My Journey

I am an adventurous person. I like to go to different places and meet other people! But I have problems in doing that - because I am shy and I am afraid to venture on my own.

So, when I was a young child, books served as my means of seeing places and meeting people. I read a lot of materials (comics, novels, books) on any kind of subjects (and even tried learning other languages, such as Spanish and Chinese, on my own through reading books). This make believe world confined me at home and in my room most of the time. But this also allowed me to read books and stories about God which made me more and more curious to know more about Him.

When I reached high school, I started attending Sunday School. During such a class, one verse that caught my attention was Isaiah 55:6 "seek the Lord while He may be found… call upon Him while He is near”. God who seemed a distant somebody before was becoming more real each day as I read the Bible and other Christian literatures and as I listen to Christian teachings. Finally, God seemed like a friend who accompanied me to get out of my daily routine of home and school and encouraged me to explore the world and people around our community. Little by little, I was overcoming my shyness - by joining the choir and teaching children in Sunday School.

However, during one of our Youth Fellowship during my senior year in High School, the speaker explained to us that being active in church by joining all activities or being kind and good does not make us real Christians. I have memorized since childhood John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” that I did not even think of its meaning anymore. I learned that believing in Him means to truly confess my sins to God, ask Him to forgive and cleanse me, accept Jesus as the Lord and King of my life and love and obey Him. By understanding this truth, my shyness to pray publicly was removed and I was able to thank Him for His love by dying on the cross and suffering in my place.

As a child, I dreamed of being a doctor because my mother worked in the hospital and I admired looking at them and how they help people. However, I realized that my parents can’t afford that. So, I decided to apply for a school that offers instead Veterinary Medicine. I got a scholarship there but the degree was not approved/offered yet at that time. So, I ended up taking a Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science. It seemed like I missed one of my desired destination in life – not becoming what I wanted to be.

In college, I was still shy and afraid to travel alone. In fact, my father would travel 4 hrs. to get me during weekends whenever I wanted to go home and he would bring me back to school again the following day. It was only during my junior years, when I had friends that I could travel with that he stopped getting and sending me to school. Being in a school far away from home, taught me to trust in God and to depend on Him for provision of my daily basic needs and for guidance in plans and decisions. He also gave me friends who share the same interest as I do and accompanied me in my faith’s journey.

Now, I am a student again pursuing a doctoral in technical science degree. Whereas I dreamed to be a medical doctor, then an animal doctor, I realized now that God’s will for me is not to be those kinds of doctor. I am still shy around many people and afraid to travel alone. But I can testify that I am where I am now because of God who enabled me to overcome my shyness and fear when I am facing it. I realized that there are parts of my nature that I struggle with but God has allowed ito make me unique from the others and so that I would keep trusting upon Him alone not in my own strength. He has been gracious enough to give me the courage and ability to overcome them at the right moment. I have talked infront of many people and I have travelled to far places and meet people from other cultures and backgrounds because He taught me not to focus at my weaknesses but to trust and depend in Him alone. He keeps on encouraging me with His command and promise in Matthew 28:19-20 to “Go… and… I am with you always…”

Personal Mission Statement

On January 23, 2002 while attending a Participatory Rural Appraisal Training Workshop at the Regional Integrated Agriculture Research Center in Balinsasayaw, Abuyog, Leyte I had the luxury of time to think and write down my personal mission statement. Opps, I did not do it while the sessions were going on. I worked on it in the evening at the Ladies Dorm as I was alone in the room. I am putting it down here so that I will always be reminded, since I open the internet more often now than my notebook. And what's written in my notes have already faded! With this blog, it's not going to be a problem anymore.

To live life to the fullest, pursuing God's design for me, I will...

LEAD a life centered around the principles of:
excellence, integrity, service and enjoyment

REMEMBER what's important in life is:
health, relationship, peace of mind, travel and spiritual fulfillment

RECOGNIZE my strengths and develop talents as a person who is:
adaptable, confident, imaginative, a teacher, trustworthy, and an initiator

HUMBLE myself by acknowledging that I can be:
fearful, uncommunicative and overly critical,
and by constantly striving to transform my weaknesses into strengths

ENVISION myself becoming a person who:

• my bestfriend thinks is trustworthy, fun-loving and loyal
• my parents think is responsible, careful and caring
• my brother and sister think is dependable, generous and respectful
• my officemates think is principle-centered, organized and transparent

it's coming back...

i'm not yet very old, but my memory has been rather slow these past few years... i guess, it's just like my cpu - needs an upgrade!

well, today the Lord did just that using Haggai 1.

seven years ago, He impressed upon my heart the vision of putting up a student center in E. Samar which would serve as a venue for students and youths to have access to Christian literature and trainings. It would be something like a "tambayan" where they can learn more about God and how to make Him known.

Looking back, I saw how God has blessed me so much in the past 7 yrs. - by giving me a permanent teaching job, allowing me to travel and study abroad twice and having my own house.

Yet, the student center - which was the real reason and purpose of my going to E. Samar is still renting a small place. I repent of this mistake and ask God to help me make it a priority to establish a permanent spacious place for the student center.

I have almost forgotten that God brought me there in the first place not to live in comfort and luxury for my own enjoyment but to do what He has called me to do. What I enjoy now are just the blessings that He gives in response to obedience to Him.

May I keep on obeying Him, that His blessings may keep flowing on and on... not only for me, but to all youth & students of E. Samar and other parts of the world...

Lord, keep reminding me and bringing back to my memory the reason and purpose for being here and there!

Haggai 1:3-11
Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands."

My life

My life is a journey through a long and winding road. The road is sometimes smooth & comfortable but at other times it can be either rough, rocky, dusty or muddy. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I crawl, sometimes I run, sometimes I slide down and sometimes I swim. Someday I will fly too!

My life now is a dream, a dream that I create and turn into reality through every decisions and actions that I make. Sometimes it's a happy dream, sometimes it's sad and lonely, sometimes it's scary and sometimes it's just nothing! Hopefully, I await that day when I will wake up and when all journeys will lead me to that perfect destination where there is no pain, no hunger, no poverty and no more tears...

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