For many of us we can remember the special divine service that our Chief Apostle conducted on December 14, 2014 in General Santos City in the Philippines. It was during this divine service that our faithful Apostle and good friend Mercurio Nuyad was placed into a well-deserved retirement. Yes, he would now settle into his home and do a little farming and…enjoy his retirement with his wife, family, and friends. Well so we thought, but it seems our heavenly Father had just one more special assignment for him.

Because of the Apostle Nuyad’s outgoing personality and now that he was retired from his active ministry he was the perfect candidate to help further the work of God in Toronto Canada. You see in Canada there are some 500,000 Filipino’s and Toronto alone has more than 100,000. Many of them live and work in one area of Toronto and that’s where we have a New Apostolic congregation which focuses on the Filipino community.

Apostle Nuyad was sent to Toronto to help our brothers testify, and invite the Filipino’s to our church and Mother’s Day was the perfect time to invite them to a guest friendly service which was followed by a delicious Filipino style Barbecue complete with many Filipino specialties. For days in advance invitations went out, posters were hung on the store fronts, and our Apostle was busy speaking to many but when he met someone who spoke Cebuano he was especially excited.

Finally the Sunday came… the spiritual seeds were sown, we all prayed, and now wondered just how many would come. God was so kind and on Mother’s Day the congregation was full and twenty of our Filipino’s friends came to the divine service. Needless to say we were all so grateful and after service we all enjoyed a nice fiesta and happy conversations.

Since Mother’s Day the Apostle has made follow-up visits, enjoyed many fellowships,  and we also set aside some time to visit some of the many sights we have in this part of Canada such as Niagara Falls. But true to form, while at Niagara Falls our Apostle was listening carefully to the many people who visited the Falls and as soon as he heard a Filipino he immediately started speaking with them.

Yes, soon he will return home to his family and continue to work on his farm and enjoy his retirement but make no mistake, we in Canada will never forget his loving sacrifice for God’s work. We certainly could witness how our heavenly Father worked through this faithful Apostle and feel blessed by his visit.  (Reporting Bh. Peter Esser)