El Shaddai is a Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group, A Hebrew word meaning God Almighty, the God who is mor than enough; He is the all sufficient One. The aim of this group is to proclaim the greatness, faithfulness, power,goodness and love of God; to provide relief to people whose hearts and minds are burdened with problems; to heal the spiritual and physical afflictions of men in our time through the infallible Word of God.  And most of all, to preach the Good News of salvation offered by our Lord Jesus Christ.

They accomplish the aim through their weekly prayer meeting. Every prayer meeting starts with Praise Songs. The leader prays an opening prayer. Worship songs continues, ending up with another praise song to introduce the Testimony period, where members testify to how God has blessed them the past days or week. Then, they welcome new comers and are given a blessing in form of a short prayer or song.  Another song of praise and worship follows to introduce the preaching period.  The preacher is one of the mature leaders in the group trained and attends bible stuy every week. This is the highlight of the meeting. The preaching is taken from the Word of God, which is read and the group is encouraged to follow the reading from the Bible. The teaching is practical and down to earth and usually lots of examples from the experience of the speaker. The preacher ends her/his talk with prayer and the meeting ends by singing a thanks giving song.

Since the group that started in April 2004 in the basement is still new, music ministry usually comes from Vancouver Chapter. A group of them usually come to support the Victoria Chapter. The music ministry from Vancouver is trained in praise and worship leading, very vibrant and very prayerful. The group is praying for more people of Victoria to come to the meeting and to be able to start a music ministry.  Music is central in praying and worshipping the Lord.

Four women started praying under a tree close to one of the churches in Vancouver until they got permission to be in church started the El Shaddai group in Vancouver 12 years ago. These four women pluc 3 others constitute the Council of the Vancouver Chapter. The leaders have powerful conversion stories and are committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, They have a Center in Keith Drive in Vancouver, where the choir holds their practice weekly, where they hold their Bible Study, meeting place, weekly Intercessory Prayer, and office. They have four Spiritual Advisers: Fr. Terrence Beliski, of St. Jude Parish; Fr. Don Larson of St. Patrick Parish; Fr. Patrick Chisholm of St. Bernadette and Fr. Peter Hoan Nguyen of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Kamloops. The group  in Vancouver have around 200-300 people attending their prayer meetings on Sundays.  The group is vibrant and enthusiastic, full of faith in the mighty power of The God Who is more than enough.  The group participates in conferences and other events that the Archdiocese Charismatic Committee organizes. The group is very active in the parishes where they are in music and in all churches ministries.

Bro. Mike Vilarde started the El Shaddai prayer group in Manila Philippines in 1984. He experienced a miraculous healing from the Lord, when all the doctors had given up on him. He had a powerful experience of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that the words of the Bible come alive to him. His preaching is anointed, practical and simple that when the Word is preached, hearing it, produces faith, and produces results.

The group in Victoria is still in its infancy but given time, the Lord will be proclaimed with joy, enthusiasm and full of faith. The Victoria outreach celebrated their first anniversary last April 24, 2005 with Praise and worship and then a Mass at 2:00pm followed by more praise and worship and then with dinner. The theme of the celebration was: TASTE AND SEE HOW GOD IS THE LORD! (Ps. 34:8)

By: Sis. Dieza Dolencio
Victoria B.C. Chapter