“A great birthday gift from God!”
This is Donna Bulawan a youth pastor and pastor’s daughter! You will find this to be one of the most inspiring testimonies we have videotaped! Donna said, “It changed me, it changed my life so much!…This is a great birthday gift from God!”
Oh my goodness, it’s been 10 years since Calli, myself, and Felicity arrived in the Philippines on March 5th, 2003. Pastor Noli Cadelina picked us up at the airport that day in our 2000 Toyota Grandia Van that we had bought and paid for over the phone. We had 6 suit cases and 3 carry-ons, one year’s advance rent paid on our first mission center and just $12,000 to completely set up the ministry center that would be home to both the school and us.
Top Right: Toyota van awaited our arrival in 2003.
Left: It is put to work during every class.
Bottom: It was joined by a second van and is still running strong.
Well, it was only 6 years before, that we took our first mission trip to the Philippines and in October of 1997. We were here about 3 weeks and it was a tough trip. We got on the plane and I adjusted the air conditioner control in the ceiling of the plane and said to Calli, “Calli, I shall not return!” At the time I meant it. God had a different idea about that, because we ended up returning once or twice a year until we moved here. We knew when we were preparing to come that it was going to be permanent. Many missionaries have come and gone since we’ve been here, but the Lord told us from the start that we would never live in the US again. This may seem a sacrifice, but it is a blessing to us. We love the people and God has given us a wonderful ministry that will go on even after we have passed. We do miss our family and friends always, but the commission of God compels us to do His great commission without looking back on our previous life. Again, I think of this old hymn “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth shall grow strangely dim, in the light of His Glory and Grace!”
When God called me into the ministry, I had 60% of the market share in Lake Tanglewood real estate business in1996. My business was really thriving and we were living in a beautiful house on the lake. We had a boat house and 3 boats. I told Calli, “Bury me on the hill behind the house.” I wanted to live and die right there. We were contented as two frogs on a Lilly pad, then BOOM! In Feb.1997 God completely consumed me and changed the whole direction of our lives. That’s putting it mildly. I wouldn’t take for the life He’s given us in the ministry, we’re doing what we really love in life and that’s helping others. We loved our life at the lake and we loved our church Trinity Fellowship, but the call of God was much greater than all other things in our life. Calli and Felicity were both committed to the same, and we all laid down our lives as we knew them and went on to a new chapter and life with God’s leading.
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Just a small fraction of the classes of pastors and church leaders
trained each month for the last 10 years at Dunamis!
The Beginning of Dunamis
We established the school a few short months after we arrived. At first Dunamis was a pastoral school teaching pastors different aspects of ministry and equipping ministers using apostolic leaders like Pastor Noli Cadelina and Dr. David Sumrall and many others to bring their gold nuggets of knowledge and impartation to the pastors.
10 Awesome Years of Ministry and God’s Great Leading and Provision!
This is just a tiny fraction of the thousands of pictures
we have in our archives of the school’s history!
Stealth Evangelism Born
Ironically God gave me a soul winning presentation about 5 weeks after we arrived here in the Philippines. It started as a two page curriculum and has evolved into a full blown Evangelism Course we call The Stealth Evangelism Program that’s considered many, to be one of the best evangelism programs in the world today. It took nine years of evolution to make it what it is today!
When pastors attend the seminar most will say to us “You’ve changed my life forever, or I’ll never be the same!” These statements from those wonderful men of God are what keeps us going even when we have tough times financially. We do know that God will always provide, but we don’t always know where the provision will come from, Amen? He is faithful! We can trust in Him!
Speaking of provision, when we came here we rented property for about 5 years, then God instructed us to go buy a house. Well, when He told me to buy a property, I didn’t have two pesos to rub together, that’s a nickel in US currency. (Americans can’t own property and banks won’t loan to foreigners.) When He instructed me, although I was a bit taken back, I went ahead and followed His instruction, just trying to be obedient. You can imagine what the Realtors thought when they asked me how much money do I have to put down! I’d say, “I don’t have anything but God will handle that!” Then I wouldn’t hear from them. A pastor referred a couple of lady realtors to me and the rest is history.
Mean Ministry Machine!
To make a long, long story short, through a series of miracles, we are living and working in a beautiful mission center here in Manila and we own it! We have a low interest loan on it and only owe 1/4 of its market value. We remodeled it and when we were done we didn’t owe anything on the entire remodel. It’s a school, office, and Calli and I have our own quarters in it. We can house 25 students for each 3 day class. The Lord has also provided 3 multi passenger vehicles to shuttle the pastors and leaders to the places where they go out witnessing during their practicum exercises. The place has a large storage building where we keep all the supplies and it’s like a compound almost self-sustaining in a gated community. It’s a Mean Ministry Machine! God is good all the time, Amen? That’s right, I don’t miss the lake except for the fishing, but I replaced fishing for fish with fishing for men, Halleluiah!
Krystel, Felicity, and Tony with friend Joel Davis and their “catch” in the early 90’s at Lake Tanglewood
Fishing for Men Now
Speaking of fishing for men, we’ll only know when we get to heaven the eternal impact that we are making on the building of the Kingdom of God. Thousands have been training to evangelize and plant churches. Several million souls have come to the Lord through the efforts of our alumni. We hear of 10’s of thousands yearly but it’s more than we can know, because we can’t track it all. Every time we train a pastor and he goes home to his church and trains his members there is perpetual soul winning going on and we all get a piece of that, because we put the weapon in their hands to do it, and you our partners keep it all going, Amen!
Ten Year Celebration Gift
We owe right at $20,000 due to the fact we are running in the red right now at about $900 per month, so gradually we are building a debt because of the deficit income to the ministry. It would be such a blessing to us if you would consider helping us get rid of that debt as a 10th year celebration gift. Wow, God is so good, and we love you all! Hope you enjoyed hearing of our little 16 year adventure serving the Lord. Praise God, Praise God, Praise God, and Praise Him again and again.
Love you all so much,
Tony, Calli, Felicity, Krystel, and the Dunamis Staff
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