embrace them in the times they need Him most.

While you are doing this noble work, I know, God knows your good intentions, the goodness of your heart.

I pray that God will open Heaven and pour on you endless blessings – love, care, healing, overflowing on each of your family members, your health, your business– all the work of your hand…

May the mighty favor of the Lord be upon you always, my beloved friends.

On behalf of everyone here, members of our Mission, Media, and Mercy Ministries, Bro. Bo, Bro. Hermie, Bro. Randy, I say we love you but God loves you more. God bless you!

BRO. BO SANCHEZ Founder, Light of Jesus Family

One of the benefits that has come out of the Mercy Ministries of the Light of Jesus Family is that we’ve been able to set up dynamic ministries for the poorest of the poor. We are so blessed that we have this opportunity to help the poorest of the poor. Thank you so much for your love and your generosity.

I was reflecting on this question: What does it mean to be close to God?

If you’re going to ask a normal person on the street, who is close to God, he will say, “He is close to God because he is prayerful, he goes to Church regularly, he reads the Bible every day, prays the Rosary, and blah, blah, blah…That’s what it means to be close to God.”

But if you ask Jesus what does it mean to be close to God, He will say, as we read in Luke 10, it means following two commandments: Love God; Love Others. These are two sides of one coin. One cannot separate them.

The reason we know this is that after He said there are two greatest commandments– Love God; Love Others—Jesus tells the story of The Good Samaritan. This guy is robbed, wounded, bleeding, lying unconscious on the street.

Then, a religious leader, a Levite priest, sees him and walks away.

Who are these people? They are those who are prayerful, who go to the temple regularly—who love God but they do not love others.

And then the Samaritan walks by — and he does what all of you, our supporters, do. Three acts…

Number 1: The Samaritan sees a need in front of him and he meets that person’s need.

Number 2: He sacrifices his own resources and time to meet the needs of the person. It’s amazing and that’s all of you do.

Number 3: He doesn’t help by himself. He asks the help of the

Innkeeper. He asks the Innkeeper to take care of the person and promises to come back to pay for the expenses incurred by the Innkeeper.

You don’t help the person in need alone. You’ve got to be together with a Team, a Community of people. And that’s what you do. That’s why we’re all together.

My dear friends, if you ask Jesus who is really close to God, who really follows Him, Jesus will say, Love God; Love Others.

You cannot have a vertical relationship with God …

…without having a horizontal relationship

… with the poor suffering, the people around you…

…and that completes the Cross.

My dear friends, I congratulate you. I applaud you and give you a big hug. But this is nothing because it is God who gives you a standing ovation. And God is saying, Jesus is saying, “Na-gets ninyo. Nakuha ninyo. You got it. You are loving God and loving others… You see a need, you sacrifice your resources, and you ask the help of others, because you are doing it as a Team.

The Good Samaritan is a businessman. He leaves the wounded person to the care of the Innkeeper because I guess he is doing something else— attending to his business to earn more.

My dear friends, we are the Innkeeper. The Feast Mercy Ministries. We watch the wounded so the businessmen can go earn money, and just come back to support all that we do.

Thank you so much. God is giving you a standing ovation. God bless!

Let us worship with fire in our heart knowing that God is fighting with us.