Brother Mariano "Mike" Z. Velarde, Servant-Leader of the El Shaddai DWXI Prayer Partners Foundation International, is a geodetic engineer by profession and a real estate developer in business. Among his real estate developments are the Moonwalk Subdivisions in Parañaque and Las Piñas Cities, and the Bricktown Subdivision and Multinational Village, located in Parañaque City, near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.  Actually, he had neither planned to lead any charismatic community nor dreamt of proclaiming the Good News of Salvation. However, God’s thoughts are not man’s thoughts, neither His ways are man’s ways. Here is the story on how God called him to be a "fisher of men for Christ Jesus" and how the El Shaddai DWXI-PPFI started.

Sometime in February 1978, at the age of 38, Bro. Mike was confined at the Philippine Heart Center for Asia Hospital due to heart enlargement and heart blocks.  He was scheduled to undergo a major heart operation, but none of his five doctors 

could guarantee that he would survive the operation.  One night, an angel in the guise of a nurse came to his room and told him, "Mr. Velarde, I've been watching you for the past three weeks. You are very depressed and always in fear of a heart attack. Allow me to open that Bible beside you and show you a way out of your predicament." Then the angel opened the Bible on 1 Corinthians 10:13 and gave it to him, saying, "Read this and contemplate on it and I assure you, it will help."  The verse read, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." After reading the verse a number of times and meditating on it, his fear disappeared completely and he felt a peace of mind. That night he was able to sleep soundly.  The next morning, he felt a new kind of strength and was filled with joy.  His doctors were surprised when they saw him walking along the corridors of the hospital. They examined his heart thoroughly and was amazed to find out that his ailment had been healed!  The operation was thus no longer necessary.  A week later, he was discharged from the hospital.  Further examination of his heart by doctors in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, USA gave him a clean bill of health.

Once, while he was meditating on the miracle that had happened in his life, he asked God, "Lord, what must I do to live according to Your will?"  The Spirit of God replied, "My son, bear witness to the salvation, love and miracle that you’ve experienced.  If you continue to do this, your fellowmen will know that the God Whom you serve is indeed alive and faithful!"

In 1981, at the height of his real estate business expansion around the now Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Bro. Mike bought the DWXI (1314 kHz) AM Radio Station from its owner-operators for P2 million, because he needed the parcel of land on which it stood.  Besides, the owners would not sell the land unless the radio station was included in the deal.  Later, the radio station alone would cost him millions more to sustain its operations.

That same year, Bro. Mike became a born-again Catholic.  In his eagerness to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, he attended various prayer-meetings and studied the Word of God diligently.  Thus, he learned about the practice of giving tithes and miracle-seed-of-faith offerings.  He began to give financial support for the Mass and Healing Rallies of some charismatic groups that had started to flourish in the Philippines.  One of these was the first Catholic Charismatic Mass and Healing Rally held at the Araneta Coliseum, which was organized by the Quezon City Catholic Charismatic Secretariat.  Brother Mike gave P50,000 as a seed-of-faith offering for that activity.  That amount was his last "cold cash" in the bank because his real estate business then had come to a standstill due to the downward trend in the real estate industry in the midst of economic crisis in the Philippines.  Worse, his bank loans had snowballed to over P200 million because of runaway interests and penalties.

After giving the P50,000 seed-of-faith offering, with in God's Word, he prayed for a financial miracle.  A week before the rally was held, a group of businessmen approached him and bought part of his real estate holdings for P60 million!  With joy in his heart, he shared about the miracle during the Araneta prayer rally and started telling people about that testimony in other prayer-meetings where he was invited to attend.  He recounted to them how God had returned his P50,000 seed-of-faith offering a thousandfold!

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