Herman L. Reyes

It was mid-70's and I was an undergrad student at Philippine Union College in Baesa, Caloocan City, Metro Manila. Early in the morning, one day, I was jogging on the main road of the campus. As I came to the curve by the college auditorium, I noticed a gentleman hitting a tennis ball with the tennis racquet. The ball was tied to, what appeared to be, a rather long bungee cord. That was the first and the last time I saw doctor Reyes do any form of exercise! Later on, I learned that doctor Reyes had just returned from the Fuller Theological Seminary after earning a doctorate degree. Since I was a pre-med student, I did not have anything to do with the theology department. As such, except for occasional verbal greetings, I did not have contact with doctor Reyes.

Years later studying at Far Eastern University, I longed to worship with the saints in a country setting. The seminary had just moved to the Silang campus. Saints like doctors Fernandez and Reyes taught there and lead out in the worship services. And I got to knowing them more. These two gentlemen were like the two brothers of PBS, Click and Clack. Just like the the two brothers, doctors Reyes and Fernandez often would be at each other's throat. One sabbath morning, doctor Fernandez greeting the worshippers, said, "We welcome you all to the worship, the ones of you who are from the seminary and the cemetery referring to the visitors who had come to worship from the Baesa campus which was soon to be a cemetery!

Four years after starting at Far Eastern University, I was going to graduate and felt it was time to get married. My would-be wife, Amelita Petilla Militante came from a staunch catholic family. I asked her if she would study with doctor Reyes who also had a similar background. She agreed and what a beautiful study she had with this giant in faith. He shared much of his own family story and drove home principles of eternal value. Amel decided to be baptized and pastor Ombao baptized her in the murky waters of slang river. Two weeks later, doctors Hedrick Edwards and Reyes performed a garden wedding for us behind Don and Barb Van Ornam's home.

We lost contact for years but our association rekindled at our home in Redlands on a monthly basis. On sabbath afternoons, many of the Adventist filipino stalwarts would congregate at our home over a sumptous potluck. Doctors Reyes and Fernandeze along with their spouses would share the hair-raising stories of their ministry in the early years of their ministry in the boondocks of the Philippines.

Doctor Reyes would tell folk that I was his son he never had. I would quickly quip, "That would be great except that I could not be the brother of Jan!!"

Yes, good memories. sweet memories. And as we age, memories tend to become our best friends.

This life would have been a most frightening experience had it not been for the Blessed Hope that someday, perhaps sooner than we think, we will be reunited with our friends who have fallen asleep. Until then, sleep, our friends, doctors Reyes, sleep

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee where autumn is very evident. The leaves have turned from green to brown, yellow, orange, red and even purple. And many of them are starting to fall. It brings to mind that this is just a season and in a few months another season will bring life to the barren trees. Just as it is in life, there are different seasons. Unfortunately, the sad season is when we lose loved ones. My heart hurts for you, dear girls, because of the recent loss of your parents. I know how you feel because my siblings and I went through the same experience of losing both of our parents in the same year. Our Nanay Tulio passed away in June, 2000 at 91 years old and our Tatay Tulio passed away in October 2000 at 88 years old. It has been 17 years since they went to rest but I can still feel the loss. My sister, Ate Linda and I visited their graves last September2017 when we were in San Diego. We could not help but shed tears because we missed them. We did our best to take care of them when they were in the last years of their lives. Together, the three of us met their needs and spent as much time as we could with them. We were blessed with resources and family unity so that we were able to honor our parents. They deserved to be honored not only because they were our parents but also because they were faithful servants of God and spent more than 50 years doing their best to bring people close to Jesus.

I know that you, too, have done your best to take care of your parents in the last season of their lives. They, too, deserve the honor that you gave them. They were faithful servants of the Lord. I praise God that our family and yours have a connection. Your Dad or my Kuya Miniong, told me and my siblings of the help that our parents extended to him so that he could complete his education. He said he was encouraged and practically pushed to go to PUC, especially by Nanay Tulio. My earlier memories include seeing Kuya Miniong on our visits to Dinalupihan, Bataan. I also remember that Kuya Miniong did his ministerial internship with Tatay Tulio while he was assigned to the Manila-Rizal District. Our family occupied an upstairs apartment while newly-married Kuya Miniong and Ate Lagring stayed at the downstairs apartment below ours. Tatay Tulio and Kuya Miniong had their training sessions. Even then, we admired the leadership and pastoral abilities of Kuya Miniong. We have always considered him as our older brother. And, my siblings and I just love Ate Lagring. She is one of the sweetest persons that we know. There are more memories for me to remember and appreciate the respect and honor that Kuya Miniong and Ate Lagring showed my parents. Our lives are intertwined because the connection was kept strong by your parents. God has put our families together to spread the gospel of Jesus especially in helping the needy and the poor, as Jesus commanded. Prom and I truly appreciate our leadership in AUP alumni activities because we believe that helping AUP is one way of advancing God's kingdom.

I am so happy that you have grown into beautiful and strong women. You have inherited your mother's beauty and sweetness as well as your father's strength of character. You will always be familyto me. I hope that we can spend time together again. Prom and I are taking a short rest from MOH.Farm at AUP. We will go back there in January 2018. God is good and keeps us healthy and strong even though we are now closer to 80's and 70's (Prom is 79 years old and I am 78)

Please know that my family and I love you and share your loss. Let us look forward to seeing your parents in that blessed resurrection morning. It will be a grand reunion with all our parents. Take care of yourselves and your pogi husbands. God continue to bless you and your families

Love,
Ate Norma

Gracious Lord and heavenly father, thank you for the blessings for this special person, whom we all remember so fondly, but who is now at rest in your loving embrace. Thank you for Dad's life and the many happy memories that we all share and we pray that you will be a special comfort, to uplift and care for those that will feel the greatest loss. For though separated for a time, we will all rejoice one day when we stand together in your presence on that glorious morning when we will be reunited in the hope that is set before us, in Jesus name we pray, Amen.

I have known Dad for 10 years. He loved his family so much, but missed Mom a great deal. In a letter he wrote, he said, last night I could not sleep again. I rang the bell and Janie came in her sweet way, she put her arms around me and we wept together. Janie woke no less than 4 to 5 times in the evening to clean me, wept with me and made me comfortable. I asked her how much weight she had lost and hesitantly she said 20 lbs Dad. It would kill me if I lose her. This is the big hearted Dad I know.

When we attend church, go to Awesna or Pamana conventions, or when admitted at LLUMC, I hear several former students of him say, Pastor or Sir, I wouldn't have graduated if you didn't help me with my final school bill. This is the big hearted Dad I know.

All the proceeds from the books he wrote, went to build the Volunteer Teachers Duplex at AUP and the South Central Luzon conference Convention Center. That's the big hearted Dad, I know.

Time won't permit me to share more, but I am so proud to be considered a son by this Big Hearted, loving Dr. Herman Luzano Reyes.

The adventist University of the Philippines mourns the passing away of a distinguished alumnus, pastor-evangilist, teacher, mentor, supporter, and friend.

As a college student in the Silang campus in the early 80's, I had the chance to know Dr. Herminio Reyes. At that time he was already a professor in the Theological Seminary and frequently preached at Philippine International Church. I still remember some of his sermons and stories, which we then, college students would spend hours talking about. They were stories taken from his boyhood days and also of his life as a working student, stories that were actually metaphors of life. I still use some his stories in my sermons. Later on, when I took graduate studies in the Seminary, I sat in his class. I learned that he had taught at almost every level of Adventist educational system. He mentored aspiring youth in Pasay City Academy, he produced pastors at Philippine Union College, and taught ministers and theologians on the masters and doctoral levels of the Theological Seminary.

What I cherish the most, more than learning from his expertise in Missions, was the inspiration and challenge we received when Dr. Reyes opened to us his heart. He had a heart for the churches and for evangelizing the world. His desire that the Church examine its strategy for evangelism and for missions to the cities, radiated strongly in his teaching. His personal convictions of church life and ministry, founded on God's word, were built from a desire to be faithful to our mission. His teaching did not come simply from books but from a wealth of experience spent in caring for rural and urban churches, and from the burden of his heart.

Dr. Reyes continued to support his alma mater even after he left the campus. Students still use the books he wrote and also those he donated to the library. Visiting professors still stay in the guest house he raised funds for. More than these, Sir, as I fondly call him, still has an influence in the University because of the stories and insights I heard from him in the several times we visited after I was elected. His prayers for me and for AUP left a lasting impact in my leadership. Even now I often share with faculty and staff his stories of how the Lord guided the decision to move out of Baesa and His providential leading in the choice of the Silang campus. He would remind in his indirect yet powerful way about the mission of PUC/AUP. My visits with him, few as they were, were always a transforming experience.

Sir has rested from his labors. Yet, we who are left behind to carry on the work he loved so much, aim to carry on the burden of the task that Dr. Reyes has so magnificently prodded us to share, and by God's grace, with the same commitment and perseverance. Like him, we want to see a world ready to meet Jesus when He returns. I firmly believe, one of Sir's last prayers was, Even so, Come, Lord Jesus.

Francisco D. Gayoba
President, Adventist University of the Philippines

I really miss you Dad and Mom. You have been my rock and my counselor. Whenever I had problems I would come to
you and you have been there for me through thick and thin, accepting me always, faults and all.
I thank God for having given me the most wonderful parents possible in this sinful world. You have been my inspiration
and example of what Christians are. You accept everyone for what they are. You have a forgiving spirit. You have taught me
to read my Bible and know God by your example in our daily worship with you Dad and Mom, and I miss worshiping with you.
You taught me the meaning of the Lord's Prayer because you always ended with it. I thought of the words of the Lord's
Prayer and meditated on it.
I'm able to smile and go on in this life because of the Blessed Hope, Christ coming back, and we will be together again
forevermore, never to be separated again, if I remain faithful to God and do His will.
Thank you Dad and Mom for teaching me the good news of salvation.

Your very sweet, youngest, loving daughter,
Pearl Grace

I remember when my Siyahong Meniong was a'courtin my sister, visiting her at home n they used to sit on a square table with 2 folding chairs.

Back in the late 50's, Pastor Reyes was the district pastor of lower Bulacan province, that includes our church in Meycauayan. I was slated to be baptized, but he was not an ordained minister yet. He had Pastor Fausto Reyes do the baptism.

I did not know he was married then. He looked so young and on occasions would sleep in our house. My father loved to hear him preach.

I embrace the opportunity to publicly commiserate with the Reyes family over the passing of this outstanding patriarch of their clan, and our friend. I do so with the assurance that no death is forever, except the death of the wicked, no loss without eternal gain. He was my professional colleague, affable neighbor, trusted brother, and enduring friend. Through his years of service as pastor, evangelist, college and seminary professor, and prolific author, he impacted many thousands of lives for good. He was a quiet and gentle giant. Such men are the true salt of the earth. (HJE)

I embrace the opportunity to publicly commiserate with the Reyes family over the passing of this outstanding patriarch of their clan, and our friend. I do so with the assurance that no death is forever, except the death of the wicked, no loss without eternal gain. He was my professional colleague, affable neighbor, trusted brother, and enduring friend. Through his years of service as pastor, evangelist, college and seminary professor, and prolific author, he impacted many thousands of lives for good. He was a quiet and gentle giant. Such men are the true salt of the earth.

Hedrick Edwards