My First Bible
by Oliver Carlos
I got my first ever Bible from my uncle, Felix Tamolang. It was a New Testament only, the book cover was navy blue, with an illustration of a large orange flame. I loved it because inside were several sketches of Bible stories. The images were outlines only, without faces, but nonetheless, I find them interesting. Uncle Felix wrote a personal dedication for me on the first page. This was in the early 1980s when I was in elementary school.
It felt good having my very own Bible. It made me hungry for God’s voice every day. I had a yellow crayon and I highlighted verses that struck me in my readings. I was able to read that New Testament Bible from cover to cover. Later on, I found a larger Bible in my parents’ shelf. It’s a complete one, having the Old and New Testaments. It had the very same stylized illustrations inside. And so my interest in God’s word became deeper with that bigger and thicker Bible.
I’m not the only one whom Uncle Felix gave Bibles to. My siblings, my Aragon and Lasmarias cousins also had theirs. I thought my uncle must be a wealthy man, being able to afford to give Bibles to so many of us. Later, Uncle Felix would often ask me how I am doing with my personal relationship with Jesus. He would gently halt me and ask, “How’s your walk with the Lord?” He just lived next door and their kitchen window was along the pathway to our house. I knew he would ask me that question once every few weeks, and so I told myself I better have a good answer every time. I really made sure I regularly read my Bible and had a meaningful time with God each day. That is accountability, and I learned it firsthand from Uncle Felix.
Felix came to know the Lord Jesus Christ when he was a college student at the Gregorio Araneta University Foundation (GAUF) in the late 1970s. He said he was a happy-go-lucky student in those days, and he was into lots of mischievous stuff. He accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior after hearing the Gospel from a preacher in a church near his school. You know, when Jesus enters one’s heart, he would really change that person radically. Felix became a changed man since then.
As Felix grew in his faith in the 1980s, he also started sharing his new-found relationship with the Lord to us, his nephews and nieces. Together with his sister Paz, I looked up to them as key people for my growth as a young Christian. In the 1990s, Felix became active in a local community church and he was able to share the Gospel to many people, mostly from the barangays of Los Banos. In the early 2000s, he came aboard our church, the Los Banos Bible Community. Most of our members were UPLB constituents. He introduced weekly prayer meetings in every household, and we as a church, discovered a special zest in our prayer life.
Later on, Uncle Felix became Pastor Felix. He began preaching on Sundays. His preaching style was classic. He loved telling funny stories and he breaks down topics into its smallest details. He was also very generous, financially speaking. There was a time when we would have a regular visitor at church whom I think was a street person. People call him “Jose Rizal” because he resembles and dresses like the national hero. After service, that man would directly approach Pastor Felix. He knew Pastor Felix would never say no to him when he asks for money to buy medicine for his schizophrenia.
In the 2010s, our ministry expanded to the community people outside UPLB with Pastor Felix being the frontline man. In 2017, the outreach was ripe to be independent, and so the Bay Bible Community was born. Pastor Felix fitted perfectly as the senior pastor of the new church plant. Its members come from at least 3 barangays in Bay, and one from nearby Calauan. So many people had come to know the Lord Jesus thru this fast-growing ministry.
By the way, Pastor Felix was a tentmaker all those years. He had a secular job on the side. He was the Deputy Director of the Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI), a DOST office located inside UPLB. He retired in November 2020 at the age of 65.
Felix’s mission on earth must have been done and well accomplished because God called him home last May 22, 2021. He died of a rare disease that hampered him in his last 2 months. He went up to be with the Lord quietly on that Saturday afternoon. I can only imagine the grand welcome he had in the Lord’s presence. I’m sure God told him:
“Well done, good and faithful servant! …. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:23, NIV)
