The heavy, humid air of Leyte seemed to stand still on the Sabbath morning of October 24, 2026. Inside the East Visayan Adventist Academy, surrounded by administrators, fellow pastors, and the congregation’s expectant looks, I bowed my head with four others about to be ordained into the gospel ministry.
As Pastor Jomar Campuesto, executive secretary of the East Central Philippine Union Conference, lifted his voice in the commitment prayer, I felt a deep, pricking warmth spreading throughout my body. My thoughts alone couldn’t define the rush of emotion enveloping me. It felt like victory, joy, peace, and acceptance rolled into one.
Then I knew it was the undeniable presence of the Holy Spirit, pressing down on my shoulders—shoulders that had carried the weight of poverty, the grief of loss, and the grueling labor of survival for as long as I could remember.
In that sacred silence, my mind raced back to the dusty roads of Brgy. Cangag in Isabel, Leyte.
I was a boy again, the eldest of six, waking up to the sputter of my father’s tricycle engine and the sight of my mother sorting fruits and vegetables for the local market. We were a family rich in love but tied in deep poverty.
However, the heaviest blow of my youth wasn’t the empty cupboards alone, but the agony of my younger brother’s fading to leukemia when I was just in high school. Standing at that grave, the mantle of an eldest child settled heavily upon me. I knew I had to draw a path forward, not just for myself, but for the siblings looking up to me.
That path led me to Central Philippine Adventist College (CPAC)—a crucible that would test my spirit for eight exhausting years. To afford my own tuition and to shoulder the fees for two of my siblings, I lived a life of constant motion.
By day, the sun beat down on my back as I hauled materials as a campus construction worker. By night, I fought off exhaustion as a security guard, patrolling the quiet grounds while my peers slept. Even with my aunt’s modest help, the math never worked out. Survival demanded more.
I forced myself to see a lifeline in books. I became a student canvasser, spending grueling summers knocking on doors and ignoring scorching heat and deluge as a leader of a student literature evangelist group.
Those hard-won sales shares became our salvation. In 2016, a decade of dirt, sweat, and sleepless nights culminated in my graduation. A year later, my brother Adones—now a district pastor himself—crossed that same stage, followed by my sister in 2018. It was an uphill victory of faith, and God’s faithfulness had finally broken our cycle of scarcity.
Fresh from college in June 2016, I stepped straight onto the battlefield as a Bible worker. My assignments took me deep into shadowed territories, remote places where life was cheap, and men were not afraid to kill.
It took a lot of faith and prayer to make it, but as I walked through those valleys of death, I carried a divine shield. I saw lost souls weep, hardened hearts break open to Jesus, and weary members reclaimed. Over the years, five churches and home divisions rose from the soil where I planted the Word.
But even a warrior of faith needs a companion.
In 2017, God answered my prayer for a lifetime companion in the most unexpected way. I had never met her personally, but across the digital expanse of Facebook, I came to know Caryn Dagoc.
For four months, we kept in touch through messages and prayers. Yet, drawn by a force stronger than fear, I traveled to Mindanao to meet her in person—going through provinces paralyzed by the Marawi massacre. I finally met her in Camiguin Island and Cagayan de Oro, and I understood that God had written a love story beyond my imagination.
Our courtship bore a sacrifice. Over a year and seven months of distance, we only saw each other in person four times: the day we became a couple, the day I asked for her hand, the frantic days of wedding preparation,and finally, the day when I stood beside her at the altar in December 2018.
Caryn, an OIC in a finance company, laid her career and income on the altar of our calling. She traded the corporate ladder for the unpredictable, beautiful life of a full-time missionary’s wife. She stood by my side in the mission fields for six years before becoming an administrative assistant in the East Visayan Conference.
Today, we serve together in the Carigara-Barugo-Capoocan District, our hearts filled with faith that one day we will have three or four children to hold.
When Pastor Eliezer Barlizo Jr., ECPUC’s first president, finished his message, I looked at my family, my churchmates, and Caryn, who smiled back at me with pride. From a grieving boy in Isabel to a newly ordained minister of the gospel, the sweet reality of finally being ordained to the pastoral office overflowed in my heart.
I am nothing, but God wrote my life, my marriage, my ministry, my all.
And as for Caryn and me, we made our second joyful vow—we would offer our lives to Him, in the dirt, in the danger, and in the light, until Jesus comes.
By John Carillo, Jr., as told to Lyn Lucero ⎸ East Visayan Conference