Moved again

Okay, I’m moving again my site for better management purposes. 🙂 You are welcome to my new home:

www.aurelia.october8.net

Precious ones

Happy birthday to my beautiful sister in Canada! 🙂 Ate Espie, may you continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of our Father. See you soon in December at Beacon Villa! 🙂

For my other precious ones who celebrated/are celebrating their day this month – my warm birthday greetings, too – Ruth (Germany), Aichen (Thailand), and Loida (Korea). Alles Gute zum Geburtstag. 🙂

 

 

The Chase

Jerry Bridges in Singapore, 30 August 2008.

Grace gap

I struggle with falling so far short of what I really want to be. I find that in all my best efforts – in ministry, in life as a father, husband, friend, and brother – I constantly seem to be falling short of what I believe God wants me to be or where God wants me to be.

One of the best life messages for me is the concept of grace gap. It is the name I give to the gap in my life between what I know how God wants me to live and the reality of my life. There’s a gap – a gap between what you long to be and what you know you are. What do you do with that gap?

I see three ways I have learned to live through life:

1. To lower my convictions. To say, “Well, God surely doesn’t expect me to be like that. We abandon our convictions. We compromise.

2. To become hypocrites. This is particularly true to a lot of us in the Christian ministry. We pretend about our lives. My wife uses the illustration of the man with a withered hand in Mark 3. Jesus asked him to stretch out his hand. Which hand do you think he stretched out? Well, most of us would stretch out our good hands because we’re ashamed of our withered hand. But he had the courage to stretch out his withered hand. As a result, he experienced the healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

3. To deal with it through the gospel – the good news of God’s grace. To see the gap in our lives as the very context within which we experience daily the grace of God. Whether it’s a small thing like mistakes in our notes or big things like failure in our personal life, in our relationships, we learn to reach out and come and appropriate God’s grace and say “Because of God’s grace, whatever has happened to me, at this moment, I can reach out my hand of faith and take hold of God’s hand of grace and I can exchange my life of failure to his life of love and holiness and I can know myself to be fully accepted.”

– Mike Treneer, International President, The Navigators

Cultural feast

I enjoyed so much every night of the GoForth National Missions Conference (about 18 countries were represented) that I’ve attended more than a week ago. Aside from the rallies (keynote messages on missions), we were treated with cultural presentations by the Pacific Islanders who were so good and contagiously funny, a Korean lady with a lovely fan dance, and of course, the Philippine team with their Pandanggo sa Ilaw and Tinikling folk dances was such a thrill. They rocked the house with the audience screaming and jumping as they joined and tried the tricky Tinikling dance. Haha. Reminded me of my two sisters who are so good with dancing. 🙂

Watch this and enjoy! 🙂

I want to be…

In one of the workshops (Short term missions, Long term impact) I attended during the Go Forth conference last week, a short video clip of how one group of believers of Christ reaches out to a poor village in India was shown. They help give the children education, food, health, and medical services. They also help empower men and women. It’s amazing to see the results.

A number of them have come to believe in God. The kids got the chance to put on socks and shoes on their feet for the first time. And they look so cute with their school uniform. Their big smiles are contagious. They are grateful.

“I am very happy. Now I can speak English… Now I have hope for the future,” said one of the young boys. Very thick Indian accent, but so good and impressive enough!

What do you want to be when you grow up? The young children were asked. I smiled with tears in my eyes as they answered:

“I want to be superman!”

“I want to be …president!”

“I want to be an engineer.”

Bishop. Teacher. Prime minister…and many other answers. So cute! So unembarrassed. 

The world is not that lost. There is Good News. There is hope. 🙂

A revolution!

Today is the last day of a four-day interdenominational event for missions mobilisation Go Forth 2008, which I have the privilege to attend. How exciting to be with people from different countries, groups, churches, organisations, and companies come together to learn and wrestle on God’s Glory in the East: Our Asian Missions Challenge. 

(A few of the many images from the exhibit and materials shared by different groups)

It is heartbreaking to see the bigger picture of what’s happening in Asia and the rest of the world. Poverty. Injustice. Tragedies. Corruption. Helplessness. Etc. But the story doesn’t end there. God loves the world. He cannot afford not to care about individuals and nations. He is doing mighty things. Today, the task and privilege of sharing the good news of Jesus is no longer owned and embraced only by traditional missionaries, but also even by businessmen, media practitioners, teachers, community and government leaders – everyone who believes in Christ. It’s a revolution.

Every night I come home late and wake up late the following day. But my soul is very refreshed and looking forward for more. 🙂

Calm

I love sitting on the carpeted floor of Suntec City Convention Center during conference breaks. Cold. Clean. Comfortable. Coffee. 🙂

In my dreams

I was in a rescue team in the Philippines when another typhoon hit my country. It was so windy. I was soaked in the rain. I was so cold. But oh, no. It was only in my dreams. Haha. But the rain was for real. I woke up today around 7 in the morning. It was still dark outside. It was raining hard. There were thunderstorms. My window was open. I got some drizzles on my face. No wonder I dreamed about being wet and cold. Haha.

It wasn’t the first time, by the way. I have this wild, funny dreams. I have the luxury of having an air condition unit on in my room on most nights. So I get to have very comfortable sleep. But sometimes it gets too cold, I guess. It transports me to places at no cost at all. Haha. It makes me dream I’m somewhere in the US or Europe, visiting my friends. Haha.

I would always wake up with a big smile and happy heart whenever I have that kind of dream.

My housemate and friend Angel would sometimes ask when we meet at the dining table for breakfast, “So what country did you visit last night?” 🙂

Haha! 🙂

No motorcycle parking

Oh, really? Haha. Taken in Kuala Lumpur.  🙂