Whirlwind of blessings!

Writing Again

"To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make." -Truman Capote

(My creative juices want to burst!!! Lots of ideas going on---pictures, videos, script, directing, blogging, editing!!!! haaaay Lord give me TIME to do it -Shelby)

 

That's my status today in Facebook, then i suddenly miss my multiply site and read a blog from Mikee Nazal reminding me how blogging is much better than just a status in FB.

Our missionary training schedule is insane but three more weeks of training with Campus Crusade for Christ and we will be back to our usual "environment", hoepefully I will be back blogging.

Pray for us that God will give us strength to finish our requirements!

 

I’m leaving the best job in the whole world

 

    Today is my last day in our office that I served for almost ten years of my life. This is the best job not because of the salary (how I wish) but because of a lot of things that I gained that money cannot buy. It sounds cliché but if you will have the time to talk to me you will know how much I enjoyed and have been blessed working here in International Graduate School of Leadership (IGSL). So to give you a glimpse why I am raving about my job here let me share to you my testimony that I gave to our students 4 years ago about my job in IGSL.

            When I applied for a job in IGSL (ISOT-Asia then), I was clueless. First of all, I didn’t have any idea what IGSL was. Though I was very involved with Campus Crusade for Christ during college, I never knew that CCC has a seminary.  What I knew was that I just wanted to serve God by working in a Christian organization. I could say that God really brought me here because of the circumstances that I went through before applying here---that is another story to tell. I became the assistant of the Scholarship Coordinator, but I didn’t know that she is also the Student Services Coordinator, and all the positions in IGSL have that word “coordinator” in them. I told myself that this would be exciting. At first I was having a hard time memorizing names, recognizing faces and understanding the people because for me some Indonesians look like Filipinos, some Indians look like Nepalese, and some Nepalese look like Burmese. There was this situation that reminded me on how I was struggling on our students’ names. It was Monday and Ate Theresa had PIM on the first period. When I arrived at our office, she left an envelope with a note that said “ to Remember’s mailbox”. So I thought “What should I put in the mailbox? “What should I remember?” Did I forget an errand that she told me to do? What mailbox and whose mailbox? From 8:30 am to 12:30 my mind was boggling with these thoughts. I didn’t have the courage to ask Ate Theresa because she would discover that I forgot to do the errand. After her ISG I had the courage to ask her what I should remember with the mailbox. Then Ate Theresa started to laugh and told me that one of our student’s name is Remember---Remember Rimai. How could one forget his name?   After a couple of months I realized that exciting was the least word to describe my work in IGSL. I soon began to memorize our students’ names, understanding different cultures and recognizing faces. I could even understand that a shake of the head would mean yes to some of our students. I started enjoying my work.

God has blessed me in so many ways here in IGSL especially at the Student Services Department. Of course aside from gaining true friends, I have a very patient supervisor. Most of our students call her Mother Theresa, but for us in the office she has given us more than motherly care but showed us on how we should give priority to our relationship with God.  I also saw how rich, as in literally rich our God is in providing millions for our students’ expenses. The money doesn’t come like a fountain, but it comes when we least expect it. As they say God is a God of surprises. In our society recognition is very important like you should always address people by their profession, like attorney, doctor, president and so on. Here in IGSL, recognition is not important, except of course when citing an author to our papers. Like with our professors and supervisors whom we just call them Kuyas and Ates. Aside from them, there are also people who don’t need to be named for their generosity. I learned that our “Brothers and Sisters in Christ” are not just helping IGSL but first of all they love and obey God. Because of that I was challenged to be faithful in my tithes to God because there are people who are giving millions from what they have worked hard for. Why can’t I do that in just 10% of my earnings?

If you stay in our office, you will see stories unfold. It was like watching a movie marathon. In fact, I have the best seat a cineaste could have. I remember our action filled days at St. Luke’s Medical Center when we still don’t have a nurse to help our students. Actually our office could pass as doctors because of the knowledge of different kinds and unique sicknesses we have encountered.  I also saw how God answered our prayers with our never-ending saga with our students’ visas; the dramatic transformation of a student’s goals and heart toward God; the amazing way how students start to learn English from scratch. Imagine Citadel and I helping them answer a bio-data form using sign language until they become students getting A’s in Greek; the suspenseful way of God’s provision to people; how God makes us laugh getting to know different kinds of experiences that people encounter here at IGSL. If Ate Theresa wrote a book about IGSL’s story it will really surpass Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

 

Most of the staff members here at IGSL don’t work for the salary especially not for the prestige. If you get to know them better, you will know that they have reasons why they are here.   For me, it is some kind of strategy that I have adopted from Ate Theresa. You see, I cannot reach the whole 10/40 window in my lifetime, but through IGSL, the world becomes small. By serving the students, I am reaching out to different places and countries. It is like going to Cagayan de Oro, Davao, India, Africa, the highest peak of Mt. Everest, Cambodia, Tibet and other countries or places without paying for an airfare. A good slogan for my work can be “Reaching Asia and the world for God in the comfort of my office”.

         The ministry is not only the reason why the staff are here, IGSL is also the place where we the staff have found a family. The staff is one big close-knit family. We don’t treat each other as co-workers but as brothers and sisters. We help each other through thick and thin. For good times and bad times we are there for each other. When one of the members of my family got killed 2 years ago, I might never have carried the heaviness of the tragedy if not from our family here at IGSL. The IGSL family really ministered to me especially to my own family. I have been working here for almost 8 years now; I can say that it is a privilege that God allowed me to experience and see the moving of His hands in the lives of the students, faculty and staff.  Aside from gaining spiritual growth, I really praise Him that He allowed me to gain here at IGSL a wonderful husband.

Though most of us are here to serve God, some of the staff are here to grow spiritually. There were staff members who just came to know the Lord or have begun their spiritual growth here in IGSL. We may never have the opportunity to get to know Grudem, Turabian, BDB or Erickson but all of you here in IGSL are the staff’s Systematic Theology, our Greek or our Hebrew. Through our students lives God is talking to us. What I have learned here in IGSL is the application on what you also have learned here in the seminary which doesn’t start after graduation; I think application in the ministry starts here in IGSL.

 

Until now that is what my heart would still like to do. So why leave the best job in the world then? Actually my husband and I are not really leaving IGSL for good but we are leaving to serve IGSL better.

 
            Early last year Carlo and I felt that God is telling us that He is going to do something new for us (I will write another blog about this journey). At first we don’t know what, where and how. But as we pray more about it and just waiting patiently for Him, months, days, and a year had past we saw ourselves going to the direction that He wants us to do that is to be a full time faculty in IGSL. To be a full time faculty, you need to be a full time missionary and to be a full time missionary you need to have an organization. We prayed about it and couldn’t think of any organization that we can fit into but Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC). I was a CCC baby and have lots of dear friends in CCC and IGSL is a CCC seminary so it all fit together.

 

            So I am not saying goodbye to the best job in the world but is looking forward 10 months after our training to go back to this best job that I have. Please pray for us, as we will begin a new journey in our married life, ministry life and especially in our Christian life. We are excited on what God has in store for us, don’t worry I will be blogging our journey so you will hear more from us. If you are a close friend of mine, you are going to hear from me as in hear from me literally – you know what I mean.

 

           

So this is it! Woot! Woot!

Thank You for 2 years

Thank you

 

1. For always drinking just half the glass of your ice tea so I can have the other half whenever I finish mine.
2. For always giving me the crispy skin of your chicken joy
3. For the long conversations
4. For letting me explore the world with you
5. For you being a C loving an I like me
6. For being my best ally whenever I’m in war
7. For not being afraid totell the truth even if I will get hurt
8. For  watching teleseryes with me even it’s killing you of boredom
9. For being my best shopping partner without complain
   
10. For disciplining the dominant in me
11. For accepting me past, present and future
    
12. For being the super best friend ever
    
13. For encouraging me to be the best in the ministry
14. For laughing with me and letting me laugh out loud
    
15. For challenging me to do things that  I don’t want to do
16. For always believing in me
17. For  complementing our big differences
18. For letting me love God more than I love you
19. For always making me feel beautiful and sexy
20. For loving me more and more.

Happy Anniversary Carlo I am forever grateful to God for bringing you into my life. I am looking forward for 100 more years with you.

Proud to be like Tita Cory: Proud to be a Filipino

As I watch Cory Aquino’s funeral procession last Wednesday (Aug. 5) I felt sad that the symbol of democracy is dead. She was one of the reasons why we have democracy right now, a kind of democracy that inspired nations around the world. Her death awakened the sense of patriotism in us Filipinos. There were a lot of videos shown to pay tribute to her. In one interview, Cory said something that is already true to me even before she said it. She said “I thank the Lord for making me a Filipino”.  These are the words that I tell others when they are downhearted being in the Philippines or just by being a Filipino.

More than the people power revolution, what made me thankful to be a Filipino was when I started to learn and understand the sovereignty of God. I realized that God didn’t made a mistake when He chose me to be born in the Philippines. We even have a joke in our office that we call the children of our international students VIPs (Vorn In the Philippines) if they were born here. You can never question God when He said in Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart”. These words made me proud of who I am, on what country I am born in. I became proud of my brown skin and my flat nose. God knew the details of my life including my citizenship, its part of the plan. Working in an international environment made me appreciate the intricacies of different nations. Seeing and knowing other people from all over the world made me appreciate the uniqueness and distinctiveness of being a Filipino and living in the Philippines. Compared to other countries, there are many things that we should be thankful for. God specially made me to be a Filipino because He wants me to live as a Filipino in the Philippines. God has created each one of us specifically for a purpose to carry out on the place where He placed us.

I also had hope for my country because He knows what the Philippines is going through right now despite the economic crisis and everyday struggle. I am not against Filipinos who migrated or working abroad but the sovereignty of God made me stay and believe that in His time the Philippines will rise and overcome hardships. But if ever it will not happen in my lifetime I still trust in Him.

People fear that our nationalism may die as we bury the symbol of our democracy. Being proud to be a Filipino should not end with Tita Cory, we should always be grateful and recognize the One who thought of it all. As the Bible says in Acts 17:26-27 “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” We were born in the Philippines for a purpose. God destined us to be a Filipino for us to reach out for him and find him. Unless you do this we can never experience the satisfaction and the whole essence of being a Filipino. I am proud to be a Filipino because God made me a Filipino.

 

10 things i want to say...

For over a month now our youth were busy writing, posting and commenting on each other's blog about the 10 things they want to say to people. The rule? 

Write 10 things that you want to say to 10 people. Anything you want to tell them. But you are not allowed to state their names. I had a lot of fun guessing the people from their list. A lot of times I would have a perfect score guessing who they are. Some of them even confessed to me who those people were on their list. They keep on prodding us to make our own list. So part of Carlo's intoroduction from his message last Sunday during the youth service which is entitled God's blog was the 10 things he want to say to people, actually to our youth. Enjoy! Walang personalan trabaho lang.

1. I told you not to go to, you go to, now look at! (in tagalog "Sabi ko nang huwag ka pumunta, pumunta ka pa rin, tingnan mo!")

2. Meron na ako kanang kamay, di ko na kailangan ng isa pa.

3. I wrote a song for you, three.

4. I told you so…

5. Kamusta?

6. Kung puwede ko lang kayong i-mute, i-mu-mute ko kayo

7. Hindi lahat ng maputi maganda

8. You can’t always keep that secret, people will always have to confess

9. You value my insights but you don’t follow them

10. Sana makapag asawa ka

A tribute to Papa

Last February 27, was my father's birthday. He was born in 1952 and died April 7,1995 I was 15 years old when he died. We usually go to the cemetery not to pray for him but a time for me and my brother to talk and catch up on our lives. It’s been 13 years and as time goes by I realized that little by little we are losing our memories of him. So today I decided to go back to memory lane, on the things that I remember about my dad. I don’t know if I can still trust my memory, partly because of age, but also because of selective amnesia to numb the sadness of loosing him.

My dad’s name is Sulpicio B. Dela Paz Jr. But a lot of people family, and friends knew him as Tony. He was a mining engineer in Palawan where he met my mom.He was from Basilan and my mom was from Isabela.  That’s where my brother Siegfrid and I came from.

 

He was fond of orchids, butterflies, birds and can spend the whole day with them. He liked to wake up early and in fact be an hour early for work. He seldom took sick leaves because he was always healthy or doesn’t really want to be absent from work. On his 15 years of service in their company, people said that he hasn’t received any complain about his work ethics. He also lead the First aid and Safety department in their mining company because he was always calm and sound when there’s an emergency. Now that I know about personality types I guess he is a C (Conscientious-Cautious, Compliant, Correct, Calculating, Concerned, Careful, Contemplative) and an I (Influential -Inducement, Inspiring, Impressive, Interacting, Interesting) at the same time. Pretty odd huh these personalities seldom go together. ‘C’ because he likes to read manuals of appliances, solves puzzles and brain teasers. In my parent’s bedroom was two beds. One single and one queen size bed. The single bed was for him to use when he wants to rest after work but because he came from the mining site, he will be dirty, tired and can’t take a shower right away. After resting, then he would take a shower and then transfer to the bigger bed with my mom. He’s into following instructions. Instead of giving me toys or let me watch TV, our games for leisure was that he will give a instructions written on paper and test me how well I follow them. I guess he saw how clumsy and compulsive I am growing up. When I was in grade school he encouraged me to read books and newspaper because he said it will broaden my knowledge about the world and other people. At grade 3 I was already reading novels like ‘Around the World in 80 Days’, ‘Catcher and the Rye’, ‘Star Wars’, Michael Crichton and Robert Ludlum’s books. I can’t understand a lot of them but it trained me to read and look for words that I don’t understand in the dictionary.

 
He always made sure that we always believed in our selves and be the best that we can be. From grade school to high school I struggled with numbers---math, physics, geometry it’s all Greek to me. But I never felt that it’s a weakness, because whenever I will get a grade of 75 (75-100 is the passing grade) he will take me and my brother out for dinner to celebrate because he said I really did a great job. Whenever I get frustrated solving math problems and complain why am I not smart enough like my classmates. He will always tell me that it's ok not to be the best but will tell me just to give my best in everything. He also taught us not to be afraid to fail. That’s why maybe I am like this always full of confidence to reach for my dreams even if I 'll fail. hehehe.

He was also a people person. He loves to invite his subordinates at our house during their birthdays and tell a lot of funny stories that made people laugh so hard. But the C in him will always be there because when the clock stikes at 8pm (his sleeping time), he doesn't care who's with him even if he's the president of the company he will go home and sleep.

 

One thing that I didn’t like him doing is whenever we will be in a restaurant in Manila, he would always refer to the waiters as ‘Dong’ or ‘Day’ short for Dodong and Inday because he is from Mindanao. I felt embarrassed to let people know that my dad is from Mindanao. On our way to Manila from Palawan, I will always remind and beg him to please say Miss, Sir, Ate or Kuya to the people he will talk to in Manila.

 

My brother and I look forward to Sundays. He would wake up very early to go to the pier to get the best fish and seafood, making sure that we will eat the best catch for lunch. He also believed that Sundays should be a no work day for everybody in the house. He doesn’t like my mom and our helper to clean or do the laundry during Sundays. Though he is not that religious he just wants us to wake up late, watch TV, feel lazy and eat. For him Sundays should be a rest day. My brother and I liked the idea because it means that our mom can’t require us to clean our room.

I also admire how he loved my mom’s relatives. When my mom’s sister and her husband went to Saudi he agreed to take care of my cousins. Because of that my cousin looked to him as their second father. He also loved my grandmother so much that he encouraged my grandma’s perks on shopping and traveling.

Though my mom’s personality is a D (dominant) I was able to see how he can get my mother submit to his authority. In fact we never saw them fight in front of us.

There are a lot of things that I want to write about him but as time goes by, little by little my memories are fading. I just wish I have enough memory to store everything and still remember it until I have my own children. So I can tell them how blessed I am to have a loving father. Now I know why it was easy for me relating to God as a Father during my early years as a Christian because of my papa. He gave his best to be a good father to us. I am also recognizing God's sovereignty on my dad's death. Two years before he died, God gave me the opportunity to spend time with him alone in Palawan because my mom and brother were in Manila. Through his death instead of going to the school that I was planning to go to for college I went to UP Baguio and there I met Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

My heart, also, really goes out to my mom who became a single parent after his death (there will be another blog dedicated for her ). She had a large space to fill in when we lost him. But God has been faithful to us. For thirteen years God made sure that we were taken care of.

I just wish that my dad is still here to witness how I and my brother have become. I wish that he was there on my wedding to see how blessed I am to found a man whom I will be spending the rest of my life with.I wish that he had a chance to meet Carlo, there are a lot of things that they have in common.

 

I became a Christian one year after his death. I don’t know if he has met Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior in his lifetime. That’s why whenever people would talk about rewards in heaven to me it doesn’t excite me that much. For me, aside from the treasures in heaven and being with my heavenly Father forever, one of the best rewards that I am looking forward to is to see my dad reunited with us.