Testimony of Dr. Philip (Sunni) Moreno
I write this testimony while jobless in Bangkok, Thailand. If it were not for this thing called “born again” I should still be enjoying a very good paying job with benefits and a handsome retirement package, and a prestigious position in society with a lot of friends and associates.
I’m a third generation SDA, a PK (Note added by George: PK = Preacher's Kid) of a father who was one of the early educator missionaries to the island of Mindanao, Philippines. He was also a president of Mountain View College. My mother was one of the authors of the SDA elementary text books in the 60’s and 70’s.
I am a physician for 25 years and was employed by the SDA church to manage one of its health facilities situated in the beautiful campus of Mountain View College, an Adventist Theology school. This job I held for 17 years. My sister and only sibling is also a doctor and is married to an SDA doctor who was also an administrator in another SDA health facility [Davao Adventist Hospital]. My two children and wife are Adventists and so are the clans of my mother and father. Due to my parents’ prominence in the SDA church hierarchy we are well known among the Adventists in the Philippines.
Five years ago, at the age of 47 I realized that the specifics of my salvation were not clear to me and in a sense hereditary, so to speak. I determined one night to get the details from the Bible and so I sat down at the dining table with an old KJV bible in my hand. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know where to start. So I said a simple prayer that God would put my hand to the exact page where I should begin. After praying I opened the Bible at random and there was Romans Chapter 1 right before my eyes. I didn’t see any importance why God would direct me to that page until I was into chapter 2 when I realized that I could understand everything very clearly just like I was reading a kid’s book. I read through the whole book of Romans twice that night before retiring to bed. The following morning I woke up with the same ecstatic feeling of the absolute assurance of salvation and it was only then that I realized that I was possessed by the Holy Spirit.
The months that followed were the most trying times in my life. I just couldn’t keep the truths to myself and I was seen almost everyday talking with the instructors of the School of Theology. It came to the point where the Church Board had to convene to officially question me and get my stand in faith. After that meeting there was no question in their minds that I no longer believed in the church’s doctrines. My wife who was an administrator of the school and my two children who were in college were caught in the crossfire, and they blamed me for all the trouble that was taking place, while telling me to shut up and abide by the church’s doctrines. It came to the point were my daughter ran away from home and my son threatened to burn my Bible. My wife threatened to leave me three times and finally she resigned from her office without consulting me, packed her things and moved to the city of her mother with my two children. I was forced to move with them too but I didn’t resign from my work and kept up my presence in the campus on weekdays and while spending the weekends with my family.
After a year my daughter couldn’t stand it any longer and asked me to sit down and point out from the Bible my beliefs. In an hour she believed and immediately received the Holy Spirit. Her conversion was so dramatic that her brother took notice and soon also asked to sit down with me for Bible study. In that same moment he too received the Holy Spirit and that left only my wife who stood firm in the SDA faith for the next two years in spite of our prayers and soft talk with her.
Two years later she developed an ovarian cyst that immediately required surgery. The doctors removed her uterus and both ovaries and she was discharged after nine days. Three weeks after that operation she developed abdominal pain and started throwing up. We took her to the hospital where the doctors reopened her and resected six inches of her intestines, which were gangrenous after being trapped in the stump of her uterus.
On the second post-operative day she called me to her bed and told me that she wanted me to pray for her. After three years of estrangement she finally allowed me to pray for her. I told her that I have been praying all the time for her and that God was just waiting for her to surrender her spirit to Him. She said that she was so confused and didn’t know how to pray for herself so I tell her to repeat my prayer out loud so that God would hear it from her lips. She did and at that moment the Holy Spirit seized her and we become a family united in one spirit.
After some time the Church became alarmed because there were some students and faculty members who were already secretly meeting with me to study the Bible. They finally decided to disfellowship me from the church, which they succeeded but without the use of a single Bible verse, because they just couldn’t find the right verse to use against me. Two months later they also found the alibi to kick me from my job and I had no other course but to leave.
I praise God for all the years of testing and trials that has firmly bound us as a family. I also thank Him for miraculously opening jobs for my wife and two children in a country – Thailand, where I could work as an independent missionary to the poorest of the poor. We now reside in Bangkok and fellowship with God’s children at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok.
My mother became a born-again Christian before she died. My sister, her husband and their four children eventually found the truth after vigorously trying to dissuade me from my decision, and they too left the SDA church and are now worshiping with the Southern Baptists in Bakersfield, California. My father, who passed away in 1986, would never know that his family would see the truth and leave the church.
I offer this testimony to the author and finisher of my faith, my savior, Jesus. To God give all the glory, honor and praise.
I’m a third generation SDA, a PK (Note added by George: PK = Preacher's Kid) of a father who was one of the early educator missionaries to the island of Mindanao, Philippines. He was also a president of Mountain View College. My mother was one of the authors of the SDA elementary text books in the 60’s and 70’s.
I am a physician for 25 years and was employed by the SDA church to manage one of its health facilities situated in the beautiful campus of Mountain View College, an Adventist Theology school. This job I held for 17 years. My sister and only sibling is also a doctor and is married to an SDA doctor who was also an administrator in another SDA health facility [Davao Adventist Hospital]. My two children and wife are Adventists and so are the clans of my mother and father. Due to my parents’ prominence in the SDA church hierarchy we are well known among the Adventists in the Philippines.
Five years ago, at the age of 47 I realized that the specifics of my salvation were not clear to me and in a sense hereditary, so to speak. I determined one night to get the details from the Bible and so I sat down at the dining table with an old KJV bible in my hand. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know where to start. So I said a simple prayer that God would put my hand to the exact page where I should begin. After praying I opened the Bible at random and there was Romans Chapter 1 right before my eyes. I didn’t see any importance why God would direct me to that page until I was into chapter 2 when I realized that I could understand everything very clearly just like I was reading a kid’s book. I read through the whole book of Romans twice that night before retiring to bed. The following morning I woke up with the same ecstatic feeling of the absolute assurance of salvation and it was only then that I realized that I was possessed by the Holy Spirit.
The months that followed were the most trying times in my life. I just couldn’t keep the truths to myself and I was seen almost everyday talking with the instructors of the School of Theology. It came to the point where the Church Board had to convene to officially question me and get my stand in faith. After that meeting there was no question in their minds that I no longer believed in the church’s doctrines. My wife who was an administrator of the school and my two children who were in college were caught in the crossfire, and they blamed me for all the trouble that was taking place, while telling me to shut up and abide by the church’s doctrines. It came to the point were my daughter ran away from home and my son threatened to burn my Bible. My wife threatened to leave me three times and finally she resigned from her office without consulting me, packed her things and moved to the city of her mother with my two children. I was forced to move with them too but I didn’t resign from my work and kept up my presence in the campus on weekdays and while spending the weekends with my family.
After a year my daughter couldn’t stand it any longer and asked me to sit down and point out from the Bible my beliefs. In an hour she believed and immediately received the Holy Spirit. Her conversion was so dramatic that her brother took notice and soon also asked to sit down with me for Bible study. In that same moment he too received the Holy Spirit and that left only my wife who stood firm in the SDA faith for the next two years in spite of our prayers and soft talk with her.
Two years later she developed an ovarian cyst that immediately required surgery. The doctors removed her uterus and both ovaries and she was discharged after nine days. Three weeks after that operation she developed abdominal pain and started throwing up. We took her to the hospital where the doctors reopened her and resected six inches of her intestines, which were gangrenous after being trapped in the stump of her uterus.
On the second post-operative day she called me to her bed and told me that she wanted me to pray for her. After three years of estrangement she finally allowed me to pray for her. I told her that I have been praying all the time for her and that God was just waiting for her to surrender her spirit to Him. She said that she was so confused and didn’t know how to pray for herself so I tell her to repeat my prayer out loud so that God would hear it from her lips. She did and at that moment the Holy Spirit seized her and we become a family united in one spirit.
After some time the Church became alarmed because there were some students and faculty members who were already secretly meeting with me to study the Bible. They finally decided to disfellowship me from the church, which they succeeded but without the use of a single Bible verse, because they just couldn’t find the right verse to use against me. Two months later they also found the alibi to kick me from my job and I had no other course but to leave.
I praise God for all the years of testing and trials that has firmly bound us as a family. I also thank Him for miraculously opening jobs for my wife and two children in a country – Thailand, where I could work as an independent missionary to the poorest of the poor. We now reside in Bangkok and fellowship with God’s children at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok.
My mother became a born-again Christian before she died. My sister, her husband and their four children eventually found the truth after vigorously trying to dissuade me from my decision, and they too left the SDA church and are now worshiping with the Southern Baptists in Bakersfield, California. My father, who passed away in 1986, would never know that his family would see the truth and leave the church.
I offer this testimony to the author and finisher of my faith, my savior, Jesus. To God give all the glory, honor and praise.
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Published with the permission of Dr. Philip E. J. Moreno
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2 comments:
Sunni, your testimony moved my heart as you gave up your all to follow Jesus.
He will provide all for you again, as He did for Job.
A sister in Christ
Wonderful testimony! God can work wonders beyond our expectation.
I just wonder what those specific things are as a result of studying Romans.
I wish those new-found truths would be laid on the net for our further study and meditation.
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