Testimony

TESTIMONY 0F FRANK & LUZ MATIAS
Grace Baptist Church International
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

AS Luz and I celebrate our 63rd wedding anniversary on the 18th of this month of November, (By God’s grace) we cannot help but thank and praise the Lord for His abundant grace in giving us blissful and fruitful life together. The Lord has blessed us with six children, who are all successful in their fields of endeavor and families of their own happily serving the Lord..

We praise God that among the six siblings, two are in the missions field – one in Uganda, whose name is Anita Bertrand, with husband Paul. Both are missionaries of Emmanuel International, a Canadian missionary organization. They are involved in helping children and their parents in Uganda with their livelihood as well as in helping the children go through school. As a result of this help, the homes of their clients are open to Bible studies, where converts are channeled to the local churches. They are also involved in programs for children designed to prevent the spread of Aids, through abstinence – like the “Why Wait?” program. The Lord is blessing their ministry, which has branched out to other related ministries to combat poverty in Uganda.

Like Anita her sister, Ruth who is married to Ken Copsey, is also a missionary of the same organization and both are serving the Lord in the Philippines. The couple are also involved in reaching out to our Muslim brothers in Mindanao. The couple are currently helping other Muslims in rural and remote communities by conducting medical, dental and optical services wherein they treat the patients free of charge among others.
As regards to our Christian background, Luz and I were staff workers of the Far East broadcasting Company (FEBC), a gospel broadcasting organization in the Philippines way back in 1941. It was at this radio station where Luz and I met the Lord. Luz was in charge of the programming aspect of the broadcasts while I was working as a broadcast transmitter engineer in the high-powered radio short wave transmission of programs directed to countries of Southeast Asia, China and Russia. It was the broadcast station’s way of reaching out for the lost souls across the seas. Meanwhile, in during our free time, the Lord used us to plant a church in Bocaue, Bulacan where we lived, and which later became known as the BOCAUE BAPTIST CHURCH.

After 28 years of service, we retired from the company and migrated to Canada to be with the rest of the family. After working for several years in secular jobs in Toronto, my wife and I were called to serve as missionaries of FEBC in Saipan, in the Marianas Islands where FEBC operated high-powered broadcasting stations, beaming programs to Russia, China and Southeast Asia. I was involved in maintenance, repair and installation of high-powered short wave broadcast transmitters.

However, while in Saipan, Luz and I saw the need for “Tagalog”programs in our local radio stations, as there were about 10,000 Filipinos in the island. Many of whom listened to Filipino broadcasts from Guam. As a result of this burden, we started a couple of thirty-minute radio programs in Tagalog, together with a couple of Filipino Christians who were working in Saipan at that time. By God’s grace the programs became hit with Filipinos in the island. We produced a request and dedication program, playing Tagalog songs and also a religious program in Tagalog. These programs led to our starting a Filipino church in the evening, which we called the Tagalog Vesper Service. Quite a number of Filipinos could not attend church in the morning because they had to work even on Sundays, but were able to come for worship in the evenings. The church grew by leaps and bounds in a short time, so that we had to recruit a Filipino pastor from the Philippines. The church really took off, when this missionary couple arrived, so that by the time we finished our missionary stint in Saipan, we had a regular attendance of about 250 people. Many found the Lord through this church and radio ministry.

Shortly thereafter, Luz and I found ourselves finally retired as missionaries, but not from Christian service. We became involved in teaching the seniors’ Sunday school at the First Filipino Baptist Church, Toronto. We still teach Sunday school for seniors now but at a sister church, the Grace Bible Church International instead, where we are now happily serving the Lord