Two Stories Of Faith

For somebody named after the famous garden in the Chris-tian Bible, I cannot claim that I know God that well or profess, as most nominal Catholics do, that "He is in the heart."

On my way up to The Fab Restaurant at the 4th floor of the Holiday Inn Galeria where I was to meet the renowned Dr. Harold J. Sala, president of Guidelines International Ministries, author of 43 Christian books, and whose column "Guidelines for Finding Your Way" appears regularly in STARweek, I was absoultely convinced that I was not the right person to write about the esteemed preacher.

What do I ask one of the legendary voices on Christian radio when I listen to dzFE’s "Classical Drive" program every morning with the five-minute commentaries on Christian living tuned off in my head? What do I ask about a life lived in the faith when my own doesn’t even mirror a semblance of it?

Thus, my date with Dr. Sala began and ended with a story: his and mine.

"Do you know how my commentaries started appearing in STAR-week?" he asked as we sat down for late morning coffee.

"Tell me about it," I said, instantly curious, quietly relieved that we did not have to dig in to the question of faith right away.

It was a long story, he says, that began on a busy downtown street in Manila back in the mid-70s where he met Mr. Jimmy Go Puan Seng (father of STAR founding chairman, the late Betty Go-Belmonte; Mr. Go’s 100th birth anniversary was marked last month), publisher of The Fookien Times Yearbook.

"Do you know that God can heal right here on this busy street?" Dr. Sala quoted Mr. Go as saying.

"What? Here? Right now?" he asked.

"Yes, here and right at this very moment, can you pray for me?" the elder Go answered.

And he says he, an American, started praying over Go Puan Seng, a Chinese-Filipino, in a noisy side street as  20 or 30 people stopped to watch with curiosity. 

Later, when Dr. Sala wrote the book "Heroes: People Who Made a Difference in Our World" where he discussed Go Puan Seng’s journey of faith during the second World War, he wrote: "When a man has found that God is our refuge and our strength, nothing else matters but that He guides and leads us hour by hour."

Go Puan Seng is of course the father of the late founding chairman of The Philippine STAR Betty Go-Belmonte, and grandfather of STAR editor-in-chief Isaac Belmonte, STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte and Philstar Global Corp. president and CEO Kevin Belmonte.

He has equally famous grandchildren such as Howard Go-Chua Eoan, associate editor of Time magazine. Another grandson, Vernon Go, now manages and serves as editor-in-chief and publisher of The Fookien Times Philippines Yearbook.

"He was a great man with a great faith," Dr. Sala says of Go Puan Seng.

But so was he, I thought.

Dr. Sala holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English Bible from Bob Jones University. He explains that the course involves reading and interpretation of the biblical text in the original and requires proficiency in Hebrew and Greek, the Old Testament being originally written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek.

As a bible teacher, preacher and inspirational speaker, he clearly knows where he speaks of. This comprehensive grasp of the Bible is not what drove Dr. Sala to international stardom though; it was more of his vision of what was needed and what it takes to spread the Word of God in an increasingly hostile world.

Even before the term globalization had been coined, Dr. Sala may have been one of the first visionaries to practice the concept. In 1963, when he started his Christian ministry on kfSG in Los Angeles, he had already foreseen how media would shape global communications in the years to come.

At that time, he says four out of the five most populous countries in the world– China, India, Russia and Indonesia–had closed its doors to Christian ministry.

"So we asked: Lord, how do we spread your word? What is the best way to communicate to people about your work? We didn’t hear any voices, didn’t see any apparitions but we knew then that the media, radio in particular, is the most effective way to reach out to people," he says.

"First, we need to be culturally relevant," he explains. And that means being heard by the people – not in church or in a congregation but at home, at work, on the road.

Radio, he says, was at that time the most cost effective medium because it transcends geographic, literacy and religious barriers.

"Do you know that there are over one billion people who cannot read or even sign their names?" he shares. "With radio, we can reach people from all corners of the world, even non-readers and non-believers."

Now on its 43rd year, Dr. Sala’s "Guidelines–A Five Minute Commentary on Living" has been carried in over 960 media outlets in 100 countries and translated into 17 languages.

How does a five-minute radio commentary create a difference in people’s lives?

"It’s like hitting a 1,000-pound ball with a cork, hoping that it would move," he says. "Day after day over a long period of time it surely has an impact."

Dr. Sala’s five-minute radio messages are still heard today on dzFE at 7:32 a.m., although the program itself has since been adapted and expanded to television, publications and even the Internet. "Guidelines" is also aired upon sign on and sign off at ABC5.

Guidelines International Ministries itself, which was started on the same year the radio program was launched on ksFG, is present in over 100 countries "reaching, teaching, and touching."

The teaching ministry includes seminars and conferences, guest lecturing in universities, and speaking to business and professional groups while the touching outreach includes support for national pastors, nine of whom are located in the Philippines.

It was a journey that has taken Dr. Sala and his wife all over the world, at one time even moving the entire family to live in the Philippines for three years to do work for the Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC). For his work in the country, he was called an "American with a Filipino heart" by Bishop Fred Magbanua, former director of FEBC, and president of Christ Jesus our Life Ministries.

He was also known as "Mr. Family Living" for his positive contribution to Filipino families mainly through his media programs and family conferences.

For his work in the international Christian ministry, Dr. Sala however admits that from a global perspective, the faith more than ever is in crisis, though the number of Christians had grown to more than 100 million today from only around four million back in 1963.

"In the last 20 years, the disparity between what people say and how they live their lives is driving farther and father apart," he says.

So his forthcoming book "God said that...so what?" to be published sometime next year may yet be his most important book. Not only does it address society’s growing pessimism over religion, but it answers the most fundamental question man faces in a material world.

"It is the summation of my lifetime work in the ministry," he says. "I could not have written it without what I’ve been through in the last 50 years spreading the word of God."

Dr. Sala’s ministry has always been non-political, non sectarian, non-devisive. His message to Filipino Christians: "Be authentic. Never preach more than you can deliver. When a leader fails, Christianity does not fall down with him or her. Look beyond and search for someone who will never fail you."

It is, he says, the way to keep the faith.

And now my story: About a year ago, while attending a journalism fellowship overseas, an after dinner conversation over beer and chips in a roadside cafe had turned to religion and what we believe in on the spiritual side of life.

Besides myself, a Filipino Catholic by birth and upbringing, and an Indonesian newspaper editor who is a Muslim, the three others in the group–a Vietnamese, a Chinese and a Russian–do not belong to any organized religion or practice any form of faith or worship.

The Russian classmate disclosed that he was baptized a Catholic and that was it. His family moved to Italy when he was a baby, then eventually lived in Spain and France most of his adult life before moving back to Moscow. At one point in his career as an international correspondent, he said he was assigned  to interview someone very high up in the Vatican, at a time when the Catholic church was in the spotlight because of its unwavering stand on divorce and contraception, among others.

He said he emerged from the interview agreeing with what the Cardinal had said about Christianity, the message of God, and the Catholic way of life and concluded that even at this very late stage in life, if made to chose among the world’s religions, he would probably be a Catholic or a Christian.

And being the only Catholic in the group who hails from a country that claims to be the only Christian nation in Asia, he turned to me to ask: If I were to start to know God and begin my journey back to the Christian faith, where should I begin?

It was as if the whole world caved in on me. How can a very ordinary person like me answer such a profound question? It was the classic case of a blind man leading another blind man around Manila’s chaotic streets. But even in my astounding inadequacy, I know that honest questions like that, when answered well, are what moves people more than a church sermon or long and winding moralism in a prayer meeting.

I looked at Dr. Sala from across the sofa and I know that it should have been him at that dinner table, not only because he has the right answer but because by his faith and sincerity alone he could move and make a difference in the life of my Russian friend. Not I whose answer was like that baby carriage careening down a flight of stairs in the Sergei Eisenstein film "Battleship Potemkin".

Dr. Sala talked a long time, answering my own personal questions as well, about man’s search for God as a search for an answer to man’s fundamental questions about life–Who am I, where do I come from, where do I go after I die? But more than religion, he says it is a search for a relationship. It starts with acknowledging that you need Christ in your life, you believe in Him and that because you believe you are saved.

"It is a gift," he says. "You can either reject it, accept it but ignore it, or accept the gift and be enriched by it."

But by the mere fact that you and your friend were asking, you already accepted the gift and are well on your way to getting to know God better, he says with a smile.

As I bid Dr. Sala goodbye, he asked me: "Can I pray for you and your Russian friend?"

"Of course," I said, "I’d be grateful."

This time, he can say that the woman he had met and prayed over in a hotel coffee shop is a lost soul who happened to have crossed paths with one whose heart is as big as his faith.