Baguio Retreat

Lately, I have been feeling the stress and pressure with my work and ministry which led me to the thought of simply quitting because I've never been that tired in all areas of my entire life!

This was the reason why I have decided to take a personal retreat by attending the Nazirite training given by Jesus Revolution movement which is led by my church Pastor last week held in Baguio City. It was my second time to attend the Humility and Holiness phase, the first two of the three phases of this training.

I am glad that God allowed me take a break from the ministry work and spend time with him during that whole week. Even though it's a refresher for me, it's like a whole new experience once again! First day alone, God moved me already and reminded me of my real purpose in this life which is to live by conforming to the image and character of God in humility. At the end of the day, it's all about the Lord. It's all about Jesus.

He also gave me the opportunity to share His goodness and faithfulness in the past three years of my Christian life in which according to my Pastor and elders in the church, have maturity and confidence in Him. This was also the moment where God have bestowed courage to people who have the same struggle like me to speak up and testify! Truly the Lord is rising up a generation of Nazirites!

Most importantly, I was able to achieve the main purpose of this break. Now I feel refreshed, well rested and somehow on fire again to continue doing what God wants me to do in this season of my journey with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I also thank God for the new friends I have gained during this retreat. Really it was a week full of blessings and experience of God's holy presence! Now I am excitedly looking forward for the things that God is going to do next!

God does not call the qualified.....He qualifies the called. Shalom!

A Week in Singapore

The fifth country I went to is Singapore. Last week I have attended training on Mass Media Communications held in the city of lion.

Every evening the Lord has allowed us to go around and see the beauty of the city. First tourist destination my friend and I have visited was the Raffles Center, the Merlion, and the Marina Bay. It was a great place to admire the structures around the river, definitely a must see place! If you're going there, get off or alight at the Raffles MRT station and walk from there so you will see the old bridge and buildings of Singapore going to Merlion and Marina Bay. You will end up near the City Hall MRT station.

Then we walked along the Orchard Road to see the high end malls and stores. I was able to visit also the Little India and bought some stuff at the Mustafa Center then my friend and I had a wonderful dinner in one of the restaurants in Chinatown. I explored this small community of Chinese people the following night where I satisfied my cravings for a Hainanese chicken in one of the food centers along the way. It became my favorite dinner during my stay there!

Also I took the courage to explore alone the Night Safari. I enjoyed the Creatures of the Night Show, the fire dance number and of course the sightseeing of those endangered species including the 50 million years old rhinoceros!

My best friend lives and works there for more than three years and we spent the whole Saturday before I left the country quarter past midnight. We missed each other a lot so we spent the day laughing our hearts out together like old times while seeing the whole Sentosa and experiencing the rides available such as the cable car, the Sky Ride and Luge and the bus tour to three Sentosa beaches namely Siloso, Palawan and Tanjong Beach.

To end the day, we had a coffee together and talked more. It was truly a great and brilliant time spent updating each other. The best part was when I was able to share with her how the Lord changed my life and why I am so happy and contended at this point, looking and anticipating things to happen that God has in store for me with excitement!

Personally I thanked God and very grateful to the Lord for this amazing blessing He had given me. Not only I have learned so much from the training and have seen Singapore for the first time but the excellent part of this trip was the time spent with my best friend whom I have not seen for almost four years and share about Jesus!

Truly praise God!

The Consequence

We always thought that because God is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6), we can get away with the consequences of the wrong things we have done in the past not to mention that we have confessed it already and ask forgiveness for it.

If you are thinking that way then I have to say I am sorry but you are wrong. We need to remember that our Almighty God is also JUST (Psalm 9:16, 11:7). The consequence of that wrongdoing may come sooner than we think or may come later, like after a few weeks or several years. We'll never know for only God knows.

Well, I am able to say or write this because it's very true. If you can recall and go back to my previous posts last year where I confessed my sexual fall, now I believe I am reaping its consequence. Prior to this post I mentioned that my skin rashes were not PR or Pityriasis Rosea. The cause of these rashes is secondary syphilis which the doctor confirmed more than a month ago.

At first, I was so upset and thought that God was so unfair to discipline me like this but I realized a little later that God is God. He can do whatever He wants and I have sinned against Him. I thought He's unfair because for quite some time I've never had sex and when I fell into it, it happened only 2 or 3 times that year alone which is quite a progress for someone who used to live with that as a lifestyle and still in the process of moving away from it!

One of my closest friends accused me of not walking the talk and I really felt bad because there's a truth in it. She's referring to my advocacy of correct and consistent use of condom when you can't control yourself. She understands my SSA struggle and she's quite disappointed because of this. But I am grateful to her for having the guts to confront me and tell it to my face which reminds me that I am slipping away and must have to pull myself back together right away!

If you're disappointed too I am very sorry, I hope you can understand and be able to forgive me as well. That moment when I failed to use protection, it scared the hell out of me too and utter to myself that I will never do it again. Actually I asked the only two guys I have sex with and they both told me they are negative to syphilis that's why I am still wondering from whom I got it? In addition, I used protection for both of them though with the last one, it's not all throughout. Both of them are HIV+ also which makes it even more dangerous! What on earth was I thinking to do that? Alright, enough with the details because this is what I've got. Now I am almost healed from this infection after a month of medication thank God.

According to Hebrews 12, God disciplines His Sons and ask us not to lose heart when He rebukes us because the Lord disciplines those He loves and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son like a father (v5b-6).

It took me a lot of courage to confess it to my Pastor and mentor in the church for it's truly embarrassing but I have to, and also here. And I am glad that he's thankful for my honesty and promised to be there for me whenever I need him, is not that great? God has really blessed me with people who can journey with me unconditionally in this life no matter how many times I fail. The Lord is always there all the time for us for He'll never let go even if we chose to let go of Him. That's how He amazingly loves us!

This recent event made me realize that truly I do not deserve to serve God in His ministry. But I asked for it 3 years ago and He has chosen me, a chief sinner and a very unqualified broken person saved by His grace. There's no turning back now so I have to bounce back and continue what He asked me to do but this time only with more submission to His power that will carry me through.

I thank the Lord for giving me the courage to live this life and to move forward. I chose to stay with Jesus for it's the only way to live.

Jehovah Shammah!

34 Years of Existence

Last Thursday was my 34th birthday. There's no special celebration or whatsoever. In fact I spent the whole morning at the hospital where I have my regular check up before I went home in the province to take my leave and rest.

Since I became a real Christian, the Lord always does something memorable on this day. On my 31st birthday, I have Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. On my 32nd, the person used by the Lord to bring me back to His kingdom surprised me by visiting me at home. Then on my 33rd birthday I got informed to have the job I have right now which has seen by many as God's appointment!

This time God simply overwhelmed me with love! I have never received so many greetings in my entire life only until my 34th birthday. With face book alone, I got more than 130 wall post greetings! I have even received a lot of good wishes from people I thought would not even remember including the new friends I have from my Bangkok trip!

Also I got heaps of SMS birthday messages before, during and after the actual day counting some of my friends who work and live outside the country!

For some people this could be an ordinary thing but for me I do really felt overwhelmed by all the people who remembered to greet me on this day. Honestly, I can't help but to feel so loved by so many especially those who surprisingly gave their best wishes!

This is more than enough to replace the tiny worries from the situation I am currently going through. The skin rashes which was first diagnosed as PR as I have written here was actually not Pityriasis Rosea. It's worse than that which I am not yet ready to share it here. And because of this disease my CD4 count went down from 521 to 378 though my viral load remains undetected. Well, these are just a test of time and everything will be alright.

Good times and bad times, I will be forever indebted and thankful to God for everything he has done, what He's doing and about to do in my life. Thank you Lord for the 34 years of existence!

Jehovah Shammah in Bangkok

It's my first trip abroad for this year and my third time to visit Bangkok, Thailand. Almost exactly the same time as last year when I visited this foreign land for the first time with the same purpose which is doing the "Channels of Hope " Training the Facilitators as part of the training team, only this time I acted as the lead trainer instead of being an assistant trainer!

For me this is some sort of promotion from the Lord. It was nearly three years since I was trained to be a facilitator and now I am taking bigger responsibilities. I really thanked God for the wisdom, confidence, strength and guidance from Him as I took this role. God sustained all the training team members for the whole duration of this learning event.

Once again, all of us there experienced God's presence. On the third day when I shared my testimony, it's more emotional compared to my previous trainings. Even prior to that session, the Lord was there or "Jehovah Shammah", for some of the participants realized how broken we are as a human being and only God can break us on His own unique way!

Since that day up to the last day of the training, God's presence was there! Twenty four new facilitators of God's hope went home grateful and felt very blessed! They were from Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, New Zealand, US, Finland, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

The Lord has also allowed me to take some time off after this strenuous training. I went with my friend to visit this disco club where most gay guys in Bangkok hangout. I know this was some kind of putting myself in danger and it was an unwise decision but I have proven that God is with me everywhere I go.

I have seen different good looking guys from different parts of the world and most of them are my type kind of men. But He made me realized one thing, it's not worth to have all these guys for He have shown me that all these people are His lost sons who need His light and love! Also I realized that my attraction to men has been diminished that I can just let go of them. Hopefully this will continue and lead to something I am actually destined for which is becoming the man that God wants me to be.

Well, God's name has been exalted and praised in this event once again and I am giving back all the honor, praises and glory to Him in the name of our dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Jehovah Shammah!

CoH in Surigao

Belated Happy Valentines Day to everyone!

After God blessed us with a victorious workshop two weeks ago in Ormoc City, He did the same thing in Surigao City last week.

I called it an "answered prayer" week for the Lord has granted all my prayers for that particular week. First He gave us a sunny weather for it was a pretty rainy week prior to the event. Secondly, we had a very relaxed and enjoyable flight back and forth.

Lastly, it was another successful workshop! Twenty eight new channels of God's hope we're so blessed to become a part of this learning experience. Moreover, the team was able to enjoy the delicious food the city offers!

I just want to thank the Lord and give back all the honor, glory and praises to Him for all these blessings! You are really a faithful God!

Next is Bangkok, Thailand.

CoH in Ormoc

It's my first trip for 2011 last week and first time to visit Ormoc City but for "Channels of Hope" or CoH it was the second time already.

We had thirty two participants who attended and finished the first phase of the HOPE program which is the sensitization. Once again God has touched the lives of these group of people on how He pulled me out of darkness, gave me a new life and continuously changing me to become the man He intended me to be.

This time I can say it's one of the best testimony I gave, I felt that I have said all the right words that these people needs to hear. I was also blessed how they responded and really experienced God's presence.

God is truly with us always; like my pastor preached last Sunday, Jehovah Shammah which means God is there!

The picture shown in this article is the photo of the hotel lobby where we stayed and did the workshop.