Rest in peace, Pope John Paul II. I'm pretty sure He has a big banquet for you up there.

I just got home from the 12th Youth for Christ International Leader’s Conference and even if I barely had any sleep, the heat was annoying, the place was dusty and I have no more voice…it’s still okay! Why? Because GOD IS ENOUGH! SOLO DIOS BASTA!

I’m really, really glad I got to go this year. Not only were there a lot of surprises for me there, I got to bond with the people I’m going to be serving God with next year, and I got to experience God’s love in the most amazing way possible. It didn’t matter if we finished at 1:00 am and our wake up call is at 3:30 am the next day, nor if the heat was totally unbearable. Everything was all for Him.

So blessed, I can’t contain it, so much I gotta give it away, Your love has taught me to live now…You are more than enough for me.

One thing the weekend has taught me is that I am so blessed to be where I am now. So blessed that it’s just impossible not to share it with other people. That’s why hearing all about the plans in Gawad Kalinga for the next year is exciting me more than ever. There’s Kalinga Luzon DLSU version next week (April 18-21), the adaption of Gawad Kalinga as a project of DLSU’s Student Council next year (this really sends me the shivers), GK Youth and SO MUCH MORE. I’d have to admit that GK wasn’t really my thing when it started, but now I can’t wait for it to begin! It’s gonna be one heck of a year ahead! I can’t wait to share His love to the people who needs it the most.

And I can’t wait for the day when everyone in the entire world will kneel down to Christ. That’s surely something to look forward to. 

Though I walk through valleys low, I fear no evil. By the waters still my soul, My heart will trust in You.

Of course, I could not stop thinking about our thesis again. The second talk in the conference helped me there – that no matter what happens, He is there for me and He will see us through. This is just a valley of shadows I have to pass through…but rest assured, He is there, and He will never leave me. “Alhough I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for You are beside me.” - Psalm 23:4. I just need to trust Him.

O God is enough for me, nothing else will ever be, and I am satisfied, for I have found my peace.

And it was repeated to me again: GOD IS ENOUGH. Always and forever, He alone will suffice. Though somehow, I am sort of past my personal struggle, I can’t stop thinking about it (especially because of the “surprise” I had during the weekend), and I have to keep on reminding myself that God would still be the only one who can complete me. And I’ll be offering myself up to Him. 

Till the end of my days I’d give my all…

I remember during my early years in YFC, I was talking about being able to go on stage during the ILC. I don’t know where, when and what I will do, but I wanted to be there even just for a while. And what do you know? I actually got to be on stage this year! Saturday night was the launch of the 100% PURE ministry of YFC, and they needed 100 virgins with conviction to stay 100% Pure to dance onstage. And I was actually a part of it! It was so fun dancing on stage – sobrang hyper! Really memorable.

And yes, I am daring to be 100% Pure. Pure in body, mind and spirit. It’s the way to go!

Plug! 100% PURE magazine will be out soon, only P50!

And I would give the world to tell Your story, because I know that You called me…Jesus I believe in You, and I would go to the ends of the earth for You alone are the Son of God, and all the world will see that You are God.

In 10 years, the world will kneel down to Christ. This was prophesied last 2003, and the target year is 2013. Every knee shall bend before Him. This is a big vision and it’s not a joke. And for this to happen, we must all be missionaries. It’s a scary world out there, and I am actually scared about it, but I know He will be there. ALL FOR HIM. I don’t know how I will do that, but I’m listening to Him.

SOLO DIOS BASTA! GOD ALONE IS ENOUGH!

AND NEXT YEAR! The ILC will be in DAVAO! AT LONG LAST! Haha…Rocky, our incoming EVP, was jumping up an down earlier because it’s his hometown. The Davao ILC has been preempted for two years already…and I pray this one pushes through (and that my schedule permits me to go!).

I’m really, really glad I got to go there. I missed this! As in! But now I am back to reality, and I have to study for LINALGE now. But first I’d have to take a bath. Godsday everyone!

And so I'm waiting for someone to text to tell me that he's going to call. It's already 10:00 pm and I can't believe he's not yet home if that's why he's not calling...er, mali, text pala. I just checked my phone to see if I have signal, and yes, I do. But no text yet. I checked his last message to see if it has smileys because if it does not have smileys then it means there's something wrong with it, that I might be to makulit. It does have smileys.

But I'm still waiting. I'm online. Maybe he's calling now? But I told him to text. Maybe he forgot to text (that's not new to him).

So. I wait. And I don't know what to do pa.

Okaaaay. So I wait.

I'll be patient. I just wish he'd call before we pray for tonight...or something like that. Or, after, if ever, kaso it would be too late...diba? We usually pray at 11pm.

Hay. Nako. I don't want to text again kasi I don't want to be too makulit. Gets ba? Pero...gets. Hay. 

 Okay fine, I'll wait some more. *drums fingers on the table*

new layout here!

I’m back! And I just woke up from a 7-hour nap. Haha. I’m dead tonight, don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. :D Now I’m all energized to write all about what happened in the past four days. Or five, counting the night before the trip itself. So here we go. (This is a loooong one. Be ready!)

April 17-18, 2005: the night and morning before
I left our house at around 10:30 pm, after much struggling with fitting all things I have in my bag. We picked up Bea and then headed to Taft where we dropped our things off at Tuesday’s condo. Then Bea and I met up with the Pdo, Marco, Jay, Greg, Rocky and Coach. I ended up playing DOtA for the first time. :p I suck, mehn. It took me about 20 minutes to understand the game and I died like, five times already.

By 2:00 am, we went back to the condo, and then the three of us (Tue, Bea, me) went down to the lobby because Bea and Marco have to talk for the activities in Aurora. Then we went up again, had some girly bonding sessions, took a bath and ended up not sleeping at all. By 5:30 am, we went down to the lobby to wait for the brothers to pick us up. We ended up leaving late, but we got to the Bus Terminal on time to ride the bus. Then it’s on the way to Aurora!

I ended up sleeping half the travel time to Cabanatuan, because I really needed the rest. I was half-paranoid about my period, so a stopover at Double Happiness was much needed. Then we continued with the bus ride, with me still half-asleep until we had to switch buses at Cabanatuan.

On the new bus, I didn’t sleep because it was open air, and the wind was blowing on my face. Bea and I listened to some songs and we kept on singing King of Majesty by Hillsong over and over again, and it was almost like having a worship. The travel time was loooong, and our entertainment there were reading the words painted on the boulders. After another stopover, overheated bus, and more words on the boulders, we finally got to the GK site. Yeahba!

April 18, 2005: The First Day
We were welcomed warmly into the GK site, and we were served scrumptious lunch.  :9 After lunch, Bea and I talked to some kids, and I did some videos, and then we had the first icebreaker activity, a familiar YFC activity – Foot Structure. We ended up breaking one of the main beams of the “session hall” into two while we were doing the last foot structure and so we moved on to the orientation by Sir Ed and the head Architect.

After the short orientation, we set up the tents and then started the long hike to the Municipal Office for the courtesy call to the Mayor. From the Mayor’s office, we got to ride this truck to Barangay Paltic to see the disaster area. Man, the disaster area was heartbreaking, especially when we heard the story. Full grown trees and rocks the size of cars were all over the place – climbing over it reminded me of Wawa Dam at Montalban. Underneath those were the houses of the people, and some believe there are still dead people under all the rubble. We offered a short prayer and I found myself crying while Tuesday led the prayer.

We went back to the GK site afterwards and we prepared for the night. We had the first session with Greg, and while we were having the group discussion, our group saw a shooting star, hence our name, The Chosen Group.  After the session, we went to bed, only to wake up at 1:30 am and all of us were slapping at the mosquitos that were biting us all. Whattanight. 

April 19, 2005: The Build
We started building during the second day. While some people painted houses, I helped with the hollow blocks together with Matet, but after some mishap with it (and running out of hollow blocks and cement), we ended up helping with the digging of the second septic tank (Bea’s group was with the first one, which was already a few feet deep when we started).

I was really proud of our group because we started with nothing at all. And we could really see the team effort of the boys to bring the big rocks – which was later on christened as “Kaloy” because Kaloy was the one who always discovers the big rocks) – out of the hole. Really cool. The motivation of the day was the beach. All of us wanted to go there, and the view from where we were digging didn’t help because it was the beach. Hehe. By the end of the day, the hole was three feet deep, I think.  Coolness.

Before dinner, some of us talked to Lola Virginia, who lived in the place. Then dinner, and that night, we had another session with Kuya Bong, and then slept early again because we were all really tired. The night had less mosquito than the first night because Sir Ed gave us mosquito repellent – as Rocky put it, “you know that green swirly thing?” :p

April 20, 2005: The Beach
I woke up early on the third day because The Chosen Group (our group) was assigned for breakfast. There was some bad news though, our groupmate got some of his things stolen from his tent. It became a big issue, and it was really touching to see the residents of the place being so protective of us, and they were all ready to help us bring back the things that were lost. After serving breakfast, we went back to building (with me doing docu this time), still with the same motivation as yesterday: the beach!  By lunchtime, we stopped building, and got ready to go to the beach.

I didn’t want to swim because I had my period, so when we got to Dingalan Bay, after watching some of the people swim, Bea and I sang some songs in the videoke. Pdo, Coach, Marco and Niki joined us later, but we had to stop because of the “offensiveness” of the videos the machine was showing. And besides, my head was aching already. Hehe.

Bea and I decided to do some rock hunting, and we ended up lying down on the rocks and talking about our lives. I love that girl, really.  I stood up after a while and walked around collecting dry rocks and went back there later, talking with Pdo, Marco, Jay and the others. Then we left, and because of some problems we almost ended up walking all the way back to the site (which was around 6km away ), but God didn’t want us to be too tired that’s why He sent this really big jeep that was enough to accomodate all 40+ of us. God is good!

After the ride, we had the best dinner yet, then had the last two sessions. After which, it was time for Solidarity Night! We laughed our hearts out over the presentations but Kuya Arnold’s poem held us speechless. It was very touching. 

The presentations were over, but the night wasn’t. We headed over to the tent city, where the Outdoor Club members were preparing food and we had some kind of foodfest with them. Yum. More bonding sessions with them until I found myself falling asleep on the rock so I went back to the room where I found Bea and all the freshmen bonding over food. Since most of the other people are sleeping in other places, we had enough room for us to sleep all stretched out.  And no more mosquitos as well! 

April 21, 2005: The Last Day
Everyone woke up late during the last day. After breakfast, we headed off to build again for a while, and then I took some final interviews.

There was a final liturgy and some more sharings, plus some more videos. Come lunch time, and Bea and I took a bath with the freshmen at one of the hoses. Hehe! How fun. We ate lunch, and then met up with the couple coordinator in the area, who was incidentally, Tito Domeng, my old coordinator in YFC High School Based!  Small world! We were prayed over, had some announcements and then got ready to go home.

It was actually a tearful goodbye, especially with the kids. We all want to go back. We said goodbye to everyone and the kids saw us off to the bus. Bea started crying and I started to cry too, and there was this amazingly good feeling inside me that I could not describe. All I know is that God was there. Even if we never had a worship and it wasn’t really a full YFC activity, I knew God made Himself known in the people. How all of us got along, how everyone, even if we’re all so tired already, were still all ready to work to help them. How everyone managed to smile even if we were all under the heat of the sun. How the guys didn’t let the big rocks that they dug up discourage them. How Josh, the guy whose stuff got stolen, didn’t let himself lose his focus from the work. The entire thing had God’s work written all over it, and it was just simply amazing. 

I truly can’t wait to go back there, and do other GK work for the next year. And I just found it amazing that the verse for the day from verseoftheday.com was this:

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
- 1 Corinthians 15:58 (NIV)

I was affirmed even more.  I can’t wait to see how His plan will unfold for all of us.  GK777: KASALI AKO DIYAN! Are you ready to join? 

If you read all the way here, I really appreciate it. You deserve a cookie.

For a change I actually woke up on time for my alarm. Hehe. I lied down there wondering if I should go up and go out of my room, but I realized that the moment I went out of my room, I will end up opening my laptop again and I will be in front of the computer for the entire day. I don’t want to do that, so…what did I do?

I prayed.

It was one hour before my prayer time (my usual prayer time is 9:30 am), but I decided to start praying already so I would start my day right and I would not forget it later on. See, I tend to forget about it when I'm already up and doing something, so I figured it would be better to pray already so I won't forget. So I opened my Bible and read the readings for the day…and the First Reading hit just the spot. 

“⁵ In the same way, let the younger ones among you respect the authority of the elders. All of you must clothe yourself with humility in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud but gives his grace to the humble.

⁶ Bow down, then, before the power of God so that he will raise you up at the appointed time. ⁷ Place all your worries on him since he takes care of you.

⁸ Be sober and alert because your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. ⁹ Stand your ground, firm in your faith, knowing that our brothers and sisters scattered throughout the world, are confronting the same sufferings. ¹⁰ God, the giver of all grace, has called you to share in Christ’s eternal Glory and after you have suffered a little he will bring you to perfection; he will confirm, strengthen and establish you forever. ¹¹ Glory be to him forever and ever. Amen.

¹² I have had these few lines of encouragement written to you by Silvanus, our brother, whom I know be trustworthy. For I wanted to remind you of the kindness of God really present in all this. Hold on to it.

¹³ Greetings from the community in Babylon, gathered by God, and from my son, Mark.

¹⁴ Greet one another with a friendly embrace. Peace to you all who are in Christ.“

- 1 Peter 5:5-14

The lines in boldface struck me, and affirmed me of everything that is happening to me right now. “…after you have suffered a little, he will bring you to perfection.” PERFECT. Especially for the thoughts I’ve been having with thesis and all that. Just what I needed to know. 

“Place all your worries on him since he takes care of you…I wanted to remind you of the kindness of God really present in this. Hold on to it.” I will, and I’m holding on to Your promise. 

This is certainly starting the day right. :D Try it sometimes, a word of prayer can do a world of difference to your day.

I love You! I love You! I love You! You’re the best, Lord!