My elementary education was in a Catholic private school. From high school onwards, I studied at the University of the Philippines, the country's foremost state-run institution for learning. I took up Mechanical Engineering as my undergraduate degree and Business Administration as my master's degree.

My wife and I are the parents of five sons—29, 27, 24, 22 and 12 years old. Only the eldest, Michael, is married, and he lives and works in Canada. My other children are also in America with us—three in Reno, and the other in Beaver Falls.

My wife and I consider ourselves, and are known among our family and friends, as born-again Christians. We were not always so. Like the majority of Filipinos, we were born and grew up in the Roman Catholic faith. I was never particularly religious. My parents hardly went to church, yet they insisted that we children should. I viewed churchgoing as another meaningless chore I just simply had to do on Sunday, just to comply with my parents' wishes.

And so before I became a Christian, I led a very carnal and worldly life. Material wealth, career success, physical pleasure, and recognition were the main drivers and passions of my life. As a result, in the early years of our marriage, Marlu and I started to drift apart. We were so focused on being successful in our jobs that we forgot about making our marriage a success. Yet we were oblivious to the widening and deepening rift, mainly because our values and priorities were self-centered and worldly.

To our friends and family, we projected an image of contented domesticity. They never suspected that, deep inside, our relationship was hurting. And then God, in His mercy and grace, came into our lives—first to Marlu, through the ministry of a Campus Crusade for Christ member, and then to me, through Marlu's sharing of the Four Spiritual Laws. I have to admit that, while I understood and accepted the Gospel message at that time, it all remained in my head. I probably listened to Marlu's sharing with the thought that I better do so or risk losing marital peace and harmony. But deep inside, I already felt a vague sense of disquiet that something was wrong with the way I was living my life.

A few months later, I remember waking up very early, feeling restless. More and more, I felt that my life was going nowhere, despite my career success. For some reason, I got a Bible and opened it randomly. I came upon the Gospel of John—the third chapter—and my eyes were drawn to the 16th verse. Immediately upon reading that verse, the enormity of my sins flashed before my eyes. Before I knew it, I was on my knees asking for God's forgiveness for being the cause of Jesus' suffering and death. It was that early morning experience that I look back on as the moment of my true conversion and the start of my spiritual rebirth.

From that time on, my life acquired a completely different focus and significance. My wife and I joined a Bible-believing church—Diliman Campus Bible Church—in 1981. Prior to going to DCBC, we were church-hopping, trying to look for the church where we felt we would be comfortable in. But then a sudden crisis occurred. Our third son had to be operated on the day after he was born. Despite the fact that we were new to DCBC, its pastor and members came and prayed for us and made us feel for the first time what Christian fellowship really was. We stayed on in DCBC, and it has seen our growth as Christians. It has been the focus of our service to the Lord since then.

DCBC is based in the campus of the University of the Philippines, and it started out as a house church meeting in the garage of one of the university professors. At first, students made up the majority of the membership. But over the years, this has grown into three congregations: an early morning service in the vernacular whose attendees come from depressed communities around the campus; a mid-morning service composed of single professionals, families, faculty, and administrative staff; and a sunset service attended mainly by students. We rent a hall on Sundays and use the homes of members for other church activities.

At DCBC, we have been privileged to have had, as senior pastors, two former General Secretaries of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and, as pulpit minister for three years, the Korean-Canadian senior pastor of Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Together, they have influenced and shaped my Christian life as they faithfully taught us the Bible and served as good examples to the congregation. In addition, I consider my involvement in the ministry of Bible Study Fellowship International as being of immense importance particularly over the events of my life these past several months leading up to our final immigration to the US.

Bible Study Fellowship International (or BSF) is based in San Antonio, Texas. This is where a longtime Christian friend and I were trained on how to set up and conduct BSF classes for men in Manila. A BSF class consists of anywhere between 100-500 men or women, meeting for two hours once a week in a church hall, with the singular purpose of studying the Bible. There are more than a thousand BSF classes all over the world. Each year, we study one book or a set of books intensively for a total of 32 weeks. In 2004-2005, we studied the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles, books written by Peter and John, and the Book of Ruth. This January, the BSF classes in Manila, along with the other classes all over the world, started on a study of the book of Genesis.

Over the past three months, as we studied the books of Colossians, Ruth, and Philippians in BSF, God taught me that I need to live in dependence on Christ and not on any other power. As we proceeded to Ruth, I went through a difficult time in my job situation. But God used the Book of Ruth to remind me that His providence is sometimes harsh, but in the end He works for the blessing of His people. Finally, as we studied Philippians, and as I was in the process of being considered for a position at Geneva College, God impressed upon my heart that believers are to display the Gospel in their lives by serving each other in imitation of Christ. This was quite amazing as the mission statement of Geneva, as I eventually found out, talked about servant-leadership!

Since as a Christian I do not believe in coincidences or accidents, I believe that the amazing confluence of the passages I was studying in the Bible and the lessons that had immediate application in my current situation is clear proof of God's sovereignty over my life and His gracious providence in shaping my personal circumstances. And so I believe that I am in Geneva College today because God is moving in my life and this is where He wants me to be at this particular time.