A Year of Freedom, Favor, and Fullness

The year 2010 is truly a year like no other! It is a year to be thankful to God for because it brought so much blessing in so many forms. Pastor Joey Bonifacio of VCF said it well yesterday morning in church. The "Year of the Lord" is the year of freedom, favor, and fullness and that is what 2010 was like for me!

Here are some of the things I am grateful to the Lord for 2010:

1. Family. I treasure the times I could come home to the Philippines for extended periods so I can spend some quality time with my parents, siblings, nephews, and nieces. The early months, as well as the last two months of 2010 I spent with my parents, sister and her family in Cebu and with my younger brother and his family in Pasig, Manila. It was really, really good bonding time with them as well as an opportunity for me to just be a daughter, sister, and auntie. I have never felt so close to my sister as this time and I find that I am enjoying her company more and more. And I have had some talks with my Mom that made me realize how insensitive I have been to her heart. In the end, one never regrets spending too much time with family. After all the years of wandering... it's always nice to come home.

2. My Nepal and India adventure. Being in Nepal and India was a real blessing for me. I gained so many friends and enjoyed another kind of cross-cultural experience. It was a delight and a time of much needed refreshment for me just to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn to live in community with people from different cultures and of different personalities for five months! In India, I saw through the eyes of Jesus the poor, the sick, and the oppressed and my heart went out to them as I realized that sometimes, all they need is to have someone spend time with them, to listen and to care. I was still, in some ways, "burnt out" when I went on this trip but to find myself surrounded by the wild beauty of magnificent snow peaks, raging rivers, and pine forests stilled my heart and gave me assurance that everything will be alright in Christ!

3. My COOK family. What a blessing to have an extended family who loves me enough to watch my back whether I'm at home in the Philippines or out there somewhere in Asia! Cook loves me just as I am! They know me and I know them and together we are still growing in that knowledge. They pray for me and cheer me on! I am so privileged to have pastors (Thank you, Pastor Jerome and Pastor Doug!) who look out for me and support me and cover me... as a shepherd does for his sheep. They are not afraid to use strong words when needed to show concern over me and to make sure I am on the right path. What an amazing thing the church is! No human could have conceived a temple made up of "living stones" but it was in God's heart all along to show us that we belong to each other and together we make up the whole body with Jesus us our Head!

4. A new season. I am grateful for the fact that God set the sun, moon and the stars in their place to mark the days, months, and years. He made the earth to rotate on its axis (tilting at the perfect angle!) and revolve around the sun to mark the seasons of spring, summer, winter, and fall. To everything there is a beginning and an end and everything that has a beginning has a cause and a purpose. In the same way, we all go through our own "seasons" in life for a purpose-- not just to strengthen us but to move us forward to our destiny. 2010 was for me like the transition period between two seasons. One season came to an end and another is just beginning. Sometimes, it can be difficult to be in transition. I look back and try to hold on to the familiar and I am afraid to move forward into the unknown, unchartered territories. But as in every good story, I am compelled to turn the page and go from one chapter to the next so I can get to the end of the story-- the happy ever after ending!

5. BFFs (Best Friends Forever or low maintenance friends). Everyone needs a BFF, even just one! I am grateful to the Lord for giving me a few from different cultures, not just my own. Every woman needs a support group-- someone to bare your soul to, to laugh with, to cry with, and to ask for godly advice. I will not name them here but you know who you are and I want to thank you for always being "on call" for me and for creating that much needed safe place for me to be myself. You cannot always be physically present but you are always just a phone call or email away!

6. Mentors. In the midst of this fatherless generation, I am grateful to God for providing me with "fathers" (as well as "mothers") who have taken the time to mentor me with their invaluable wisdom that has been gained through years of experience and walking with the Lord. I thank God for my leaders whom I highly respect not only because of their authority over me but because their authority comes from servant leadership. They are the "shepherds after God's own heart" mentioned in Jeremiah 3:15 who guide the people under their care with knowledge and understanding. I also thank God for my now gray-haired parents and the elderly people in my church in whose company I have become wiser. And of course, there are those whom I do not know personally but at whose feet I have sat and "listened" this year: Book authors like John Eldredge, Job, King Solomon, and the Apostle Paul!

7. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Last but certainly not the least because He is way over the top, I thank God for the gift of Himself! He is the giver of every good and perfect gift and the Father of Lights! Isaiah9:6 says it well. This year, He has been my "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace!"

Seven is a perfect number so I'll end at seven although there are still so many things to be thankful for. Now that 2010 has come to an end, I can for a moment look back and say, "Wow!" but I can also embrace the new year 2011 and expect greater things to come. It is all because my God is alive and well and in Him every year can be "The year of the Lord"-- a year of freedom, favor, and fullness!

Come, Follow Me!

I first heard God speak to me when I was eleven years old. I think at that time my heart was quiet enough to hear His voice loud and clear. That day, I sat in adult church because I was terribly bored of Sunday School. I was spaced out, only half listening to the message... and then I heard Him speak directly to my heart, "I know you but you don't know Me. Would you like to come and follow me?" The voice jolted me awake not just because it was my first time to "hear" it but because it was a voice that created such a deep yearning-- almost like an unbearable ache in my heart.

I remember going home that day, locking myself up in my room, kneeling by my bedside and asking Jesus to come into my heart. I surrendered my life to Him and invited Him to take control. I came out of my room feeling... different...like a heavy burden just rolled off my shoulders and in its place, I grew wings!

For the next five years, life with the Shepherd was a song. I served God in the church every chance I got. I was full of the bursting energies of youth. I trusted God with my life. And I trusted His people... sometimes to a fault.

Adolescence brought with it conflicting desires and longings and voices that seemed to compete with that one Voice for my attention and for my very heart. "If you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts..." Jesus often said... but I did. My heart became hard and I followed the voices of lesser lovers until I was sucked in by sin and a religious spirit that led me astray... farther and farther away from the Shepherd of my heart.

I have often wondered about this mysterious thing called "free will." Why would a loving Shepherd allow me to wander from the safety of His side? Why doesn't He put the rebellious ones on a leash until they learn their lessons? Why doesn't He use His rod to beat them up every once in a while to break their spirits? Didn't I surrender my life to His control? So why doesn't He "control" me now that my life is careening out of control?

I read this recently in a novel entitled, "The Crown of Eden" by Thomas Williams: "Certainly we are free. But nothing we do can destroy the order and beauty of the master tapestry. Each of us is given a thread and a pattern for its weaving. We are utterly free to weave our thread either by the pattern or in defiance of it. But regardless of how we weave it, we will always find that our thread has been anticipated. You may even choose to leave your thread unwoven, but if you do , there will be no gap in the fabric. You will find that another has been laid down to take its place and the resulting design will be the one originally planned. It is inevitable."

What a relief that despite our bad choices, we cannot mess up God's grand tapestry! Of course we reap the consequences of bad choices but we can rest in the fact that He is able to work all things together for good (yes, even the bad and sad things!) to them who love God. He sets us free to choose Him... again and again for as many times as we need to convince us of His goodness. He is faithful to those who belong to Him... to those who have set their hearts to follow him. Yes, often it does feel like groping in the dark, straining to hear the faintest whisper of his voice. But we make it... not because we have come through... but because He has come through for us!

My life did become a tangled mess and I was stuck in a thorn bush for a long, long time. But in my desperation, I found that God gave me a voice for a reason... so I can cry out to Him for help. Maybe it was just like a tiny lamb's pitiful "baaa!" But the Shepherd has such fierce devotion to His own. He is everything but gentle in Isaiah's description of Him in Isaiah 59:17 to 18: " He put on righteousness as his body armor and placed the helmet of salvation on his head. He clothed himself with a robe of vengeance and wrapped himself in a cloak of divine passion. He will repay his enemies for their evil deeds. His fury will fall on his foes. He will pay them back even to the ends of the earth."

I was in northwest China (the ends of the earth) when I came to my senses and called out the Shepherd's name. He came and rescued me and He let his fury fall on my enemies-- the tempter himself who led me to be tempted in wilderness after wilderness. He showed no mercy on my enemies and trampled them beneath his feet... but me, he gently and lovingly scooped into his arms. He took out his anointing oil and bound up my many wounds. And he sang over me! Then He carried me close to his heart until I was well enough to walk again on my own... this time back on the right path!

That experience had helped me to distinguish His voice from all the rest. His voice, I discovered, doesn't condemn, doesn't shame, confuse, humiliate or threaten. "My sheep will hear My voice," He says. There are times when his words are not easy to accept but I know from experience that he is good and he will not lead me into a path where I will be devoured by wolves. He did not promise a wolf-free path but his rod is never too far to defend me and protect me. And I can rely on his staff to keep me walking in the right direction.

"Come, follow Me!" is His standing invitation to anyone willing to listen to his voice. And as John Piper said, "It is not an invitation to an easy life." To be sure, he will take us on many great and exciting adventures but he also sometimes takes us through many difficult places where we don't want to go. But one thing is certain. We are never alone on that path because he has promised to always be with us. And we can trust that the path he takes us on is the ancient, proven one that leads to the Father. And HE is our final destination!

Encounters With Beauty

In the book, “Captivating,” John and Stasi Eldredge write: “Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what it is like to behold a gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the beauty is so deep it pierces us with longing. For what? For life as it was meant to be. Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow know our hearts are created for. Beauty speaks of heaven to come, when all shall be beautiful. It haunts us with eternity. Beauty says, “There is a glory calling to you.” And if there is a glory, there is a source of glory. What great goodness could have possibly created this? What generosity gave us this to behold? Beauty draws us to GOD."

Today, I am reminded of my own encounters with beauty when upon beholding something beautiful, my physical body responds not only with exclamations of delight but with trembling, and tears, and getting weak in the knees!

I remember that time some nuns took me and a friend to a part of the Yellow River which was hidden from the rest of humanity because it was out in the middle of nowhere. We hiked for many hours up hills and across muddy river beds, and finally up a mountain. The sight that met my eyes at the top was so beautiful, I fell on my knees and wept. This was not an isolated case when I responded in tears to the sight of something beautiful. It happened again recently when I was traveling overland by bus from Dharamsala to Manali, northern India. It was an overnight bus and I woke up at daybreak, just when the sun rose over the Himalayan mountains. The sunlight revealed the mountains radiant and glowing in the distance. Something was stirred in my heart… a deep longing so that I couldn’t help the tears from falling.

I also remember the first time I passed through an awesome canyon in northwest China… I remember looking up at the sheer rock face of the towering mountains and felt such solemnity in the experience, probably similar to Moses’ experience of seeing the goodness of God pass by while he was hidden safely in a cleft of a rock.

One time, while traveling through a Tibetan area in winter time with friends, we came to a mountain pass with an awesome view of snow mountains and snow everywhere in the valley so that it was like a white out! My friend stopped the car and we all got out and I ran to the side of the road, knelt on the snow with my arms upraised and shouted at the top of my lungs, “I worship You, God!” My friends burst out laughing but later joined me in an extraordinary worship experience that we will never forget!

Back in Manali, a group of us were trekking up a mountain towards a waterfall. We couldn’t see the waterfall for a long time but we could hear the sound of rushing waters in the distance. We stopped by a place where we could catch our breath. One of our Nepalese companions was looking around and suddenly her eyes grew big and she was struck dumb. Without words, she pointed to the direction she was looking at and we all turned that way and an incredible view of water falling in torrents from a high mountain met our eyes so we together echoed two words: “WOW, God!” It was a breathtaking sight and for a long time, we stared in silence at the waterfall, each with our own thoughts… How to try to take in all that beauty in such a short time!

I have so many other stories like when I rode at the rooftop of a bus in Nepal with some friends and the Himalayan mountain range was our scenery for miles and miles and we went to this remote village on top of a mountain and in the morning you can look down at a valley covered with clouds so you have a feeling of being on top of the world!

But to what conclusion have I arrived after having experienced all these? Beauty draws us to God for all beautiful things point to him. If he created beauty, then that is his very essence and he generously created this beautiful earth for us because we need beauty to comfort, nourish, and inspire us. In this beautiful world made chaotic by sin, we can find rest not only in the beauty of nature but in the beauty of love and friendship, the trusting eyes of a child, art and poetry and the beautiful notes of a song… Let’s remember to take in daily and large doses of beauty from our beautiful, radiant, and majestic God!

Terminal Adventures

Since I have been "wandering" for the past decade, I have accumulated quite a number of interesting airplane and airport stories.

I remember that time I was first in line at the check in counter in a China city and they gave me my boarding pass which told me I was to board at a certain gate. After waiting at the gate for quite some time, I began to get uneasy when it was past boarding time and it seemed like a lot of people have come and gone and they still haven't put up the name of my destination city and flight number. I began to compare my boarding pass with those around me and there wasn't a single person going to the same city as I was. My heart began to pound. Just when I decided to get help, I saw one of the airport personnel running towards the gate. By the look on her face, I know she was looking for me. Amazingly, when she laid eyes on me, she immediately knew I was the "dumb foreigner" she was looking for. I didn't speak much Chinese at that time but she kept saying, "Fei ji zou le!" which means "the airplane has left!" I totally understood that! In my mind, I was screaming, "They couldn't have left me! I was first in line and I went to the right gate!" Anyway, she was running towards another gate and I was chasing her through the airport and finally down towards the tarmac. She was screaming into a walkie talkie and I didn't know what was going on. Finally, an airport van came to pick us up and it raced like mad towards the runway. Just when I thought we were going to actually go chase an airplane, the van screeched to a stop beside a small plane right in the middle of the runway. A stewardess was waiting at the foot of the stairs to welcome me, the last passenger to board! I ran up the stairs and was met by the not very friendly stares of around 50 people on board that small plane. I sheepishly walked down the aisle and found the only empty seat on the plane. Then the plane finally took off. Later, I found out that they changed the gate number and made an announcement in Chinese at the airport but of course I couldn't understand! Anyway, at least I now know how it feels to be a VIP!

Another time was when I first went to Lhasa, Tibet by plane. Lhasa has the highest airport in the world (15,000+ feet) and I took a plane from Beijing with a short stopover at another Chinese city and on to Lhasa. All together, the plane ride took 5 hours. It was fine and dandy on the plane as I was looking down upon a magnificent view of the Himalayas. I was on cloud 9! But my happiness was short lived as going through a rapid change of altitude is actually a bad idea and I learned it the hard way! When I got off in Lhasa, I had a MAJOR headache. I was traveling with a group of Americans at that time and they gave me some medicine to take and lots of water to drink. None of it helped and that night as I lay in bed alone in my hotel room, the pain in my head became almost unbearable. Though it was cold inside the room, I was sweating profusely. I remember praying, "O Lord, please don't let me die here!" Finally, around 1 a.m., I felt so bad that I decided to go get help. I got out of bed but before I could make it to the door, I buckled to my knees and threw up all over the carpet! Tears were streaming down my eyes and I just sat there for a few minutes horrified at the big mess I made. However, suddenly, I just knew that the worst was over and I felt so much better. I crawled back in bed and slept like a baby for the rest of the night. In the morning, I went to find housekeeping and explained my situation to one of the Tibetan girls. She was so gracious to me and told me not to worry about the mess I made. The lesson I learned from that experience is that it's better to take a bus or train to the top of the world. It is slow and takes days but the change of altitude is gradual and you are less likely to get killed!

This next one is the one that will probably make you the most breathless! I was at the old airport in Guangzhou, China and I was with Dobz and we had a bit too much stuff with us and we made friends with the Chinese guy who was queing in front of us at the check in counter. We decided to befriend him as he had nothing to check in and we wanted to ask him the favor of taking one of our bags (don't worry, guys, this is the only time we did this!). He gladly agreed and after checking in, we went together to the waiting gate and when we got to the place where our carry on bags were to be inspected, the guy at the scan machine told me to open my bag. He searched it and found the red swiss knife that a friend gave me. It was there the whole time when I was taking this particular backpack everywhere and I have forgotten all about it. Here I was in Guangzhou and they found it and they told me I had to leave it behind. They were quite strict and wouldn't budge even when our new friend, the Chinese guy vouched for my not being a terrorist. Then, the scan guy suggested that if the swiss knife was really valuable to me, I can run back to the check in counter and ask the lady there to take me to find my bag! I know it's crazy and I probably will never do it again given the same situation but Dobz and our new Chinese guy friend believed that I could pull it off. Though there still was a bit of time, the check in counter was not somewhere near so I made a mad dash from the second floor to the first floor and went right to the lady at the check in counter, showed her my swiss knife and told her, "Please, can you show me where to find my bag?" She looked at me like I was crazy but asked someone to accompany me to the place where they had all the bags already packed in carts to take to the plane. With all those bags, how in the world am I gonna find a medium size, black roller bag? I just had to pause and say a prayer for the Lord to guide me. I say now that it was a miracle because it didn't take me 5 minutes to find my bag. The guy with me thought it was amazing! I pushed the swiss knife safely into an outside pocket and ran back to the second floor. When I saw the guy at the scan machine, I gave him a big smile and a thumbs up sign. He laughed and I proceeded to find Dobz and our Chinese friend so we could together proceed to the waiting gate.

One more memorable airport experience was in the new Guangzhou airport. I went to the ticket booth to buy an air ticket to Xn but the lady at the booth said all the tickets were sold out and the next available plane was on the next day yet. It would mean that I would have to wait more than 24 hours for the next plane and I really didn't want to do that as I was just by myself. I kept asking the lady if there was some other way and she told me that she really couldn't help me this time. She also told me that I should buy the ticket for the next day because there are only a few more seats left and they are selling like hot cakes. I stood there and reason told me that she was right. However, I also felt that I should pray and wait it out for a few more minutes. Just about a couple of minutes passed and suddenly the lady uttered an exclamation of utter surprise in Chinese. She pointed to the computer in front of her and said, "I can't believe it! Two seats have suddenly become available for today's flight! You're in!" Well, will you look at that! I haven't even started praying yet but the Lord already answered the desire of my heart! When I got onto that plane, I sat beside an empty seat. There was still one extra as if the Lord was telling me that He is more than enough for me!

After a decade of traveling, I am used to sleeping in airports now. I have stayed overnight several times at the HK airport. In Guangzhou, I spent a sleepless winter's night shivering at the new airport which at that time had no heating at all! Tonight, I am leaving yet again for Nepal and I have a stopover in Bangkok and so I will have to spend the night there!

Not All Who Wander are Lost

"Not all who wander are lost." I read this quote from J.R.R Tolkien from last month's Reader's Digest magazine and it made me think, "How true!" Of course, there was a time when I was indeed a poor wandering soul but those days are over and now I can truly sing, "I once was lost but now am found..." with the great hymn writer, John Newton! Now my wanderings are of a different nature and for a different purpose.

I am wandering over hill and over dale, more often hitting the dusty trails rather than cruising down the highway because I want to follow Jesus, my Savior wherever He leads me. And as it says in Psalm 23, sometimes he may lead beside still waters and sometimes he may lead through the valley of the shadow of death. But wherever He leads, He has promised to always be with me. Together, we will fight and win battles! We will do great exploits! We will find treasures hidden in the darkness! He will make my feet like the feet of a deer and together we will tread on the heights!

Discovering beautiful hidden places and meeting beautiful people from different cultures is just a bonus for me in this wandering life. The most exciting thing is getting to know my Traveling Companion more and more as we walk and talk together and as we share our lives together. As long as He is with me, I can never be and will never be lost!