The lectures are being held every Sabbath morning from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Department of Education's RELC-XI compound, where the Davao City congregation also meets every Sabbath. From the time the invitation letters were mailed to the time just prior to the first lecture, over a hundred responded by text messaging to reserve their copy of the booklet, Jesus Christ: The Real Story (as instructed in the invitation letter).

The first lecture was introduced by a PowerPoint presentation titled: "Is There a Universal Religious Deception?" This was followed by the main presentation titled: "The Real Jesus: The Differences Between the Traditional Christ and the Real Biblical Christ." The subtopics included the following aspects of Christ's life:

•Birth: Was He Born Dec. 25?
•Mother: A Perpetual Virgin?
•Image: Did He Have Long Hair?
•Lifestyle: Was He a Vagabond?
•Teachings: Did He Come to Abolish His Father's Laws?

The weather this year has been unusual, with rain in the dry season. On the morning of the first lecture, it was raining until a few minutes before the lecture started, hampering many from attending that day.

But in spite of the rain, we still had 62 new people who attended. Many of the brethren—especially the youths—got involved in ushering, manning the literature display table and serving snacks.

There were two people in the audience who had the opportunity to work in the Middle East and corroborated facts in the first presentation.

One was a lady who worked in Syria for about 25 years and is now married to an Arab. She extensively corroborated during the break much of what was said. She agreed that it was impossible for the shepherds to be out in the field at night in the middle of December because not only is there some regular snow on the ground, but it is the rainy season—not only with ice-cold rain, but accompanied sometimes with hailstorms with ice as big as golf balls! That area of the Middle East becomes cold such that they start turning on their home heaters by early November.

Also, during winter, the skies are mostly overcast—so how can the wise men from the East study the heavenly bodies and follow the star leading to Bethlehem? In the lecture, it was mentioned that the most probable month of Christ's birth was the seventh Hebrew month called "Tishri." Able to speak Arabic, she said the word "Tishri" is very common because even in most parts of the Arab world, it is still the designation for the seventh month! And that is when they have most of their outdoor celebrations—around the fall harvest season. Her comments were interesting. She even suggested that her Protestant church pastors should attend these lectures!

The second lecture on Saturday, Feb. 11, a week later, covered the "Three Days and Three Nights" Christ was in the grave.

On that day, we had an attendance of 37 GN subscribers. Sixteen of them came back from the first lecture while 21 were completely new. Since we distributed the booklets about Jesus Christ after the first lecture, it is believed that most (to be practical in saving on travel costs, time and energy) stayed at home during that second lecture and just read the booklet.

The third lecture was held Feb. 18, and 30 people attended that lecture. Over two thirds of them (22) had attended the previous two lectures, while eight were totally new. Since we had 62 during the first lecture, then 21 new ones during the second, plus eight new ones on the third, the lectures have been presented to at least 91 new subscribers so far.

The topic of the third lecture was about the true God, which included the following subtopics:

•Who Is the God of This Present World?
•Who Was the God of the Old Testament?
•How Many God Beings Are There?
•Is the Holy Spirit the Third Person?

We hope we can finish putting together the recording of those lectures soon so that we can upload it to our Web site for others to view it too. It is also envisioned that these materials may be useful in doing presentations in other cities when we invite our GN readers there for a Weekend Bible seminar (like the ABC Continuing Education programs).

We would appreciate your continued prayers for the success of these lectures, while we do our best in seeking the guidance and wisdom of God and His power to do the work.

At present, we hope to conduct at least seven lectures instead of 12 to allow us to attend to other important preparations such as the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread, plus the upcoming United Youth Camp. UN

This article is excerpted from the January-February United News Philippines.