A new Adventist group in Dubai is thriving, welcoming new members, and celebrating baptisms.
By Gureni Lukwaro
A new group of Seventh-day Adventists was established earlier this year in Dubai. Born out of the Dubai Visayan Church, the new group is called Dubai Filipino Fellowship (DFF) reflecting the desire to cast a wider net than one single ethnic group and to reach the wider Filipino community working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the greater Dubai area.
The genesis of the group highlights God’s love and His ability to change a bad situation into a God-given opportunity. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when people could not gather freely, Adventist Filipino members married to non-Adventist spouses started meeting via Zoom with the aim of ministering to their spouses as well as other non-Adventist family members in the UAE and in the Philippines.
After Covid-19, the small group slowly transitioned to physical gatherings, meeting twice monthly, every second and fourth Sabbath of the month. To help with this transition, the group sought a permanent place to meet. After prayerfully searching, they found an event hall that could host their bi-monthly meetings, but the asking rental price of AED 3,500 (about US$ 1,000) was more than they could afford. The group struggled to continue without a permanent home.
But God was not yet done with the group. In March 2025, two years after the first failed negotiations, the owner of the facility called and said the party hall was available, and invited the group to start using the facility at the cheaper rate of AED 2,000. The group was able to negotiate further and in the end, the owner agreed to rent the place for AED 1,500 (about US$ 410) per month, less than half the price he had been asking two years earlier.
The owner told the group that the party hall had remained vacant for the 2 years since their first inquiry, convincing them that the Lord had been reserving it for them. With this new, affordable rental price, the group began meeting in this hall, which the Lord had so clearly provided for them.
Currently, an average of 30–40 Adventists meet each Sabbath with 2-3 visitors attending regularly. Within six months of the group meeting regularly, three people were baptized during a baptismal service held September 27, 2025, as a result of the focused ministry work DFF is doing. As they continue to grow, the group seeks more opportunities to serve the Filipino community living in Dubai and share the love of God with as many as they can reach.