Monday, October 22, 2007

CFC Europe

Just wanted to draw your attention to the CFC Europe link added to the relevant links on the right side of the page.

Here is the url:

http://www.cfceurope.org/

and their declarations of support for the CfC.

The following local communities have opted to stay in the original Couples for Christ global community.

May God continue to shower His blessings upon us all.


Statement of CFC France



CFC FRANCE for Couples FOR CHRIST

August 9, 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all!

With apologies to Bros. Frank Padilla, Tony Borja and Ray Magno.

1 Co. 1:10 “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, I appeal to all of you brothers, to agree in what you say, so that there will be no divisions among you. Be completely united, with only one thought and purpose.”

We believe that Couples for Christ is a community created by God to fulfil its mission of “families in the Holy Spirit renewing the face of the earth” and the vision of “bringing glad tidings to the poor” through rapid, massive and global evangelization.

We also believe that our “fundamental loyalty is FIRST to JESUS, NEXT to CFC and only THIRDLY to our RESPECTIVE LEADERS” as being taught to us in Talk 12 : Unity in Christ of the Foundations for Christian Living.

1 Co. 1:12 “Let me put it this way: each of you says something
different. One says, “I follow Paul”, another, “I follow Peter”, another, “I follow Christ.”

We are called Couples FOR CHRIST and it is to Jesus alone that we render our loyalty. It is for this reason that we strongly believe in the anointing of our leaders as our Lord Jesus will equip them in leading our community.

Therefore, we, the National Council of CFC France, unanimously agreed after much discernment, to recognize the present CFC structure and submit to the leadership of the International Council as endorsed by the Board of Elders.

We pray that LOVE, which is the only law of God, continue to purify us as we humbly serve Jesus in building His kingdom here on earth. “Lord, Jesus, we enthrone you. Come, take back your place!”

May God bless us all,


The CFC Council, France

Mandy Lising
Venci Arcayan
Ramie Fabian
Peter Lee
Bernie Matugas
Ilyo Mendoza
Loren Siccion



Statement of CFC Ireland



Dear Brothers and Sisters in Ireland ,

Greetings of Peace!

First, I would like to show my appreciation to our Country Head, the Governance Team and Household Leaders for making a united stand to stay and remain in CFC. The announcement made in a proper venue (GA) and appreciated by all (I think as shown on the clapping of hands) those who are present. The efforts made also to convene with Bishop Cantillas (Chairman of the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant Peoples) after our GA yesterday to hear his opinion (especially about CFC split and GK) and pastoral advice was a great opportunity to seek more the truth of the matter and what direction the two groups are heading. The most important was the Bishop giving a blessing to our group to remain faithful and united here in Ireland , to the church hierarchy and in serving God. The Bishop also instructed us to really involve our CFC Spiritual Director, Fr. Pat O’Connell (He is also the Chaplain for Filipinos) and the other Filipino Priest here in Ireland (especially Fr. Rene Esoy, SSS).

Should you want to know more about the truth and updates especially the involvement of the CBCP. Kindly search on Goggle (cbcp updates on cfc). One latest issue now if there is money issue involve in this split. If you have time to read more just CTRL+click the link below (you can click also on its relevant links):

http://defendingcfc.blogspot.com/search/label/financial

or start here: http://defendingcfc.blogspot.com/search/label/START%20HERE

Let us carry on the good work and continue to pray for peace and unity.

God bless,

Cres Abragan
CFC Ireland


Statement of CFC Switzerland National Council On Behalf of CFC Geneva and CFC Bern



10 October 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The grace and peace of Christ be with you all!

For several months now, we have witnessed a spiritual battle way beyond our imagination and unprecedented in our life as Couples for Christ. We in CFC, who were raised as God’s army to win souls for Christ, have come face to face with the evil threat of losing the souls won for Christ and fallen to the trap of Satan – the true deceiver.


The CFC National Council of Switzerland has previously positioned itself to remain impartial, not to withdraw support from our leaders, embracing all in order to shield CFC Switzerland from the crisis in the global community. Our desire was to proactively engage leaders from both parties to seek a peaceful dialogue. It is with this stance that we hoped to start the process of reconciliation and healing of our beloved community. Indeed, we have pursued our engagement with Bro Frank Padilla and with CFC International Council member Bro Roquel Ponte on 5‐6 September and 4‐5 October, respectively. It was a privilege to have had these opportunities to meet with and listen to both brothers. These dialogues helped shed some light on the many issues surrounding the crisis. The openness of both for reunification has been articulated, the reality however dictates that, just like any other process, reunification cannot be done in haste.


From the very beginning of this crisis, we tried to seek the truth and the real issues that needed to be addressed. Through it all, we remain convinced that separation, leaving our community and establishing a new group are not the solution to our predicament. It is, on the other hand, a manifestation that we are turning our back from our collective responsibility in facing the problem which is contrary to all that we have learned and preached.


Today, the four members of the SwissNC (As of 04 October 2007 – Arthur Sandoval, Edgar Quinto, Elmer Pagdilao, Oscar Cepeda) with the fraternal group of CFC Bern and CFC Geneva (which also oversees CFC Fribourg and CFC Lausanne), we are taking our stance to reinforce our support to the International Council of Couples for Christ. We choose to remain in CFC, to rise unafraid in facing the issues and resolve it from its current structure. Not because of blind obedience to our leaders, but because we want to actively participate in coming up with solutions. We believe in God’s anointing to the new members of the International Council, as we have believed and supported its past members. Our faith is in the Lord who has tasked them to work and face these challenges in our community.

Brothers and sisters, please accept our sincere apologies for falling short of your expectations as your leaders, and that decisions were not made as early as everybody expected. We, your leaders discerning with our limited wisdom and seeking the Holy Spirit, have given and will continue to give our very best to bring what is for the greater good of our community. Thank you for your patience and trust.


For our brethren in Switzerland who are discerning or have made their declaration prior to this announcement, we continue to honour you and acknowledge our deep bond as brothers and sisters. Our inclinations in the face of this crisis may differ, but our love for one another should never diminish. Let us remain allies in serving the same God and His one true Church. Let us continue to bring those who are lost back to Christ. As we sincerely serve Christ, we will certainly see vast opportunities for us to work together and that reunification may already be at hand.


Beyond our Lamentations, there are plenty of lessons that we are reminded of and can further learn in this phase of our life in CFC – servant leadership, humility, obedience, forbearance, repentance, forgiveness, and a lot more. As for St Paul, he will continue to exhort us saying, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13). If only for these lessons that we face in this crisis, then these are indeed marvellous blessings that we can all truly be thankful for.


“Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth; break into song; sing praise!” (Ps 98:4)

In service of the Lamb,
Arthur Sandoval
CFC Switzerland National Director


Statement of CFC Malta

During the first meeting which was convened yesterday to discuss the split in the CFC family, the members of the CFC Governance group took a unanimous decision that we will start a process of discernment and evaluation of the situation, remaining at this stage functioning as CFC MALTA within the authority structure of the CFC’s International Council.

MY PERSONAL PRAYER:

* Praying that the work among the poor in GK may not in any way be disrupted but intensified
* Praying that the bonding on the international level among all levels of the family ministries - especially the young - may remain intact as we all encourage unity in the Holy Spirit.
* Praying that the Church in the Philippines may act as a wise mother that cares for her quarrelling children without showing favor to one or the other.
* Praying that God gives the grace and wisdom to all to formulate emails in a way which show maximum discretion and prudence avoiding the trap of political persuasion tactics that strive to win the hearts and minds of people by portraying negatively the “other side”
* Praying that God may deliver us from all idolizing or over-extolling CFC beyond that of being one of the humble servants of the People of God, without in any way losing our focus on Jesus our one and only hope.
Praying that corporate unity may be agreed by all to be the litmus test for any ultimate authentic renewal of CFC.


Joe C Aquilina

CFC MALTA


Statement of CFC Greece

From: luis ilagan
Subject: CFC GREECE MOVE FORWARD!


Peace of Christ be with you Always!

Last Sunday was a blessed day for all of us. For me and my bethren in Greece 28th of August was the judgement day and finally thru prayers, and discernment HE lead us to stay in our mother CFC and It's Family Ministries which served as our FAMILY, HOME and SHELTER, and a VESSEL to reached our brothers and sisters to spread HIS GLORY.

We will continue our service under the umbrella of our very own CFC-IC. We loved all our Elders and it will never change, we learned so many things from them especially during the hardtimes in our service.

Nothing will change in service of CFC Greece. We will move forward! May God Bless us always in our works.

God bless,

Your Co-workers in HIS Vineyard

CFC Greece



Statement of CFC Monaco

From: Rey Vita De Jesus

Subject: cfc monaco's statement


Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ,


When CFC was established in Monaco in the later part of 1996, we were so thankful to God. Since then we have given our full commitment to our community and embrased it as our way of life.

These last few months , we all know that our beloved community is going through a major crisis. And much as you wanted to insulate Europe, we are now in the midst of this chaos. It pained us so much to see you, our own elders, being in conflict with one another because we have come to love and respect you all. God only knows how much we prayed for our community to remain united. But even the Bishops have seen that there is no other option but separation. So you have asked us to discern and choose whether we wanted to stick to CFC or to join the newly founded community FFL. We have made ourselves open to both parties, allowing them to speak to us to make matters clearer. And so, on September 15, all the leaders of CFC Monaco gathered together and after a deeper discernment and a lot of prayers, we have come up with a decision.

CFC Monaco will remain faithful to CFC Families in the Holy Spirit Renewing the Face of the Earth. We will continue to give our full support to the International Council, whom we believe were legitimately voted last June 22, 2007 by the Elder's Assembly.We see no reason at all why we have to move to another community when CFC is still the same catholic community whom we joined more than ten years ago and still recognize and supported by our own Bishops and by the Vatican.

CFC has been and will always be a blessing and a gift to us by God, our Loving Father. And we will always be your loving brothers and sisters in Christ, respectful to one another.


In Christ,
CFC Monaco




Statement of CFC Belgium



Dear Bro. Rene,



It is sad to think that CFC was brought to conflict and disunity by issues that until now had not been resolved. It is also sad to think that majority of CFC members are in the position that is divisive with regard to the issues, thus making them more controversial. It appears that all of us are not yet ready to face a storm driven by conflict and disagreement.



All of us love CFC, and we believed that our leaders love and care for CFC much more. Because of this love our leaders will defend their ideas on the issues affecting the vision, mission and culture of CFC. But the problem is they have different sets of ideas, that when conflict and disagreement occurs, they have different views and ways of solving it. Some leaders thought that by stepping down it will solve some issues affecting CFC and GK. But nothing has been solved; instead it became the root to another problem. Some of our leaders think that advice from our Bishops is unnecessary, now it became part of the most serious controversy.



These concerns were tackled during the our fraternal meeting last Sunday and we are unanimous in our decision to wait; to be patient and be confident that God will intervene; that we will not join in any move that is divisive. For us, there is still hope, only if our leaders will try again and continue their dialogue in gentleness, patience and humility. We believed our leaders did try hard to settle their differences with the help of our Bishops, although it failed. Why don’t they try to have a dialogue again and set aside pride and put in the middle the One Most High, our Lord Jesus Christ and be committed in seeking a mutual and peaceful solution? And be constructive in dealing with issue, suspend any judgment, and act in a non-defensive way.



Lastly, we believed that conflict is a normal part of life in any relationship and CFC even our church is not exempted in any conflict whatsoever. CFC Belgium had lived in conflict and problems for years but we did not give up until we attain the peace that we have at present. The existing conflict and disagreement between our leaders is bothering us and in case our leaders will not give peace a chance, CFC Belgium will remain obeying and respecting the administration of the Board of Elders and their directives.



Peace is a pathway to heaven. God love CFC. Because He loves CFC, He will lay a pathway for CFC to find peace, for God wants CFC in heaven.



Let us all pray for peace and unity.

Couples for Christ Belgium

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting bro. CD. These letters are an affirmation and a great source of encouragement. CFC needs to move forward and we in CFC USA are committed to help our CFC European brothers and sisters in continuing the task of evangelization in the first world countries.

MinaFrancisco said...

God is good!

CFC West C Sector said...

full speed ahead!!!!

Anonymous said...

..the only way to go now is Forward!!!!God bless Couples for Christ...Thank You Lord for affirming us..Thank you CD for the post, it lightened our burden in our hearts and really allowed us to see the light at the end of the tunnel more clearly..

I hope FFL will stop making a fuss out of these statements again. Lets just move on..Wala nang siraan. MOve na tayo..nagsusuffer ang mga mahihirap, both materially and spiritually..

MRocker for Christ

Anonymous said...

Praise God for opening the hearts and minds of our brethren worldwide!

For the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Amen! Amen! Amen!

Anonymous said...

Amen! Praise God!

Indeed God is faithful to His people!

Anonymous said...

Praise God for these statements. Finally, the international community is seeing the light. They are now beyond loyalty to people (who opened CFC in their country/ country coordinators), but are now focused on Christ, the Lord of the Harvest.

CD, received reports that Africa will soon follow suit. A continent used to be handled by Frank, Nani and Roland of FFL. Praise the Lord that the workers there are committed to Christ's mission in CFC and not by any individual/s. Our missionaries are doing what they were sent for; to establish CFC's life, mission and culture. We are praying for you all! Bro. Caloy Y., heard that your inaanak sa kasal is at the forefront of these Spiritual battle. Mabuhay ang inaanak mo! Mabuhay ang CFC! Praise be to God!

Anonymous said...

God is good!
All the Time!

Anonymous said...

Hallelujah!!!

So now it can be told... EUROPE is not totally FFL's!!

What's the status of the 50 States of the USA??

United States of FFL ba sila?

And how about a similar status report for Asia & the Pacific Region.

I heard Singapore and Indonesia are CFC's, is this true??

So how many really do we deduct from the 160 Countries?

Anonymous said...

By the way CD, did you know that the Easter Group just released a list of the countries that are supposedly theirs?

I saw 7 nations listed, with only two letter signed by its author, all others were information passed on.(one was from Bro Ray of Geneva, Switzerland.

The ones you posted here had names to whom we could attribute the source.

Anonymous said...

praise God for CFC Europe!!! It is good to know about all this support...We do need to encourage one another in our life in CFC ...I visited Singapore recently... met with the Singapore council members.YES!!! CFC sila!!!! And my info re Indonesialast month pa that when Eric Manalang went there, only four people attended his meeting, and one of them went back to CFC...

Anonymous said...

Thanks CD. This means a lot to us here in CFC Toronto. We praise and thank God.
May God continue to bless you.

Anonymous said...

Bros and Sis,

Indeed God is Good!

In Singapore, I heard (this is not official, take it with a grain of salt) that there were Bros and Sis that had FFL inclination. However, I have not heard much of/from them lately. I will not speculate and will not provide my 10 cents worth on where they are currently, suffice it to say that I will be praying for them, that one day we may find ourselves side by side, in our fight, not against other bros and sis but against the true enemy that sowed disunity in our community.

Let us not look at the numbers that have remained in CFC or the numbers that they add in their roster. If we believe that they too are our bros and sis, then there is nothing to add or deduct. I think that in the end what happens will be their numbers and ours will increase, I just hope that they exert their effort in increasing their numbers for Christ not at CFC's expense.

Time to move on. Onwards People of God in CFC!!!

Anonymous said...

Praise God!!!
"We are desperately ordinary but God will make us capable of extraordinary feats"

I Honor the CFC Leaders in Europe for being brave enough to follow Jesus...

Anonymous said...

A VERY WARM CFC KIND of GREETINGS to the brethren & leaders of these countries:

BELGIUM (Please provide us with names of leaders !)
FRANCE (Brothers Mandy Lising, Venci Arcayan, Ramie Fabian, Peter Lee, Bernie Matugas, Loran Siccion & Ilyo Mendoza !!!)
GREECE (Luis Ilagan !!!)
IRELAND (Cres Abragan !!!)
MALTA (Joe Aquilina !!!)
SWITZERLAND (Arthur Sandoval !!!)

Your brothers in the Philippines and in the World honor you for being steadfast in the upholding the Charism, the Mission and Vision of the REAL CFC !!

With these initial listing of countries that have chosen to keep their covenant with God, untainted and totally focused on the LORD JESUS CHRIST, I will request CD to make a sidebar or a page that will keep a running account of ALL COUNTRIES that have remained in CFC.

We hope that on that list those who are in far places and who simply have to rely on this blog page to have a source of real information on which countries (out of the 160) are one with the CFC International Council in serving GOD in and through CFC.

We ARE REQUESTING OTHER COUNTRIES TO PROVIDE our indefatigable & dedicated blog spot owner & administrator CD to provide a ready listing, one with a link on the right side of the page.

Running this as a source could be a platform for our brethren in other countries to tell the world their REAL NUMBERS when they see their host country being listed as FFL or CFC, if the majority of the members do not support such an announcement or decision of their elders.

So the listing above could further be expanded if the total CFC population for instance of FRANCE is about a 1,000 CFC persons (with mature headcount of CFC & Family Ministries) and they could indicate that about 999 are CFC then, we can now see that only 1 sheep is lost and has gone the other way.

Kung call kayo gawin natin please.

Then for the Philippines, such count could be made in terms of PROVINCES, Metro Manila SECTORS or MINISTRIES.

Then we could see where the real numbers lie, and by the time we all could show where God’s flock is. Probably those who are still “UNDECIDED, WAITING FOR UNITY” will have a realization of the futility of their chosen lot.

Anonymous said...

Thanks to Garnet (bro/sis).

I should have clarified that in my earlier comment. CFC Singapore is intact, we have just concluded CLP in St Mary of Angels. All systems go for us here.

There will be a teaching this Saturday, 27 October. Bro Melo V. Jr. will deliver the talk. May God send his Holy Spirit upon him as he delivers God's message for His flock here in Singapore.

God bless you all!