{"id":54097,"date":"2015-07-02T16:48:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T08:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=54097"},"modified":"2015-07-02T16:48:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T08:48:24","slug":"suspicious-fire-razes-filipino-church-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/02\/suspicious-fire-razes-filipino-church-in-us\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Suspicious\u2019 fire razes Filipino church in US"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_54098\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-54098\" style=\"width: 604px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Forerunners-for-Christ-church-building.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-54098\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Forerunners-for-Christ-church-building-1024x601.png\" alt=\"Forerunners for Christ church building (Screengrab from ABS-CBN report)\" width=\"604\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Forerunners-for-Christ-church-building-1024x601.png 1024w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Forerunners-for-Christ-church-building-300x176.png 300w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Forerunners-for-Christ-church-building.png 1029w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-54098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Forerunners for Christ church building (Screengrab from ABS-CBN report)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to an ABS-CBN report, the Forerunners for Christ church building in Los Angeles\u2019 Echo Park neighborhood was caught on fire on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re kind of saddened that your church is burning but at the same time you know that God is in control so you just go and take faith. And by the time we got here, we found out it\u2019s not too bad, still bad but at least it didn\u2019t take the inside,\u201d Pastor Linda Cruz said.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, the fire did not completely burn the wooden church building but several parts were affected including the porch, walls and roof. Despite the incident, the congregation would still be able to conduct their church activities such as bible studies and weekend worships as the inside of the building was mostly left untouched.<\/p>\n<p>The House of Worship Task Force has already started investigations in the incident. Preliminary results showed that the fire started in the front roof and the fire was \u2018suspicious.\u2019 The probe has still been ongoing.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz, however, would stay positive as she could not think that the church building was purposely set on fire. But should it be the case, the pastor shared that she would be able to forgive the offenders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been happy in this area. We have no incidents. People are nice in this area. So, I\u2019m really kind of surprised if someone intentionally set the church on fire,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bible also says where sin abounds, grace super abounds even more. We look at this as an opportunity to shine, to forgive people, to continue the work that has been given to us by God,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>The pastors and most members of the Forerunners for Christ church were Filipinos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to an ABS-CBN report, the Forerunners for Christ church building in Los Angeles\u2019 Echo Park neighborhood was caught on &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":54098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-54097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","tag-rewrite","mauthors-cyra-moraleda","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}