“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Any of the old-timers living in Olongapo, Philippines, near Subic Bay, will tell you that Basilio Clark, the warm Baptist pastor who plays his guitar and sings so beautifully, is a different person from the one who terrorized the same city in his youth.
A clue to his background is found in his name–Basilio Clark. Basilio is a Filipino name. Clark, an American name. Basilio’s father was an American serviceman, his mother, a Filipino who met and fell in love with the handsome American. After several children were born, Basilio’s father was killed in an automobile accident. Without enough food at home, the boy began to run the streets, stealing from the sidewalk vendors and shopkeepers in the open markets of Olongapo.
As a teenager, Basilio was the head of a gang who robbed, plundered, murdered and pillaged at will. Holing up one night with his gang, Basilio slept as police surrounded the hideout. They took him and his companions captive.
The judge, glad to be able to rid the area of such terrors, showed no mercy. Basilio and his eight companions were sentenced to die in the electric chair. They were quickly moved to Bilibid prison in Muntinglupa, just outside of Manila. When the massive steel doors of the fortress-like prison closed, they portentously signaled the end.
I’ve spoken in Muntinglupa prison and have seen the electric chair, with levers outside the door, which sends thousands of volts of electricity into a frail body, short-circuiting the heart and stopping life. Basilio and his gang feared death this way and chose rather to die at their own hands.
Mixing insecticide, which had been smuggled into the prison with paint thinner which they were able to steal, the nine of them formed a circle and drank the deadly potion. Of the nine, only one survived: Basilio, and he was blind.
He had failed in life and he had failed in death. While he awaited his appointment with the electric chair, Basilio began to listen to a little radio which Olga Robertson, a faithful prison worker, had given to the prisoners. This little radio, known as a PM (Portable Missionary) played but one station, DZAS, the voice of the Far East Broadcasting Company. Day after day as Basilio listened, God began to speak to his heart. Kneeling on the concrete floor beside his steel bunk, Basilio was converted.
Gaining his confidence, Mommy Olga, as the prisoners affectionately call her, began to disciple and teach Basilio the Word of God. Then going from cell block to cell block, Basilio began to tell other prisoners that God had forgiven him and that he had repented of his sins.
It quickly became obvious that this was no longer the tough youth who had terrorized Olongapo, but a changed man whose eyes no longer saw but shed tears over his fellow prisoners. Something had happened! Something big!
Eventually, the president of the Philippines issued a pardon to Basilio Clark, and he was released. Going back to his home a changed man, Basilio continued to share his faith.
I’m tempted to say, “Hats off to the unknown programmer on FEBC’s Christian radio voice, and to a brave little woman, Olga Robertson, who goes where most men fear to walk, and took a radio.” Both of these thoughts are valid, but I know that our friends at FEBC and Olga Robertson, whom I know very well personally, would want me to say that what God did for a thug and gangster He can do for you. Changed lives are what the Gospel is all about. (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Resource reading: Acts 24:10-27.
