all the world's a stage!!!

Moving On

11:17 PM, Saturday, February 18, 2006 | Link to this post | 0 comments

Been out for a while but glad to be back. Yes, it's UP fair week but I haven't got the chance to go there. How sad! Exams have been moved to the day after the fair night that I was planning to go to. But anyway, I still had the time of my life. I have an ES 11 exam last Wednesday which was a little bit frustrating. My ME 41 5th exam (which was the one that was moved) was unexpectedly more difficult than the previous exams. And I haven't been to the Stillwaters Thursday Community Fellowship because of some other ministry work as well as meeting my disciples for a bible study since I forgot to secure a copy of the leader's guide. Haay!!! The past week was so tiring. Haaay!!! Well, God was so faithful to me. Even though I was too exhausted and frustrated with my ES 11 exam, He never let me dwell longer on that. He actually gave me an opportunity to share the Word right after that exam.

I shared the four Spiritual Laws booklet to my orgmate Karl. Actually, he was too hesitant at first but he eventually tried to listen to me afterward. He is not comfortable though whenever I ask him to read something from the booklet. So, I do the talk and he just listened. A really good boy indeed! Hehe! I appreciate him halting me to read a message from his phone and telling me to proceed after. It just means that he really wants to listen. To make the long story short, he prayed to receive Christ in the end. Praise God! I was so blessed by his sincerity. After everything, he told me that he felt that I think of him as a lost soul. Honestly, it's not true so I re-iterated to him one of the famous phrases from the booklet: "DO NOT DEPEND ON FEELINGS." I hope that I made it clear to him what does that phrase mean. I'm really so glad that I've shared the 4SL to him. Actually, I gave him a copy of the booklet The Gospel Of John when we met each other at the tambayan earlier this day. I saw God worked His way through me that very day.

And now, I'm planning to share the Gospel using another material, it's a survey-type Gospel presentation which I think is more seeker-friendly. I've got the chance to hear Melvin conduct the survey-type Gospel presentation/4SL last summer and he did well presenting it. I've started asking people, especially those whom I have a burden to share the Word to, of their free times so I can conduct the survey and present them the Gospel. Anyone who is reading this entry at this very moment, I would like to ask you to pray for me even for a little while 'coz this is a very big step for me. I'm even not sure if this would work out but I think God is calling me to do this. Please pray that God would give them open hearts and minds and that He will give the strength and wisdom that I need.

The UP CCC people had a fellowship with the MAPUA CCC people. It was a fun, but I was not able to mingle with the Mapua pips before (since I came late) and after the program (since I need to go home early).

I was so glad yesterday when I finished the machine exercise in ES 26. Grabe! I wasn't expecting that I would be able to finish it. God is so good! Actually, this is the very reason why I came late for the fellowship. Supposedly, I should be leaving at 6:00pm but I finished the machine exercise at 7:30pm on my watch and I thought that I wouldn't be able to make it. Well, the rest is history.

I wasn't able to share this last week. After our ME 64 class, Imay, Leah, and I, planned to make tambay (can't find the right words) at the UP Eng'g Soc tambayan. Curious who might be at the ES department (which is just accross our tambayan), I went inside and saw Neil (our classmate/"blockmate") sitting alone in the student assistants' lounge. Then he asked me to help him solve the problem set that was given to us by our ME 64 prof. Yes, he did everything! I just listened to what he's saying and watch how he manipulate the differential equations. Felt so helpless during that time. I didn't help him at all. I thanked him for explaining everything to me. Then, he shared stories about his "computer games-addiction" in which I had a hard time relating to. After that, we went outside and made tambay at Eng'g Soc with Imay and Leah.

We talked about a lot of things and since we are all Christians, we manage to talk about our struggles in our daily lives as students and as God's children. Our topic for conversation (sorry for being technical here) ranged from our high school lives to Christian philosophies, Christian music to Christian books and authors, our families to our plans to establish a new ME organization, our personal ministries to our plans of making our own Christian band (not to mention that we are all musically-inclined... Hehe!!!) Well, I really had a great time with them and I thank God for giving them to me. It was quite overwhelming that we became comfortable with each other within that short span of time. I'm so excited of the the things that we're gonna learn in ME or even in the lives of each other. I hope that we would continue to check-out on each other and take time to know each other more. A new kind of friendship has been built among us and we want to share this to our blockmates. Truly, if you have something in common (that is having Jesus in our lives), you'll surely be assured of fellowship taking place among you. God made me realize that these people are just few of the people that I will be with for the next two years of my life. I thought that I wouldn't be able to mingle with them (all of the Junior ME students) since they knew almost everyone in their block from the very start and I'm just a shiftee. But again, God is so good! God is showing me vividly through my blockmates how the world needs Him now. God is commanding me to be a "fisher of men." I should move on to the path where God is leading me.

- Gian

Learning The Hard Way

5:01 AM, Saturday, February 04, 2006 | Link to this post |

Hi guys!

It’s been a while since I last posted here. Well, a lot of things happened during the past few weeks (what do you expect?). Regarding my previous post, I think I’m beginning to learn my lessons, the hard way. It’s not an easy task for me to ‘give up’ my friends (my comfort zone) since we’ve been together for at least 2 or 3 years.

Just to make things clear, the term ‘give up’ doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m gonna forget all the times that we’ve shared together (dinner, intimate talks, tampuhan, kulitan, asaran, mushy conversations, etc.) forever. I don’t want our friendship to distract me from focusing on the Lord. What I mean (maybe) is that I should limit myself from ‘always’ being with them. You know, even though you are constantly seeing each other, it’s still not a good thing to be dependent on them. I knew the feeling of not being able to do some things because I haven’t seen my friends for just a little while. And I don’t want that thing to happen again. It really destroys everything. My mind can’t focus on the things that I should do. I want to focus on the things that God wants me to see, things that have eternal rewards.

Another thing is that, we’re not learning anymore from each other. We are not able to build each other up by filling in each others weaknesses.. I’m afraid that if I get closer to them (the closest that we can get), I wouldn’t be able to let go of them anymore. That’s my greatest fear whenever I get close to someone. I tend to be possessive. We have our own different lives and we should continue to work our lives the way how God wants it to be.

Well, I can see that everything is just doing fine. I think they’re also starting to focus on the things that God wants them to do. And mind you, they’re really having a good time.

Right now, I’m still in the period of adjustment. To tell you honestly, I’m the kind of person who finds it hard to make the necessary adjustments if I’m required to do so.

During the past few days, I realized that I should be getting out of my comfort zone. God calls me to work for Him, to prepare for His coming, to experience how to be rejected by people just like how Jesus was rejected and to conquer my fears for His greater glory.

- Gian