Country: The Philippines
Family Information:
Pastor Dan Maliza (oldest child), Pastor Nemrod Maliza (second child), Dina Martens (third child), Mary Grace Pakasi (youngest child)
Areas/Focus of ministry:
• Co-pastor of Tandag Christian Community Church, Tandag Surigao del Sur, Philippines.
• “Takna sa Pagpamalandong” (Hour of Meditation) Gospel radio broadcast evangelist.
• Adviser of Tandag City Ministerial Association.
Bio
In 1949, Merie and I got married. I was a rice farmer then and my wife stayed home. Not long after our marriage, we were blessed with four children- two boys and two girls. However, each of them passed away within the period of 7 years; all were ill with high fever and diarrhea. When the youngest of them passed away, both my wife and I went into depression and lost all hope in life. We hopelessly thought there was nothing to get out of life. We even contemplated that only our own death can end our misery.
Nevertheless, one morning, as we got up from bed still mourning, depressed and overwhelmed with hopelessness, we turned on the radio tuning it onto the only station in town and heard a preacher minister about Jesus Christ and hope that one can find in Him. God spoke to and touched our hearts through the radio preacher helping us realize that there is hope in Him. There was a drastic and sudden change in our emotions! We gave our lives to Him and decided to leave everything behind to attend the Bible College that the preacher on the radio mentioned before he signed off.
The college was 8-hour-bus-ride away from where we lived. We sold off everything that we owned and left immediately. We soon found ourselves at the Evangelical Bible College in Davao City. Everything was different: we were not only genuinely alive, but also of excited to learn more about Him and festive of the joyful new life brought forth by sincere repentance to and acknowledgement of God’s supremacy. We lived our lives no longer for ourselves, but for God and for the proclamation of his Kingdom.
In our second year in college, revival came to the Philippines, and our conservative Evangelical Bible College became one of the places where God “poured out His Spirit upon all flesh” in Davao City. There was an overflow of the Holy Spirit that brought a complete turnaround to the city. Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied and spoke in tongues. My wife and I were among those filled with the Holy Spirit and got fired up for the Lord. Our excitement to serve Him was as high as it has never been before, and we felt charged up for the immense work ahead.
During the last year in school, God started to answer our prayer to give us more children. Our 5th child, Dan (we now refer to him as the oldest child), was born. In 1968 before Dan turned one, we were assigned to evangelize to and plant churches among one of the largest unreached tribes in the southern part of the Philippines - the Mandaya Tribe. At that time, it was believed that the tribe practiced cannibalism, animism and witchcraft. Their settlements were mostly in the eastern part of Davao comprising small villages in the jungles on top of mountains.
Powered up by the Holy Spirit, we were excited to go and evangelize the tribe immediately after our graduation. We took the bus from Davao City to Manay, Davao Oriental and walked for a day from that town to reach the nearest village. We settled in the larger village and started to live just like the tribesmen. As soon as we began to evangelize to the people in our and neighboring villages, we immediately faced persecution. At one time, someone even poisoned the well of drinking water in an attempt to kill my family. The leaders of the village were also convinced that our family was a curse to the tribe; they gathered together and decided to burn our house and church down. However, in both situations, God delivered us from death by performing great miracles. When those people came with torches with an intention to burn our house and church, they thought that the buildings were already heavy on fire before they could set them afire themselves. When the morning came, they were shocked to see that our house and church were intact; no fire had burned them down. This was just one of the many miracles God performed before the eyes of the villagers. As a result, they started to believe what we preached, and eventually the entire village was converted to follow Jesus. During the 6-year period of our ministry with the Mandaya Tribe, we were able to plant churches in 20 villages. The work was very challenging considering the fact that we lived in the jungles just like the tribesmen. We literally walked through the valley of the shadow of death. But we feared no evil because we felt the presence of our great God over us converting the souls of the tribal people to Himself.
God gave us three more children, while we lived with the Mandaya tribe. We now had 4 children! And the fact that they have the same personalities as our first 4 children who all passed away before we became Christians is indeed astounding. We believe that God gave our 4 children back to us.
After six years with the Mandaya tribe, God called us to reach another major tribe in Davao - the Mansaka tribe. We moved to the northern part of Davao, where we lived with the tribe and pastored a new church in Maragusan Valley. During this time, God also called me and a few of my classmates from the Bible College to start a new organization. We founded the Temple of God Church, Inc., and I became the vice chairman of the new organization. We pastored the church in Maragusan and planted churches in the towns around Davao del Norte. We eventually started a Bible School in our church due to the demand for pastors in the churches that I planted around the area. After 15 years of serving in that ministry, I had to take over the leadership of the Temple of God Church due to the death of the chairman of the organization. I felt that I was not called to serve in administration and that I was competently equipped for that. On top of that, I sensed and believed that God was calling us to plant a church in Tandag City, place where I grew up, got married, became broken when our first 4 children died and responded to God’s call to follow and serve Him. I didn’t hesitate to leave the leadership of the organization to my younger brother who, I felt, was more equipped and called to lead the organization. I left Maragusan Valley with my whole family entrusting our ministry to a younger pastor I had discipled for many years.
I and my family left and started a church in Tandag City, home to nearly 80,000 people. The majority of the population is of ethnicity Tandaganon. Planting a church in a heavily Catholic population was quite a challenge for us. We came to Tandag with no financial support from any organization. We survived financially merely by God’s faithful provision and my wife’s diligent efforts to sell fruit. As a matter of fact, Tandag City was one of the more economically depressed areas in the Philippines, where poverty tried to oppress us. But God once again proved his faithfulness to providing all our necessities. Poverty could not stop us from spreading the Gospel and ushering souls to the Kingdom of God. Having all graduated from college, our children became my co-workers at the church that we planted. I had a vision to plant churches around the region that Tandag is a part of, but financial difficulties restrained my travels. For many years, I focused on our church in Tandag, where we’ve lived almost 20 years. I am grateful that God has continually performed miracles in the ministry that He has entrusted to us. Our church here, in partnership with other churches, has sent my two daughters to be missionaries to the unreached people of Mongolia and Thailand. I am thankful to God for using our humble church to bless nations.
Five years ago, I gave up my pastoral ministry to my son, Pastor Dan Maliza, due to aging and physical ailment. However, I didn’t stop preaching because I believe that one can never retire from preaching the Word of God. Not only did I continue preaching at church once a month, but also persistently carried on the evangelistic activities such as public preaching and radio broadcasting. However, due to insufficient funds, I stopped preaching on the radio.
Very recently, God completely healed me from Tuberculosis that had been draining my strength for several years. Although extreme weakness and loss of weight assured me that my death was near, God miraculously healed me and restored my health. Now I can testify that the strength of my youth was given back to me in double portion. I can run and climb mountains again!
My vision is to continue preaching the Word of God at our church, public places and on the radio.
Monthly Financial Budget:
Food and Toiletries $100
Household utilities $60
Transportation Allowance $60
Total $220
Less: Love gift from church -$20
Paul and Dina Martens’ love-gift -$100
Trusting God to provide this amount: $100 (monthly)
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