Haggai Leader Hermely Jalando-on is a faculty member at Central Philippine University in Iloilo City, Philippines, where she teaches business and finance. Her classroom is where Gospel values meet real-world decision-making. The Haggai Leader Experience equipped her to see her academic position as a platform for holistic witness.

Before attending the HLE, Hermely sought intentional ways to blend her faith into her professional life. She integrated Gospel principles into her lectures, supervised her college’s praise team, and supported her husband’s ministry in their church, but something still felt incomplete.

“I realized that I have to do my part in fulfilling the Great Commission, not just supporting my husband in his ministry and in the church. I have to have my own calling and work on it.”

That realization, sharpened during the HLE, changed everything. The experience didn’t just give Hermely motivation. It gave her a new framework. It showed her that her unique position in the university was not separate from her Gospel calling. It was central to it. The experience helped her see that her academic sphere, research, institutional leadership, and her family were all platforms for Gospel witness.

More importantly, the HLE connected her to a global peer community of leaders asking the same questions about how to multiply their impact. She returned to the Philippines energized by that connection.

What followed was remarkable. Hermely brought one HLE tool directly into her personal finance classroom: the vision board exercise. She required her students to reflect on their goals across three timeframes: short-term (1-3 years), medium-term (3-5 years), and long-term (more than 5 years). She gave them class time to dream, draw, cut pictures from magazines and paste them onto boards. Each student shared their vision. Then Hermely added a final step, to hang that board in their bedroom, where they’d see it daily, reminding them of their purpose.

She completed her Doctor of Management degree with a dissertation on servant leadership, a topic that bridged her business expertise and her Gospel conviction. That research became a platform for regional impact. She and her husband now travel to pastors’ gatherings across the Philippines, delivering lectures on servant leadership to church leaders. Other pastors and their wives have been inspired by their commitment to equipping leaders.

Yet her witness extends far beyond the classroom or the conference room. Every lecture in public finance, international marketing, and monetary policy now weaves Gospel values into the content. A verse on reputation and trust concludes her presentation on international marketing. A principle of stewardship anchors her discussion of revenue policy. She serves on her university’s Christian Life Committee, which plans Christian Emphasis Week convocations where the Gospel is shared with students from basic education through graduate school, law, and medicine. She supervises the praise team that leads worship during these weeks. She serves as treasurer of the Haggai Iloilo Chapter and attends regional gatherings of leaders.

This is what happens when a leader stops compartmentalizing her faith and moves from supporting others’ callings to owning her own. Hermely teaches business and finance, but in reality, she’s teaching a generation to think like Christ, to lead with integrity, to see their work and their influence as sacred trusts. Her students will graduate and carry that conviction into their workplaces, their families, their communities.

The ripples of her calling extend far beyond what she can measure. Vision boards hang in students’ bedrooms, reminding them of their God-given purpose. Pastors across the Philippines are being trained in servant leadership through her and her husband’s dedication. Colleagues are inspired by her commitment. The praise team she supervises leads worship with passion. The peers in her Haggai chapter are asking the same questions about multiplying their own impact. Each one is becoming a voice for Gospel witness in their own sphere.

written by Leah Alexander