Our HCC Journey

by Cres and Love Sala

At first we were not comfortable when Bro Mc invited us to join the community. We felt like we don’t belong to the group for we are just an ordinary couple and we will be joining the elites; couples who own businesses, couples with big positions in the company, and the likes. Nonetheless, we still joined the HCC's activity even though we were not comfortable, out of respect to Bro Mc. I have always had this belief that if somebody is inviting me to a religious activity I should treat it as if God is inviting me using his instruments. The instrument that time time was Bro Mc.

The day we had our Family Day at Genesis Valley 2019, which everyone attended, was the time that we felt accepted by the group. Everybody welcomed us with no hesitations and with all of their hearts as if we’ve known each other for the longest time. Then came the BTL activity, Love and I were discussing whether to join or not, because this will be a serious activity and we will already be too committed to the group if we did, and Love was hesitant because she also has this belief that if we will be serious and join a religious group and deepen our relationship with God, we might encounter more trials in life which we always hear from our friends.

My decision was to join because for me maybe this was the reason why I decided to retire from my previous job because it was a very time demanding job. I only spend 1 hour of my time going to Church every Sunday because my week days are always full. Maybe God wants me to go back to my High school days where I had a strong relationship with him for I was a Campus Ministry leader, I was even sent to Manila to represent our school for the World Youth Day 1995 but at the back of my mind, I also consider what Love was saying to me, “Are your ready for the trials if you will join?” Yet God always works and uses His instruments again, He sent me Mc and He sent Mark Cullar for Love.

Mc’s words were "Maybe God is preparing you for something good to happen in your life" and I said, “yes maybe Mc was right because we endured lots of trials already and we were able go thru it.” Mark Cullar also shared his life with Love, it will not be easy to get closer to God, trials will always be there with or without a religious group but one thing is certain if you have God with you, your trials will not be that heavy to carry AND that was the turning point of our decision.

Lastly, ”The Out Pouring of the Holy Spirit”, which I under estimated because it was thru online so I was thinking that this would be more effective if done thru face to face, this would be a walk in the park, this wont affect me but to my surprise I was also doing the out pouring of tears when Bro Mon Tadle and Bro Mc started praying for me. I felt that I was embraced by God, telling me that I was forgiven, “thank you for coming back to me.” God will always make a way for his lost sheep to follow him, now we’re starting to flip the pages of the Bible and life is not that heavy anymore with all the problems and challenges because we now have God on our side. With all the brothers and sisters who always pray for everybody and the life lessons the our community shares is a very big help for us. Before, Joining the HCC community was like an obligation, but now, the obligation turned into a desire to know God more.

** first published in Ang Panimalay 1Q 2021