God carries it also

It's the last day of being home.

I woke up around 8 in the morning this day and just before doing anything else, I prayed and checked my phone (I usually place it beside my bed.) if there's any message.

I got this:

"He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on His shoulders. If He bids us to carry a burden, He carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous and tender, so lavish and supernatural in love, you will always find it in Him." - C.H. Spurgeon

It's from 'textmate'.

Mulling over my trip to Davao tonight for a contractual job until December 15, the message became a pressure-relieving reminder that whatever odd I will be needing to surpass, He is there for me for guidance, protection and strength.

I say thanks so much to the one who sent it. I consider her life, per se, as an inspiration.

This will be the very first time that I'll be away from home for more than a month. I thank God for this opportunity for me to learn to stand alone and depend on myself.

The work. After the recently concluded fieldwork in Iloilo National High School (Thankfully the processing and interpretation of data is finally done.), God gave me another opportunity to be involved in a study to help our fellow-Filipinos in Mindanao. This is a Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction Project through the Asian Development Bank. Apparently, this focuses on alleviating the socioeconomic and psychosocial status of poor women market vendors in Mindanao. The output of this work will be the bases of formulating steps in order to uplift the status of the market vendors on the areas of concentration.

On the other hand, this is my chance to help my own family here in La Carlota City, Negros Occidental.

I express my utmost gratitude to my cousins, Pastor Paul and his wife Nang Nyl and also Tita Cora - Pastor Paul's mother - for fervently recommending me to obtain this work.

I now know the answer why God made me face vast challenges and odds during the 16 years of formal education from kindergarten to college.

Hiatus. I don't know if I can visit you guys as often as I was doing for the past days. For now, I don't know the system and process of the work. Hopefully, I can still have time to mingle with you.

May God take the wheel as I travel and may He fill me up with
wisdom to tackle the obstacles.

If He bids me to carry a burden, He carries it also.

When God molds and opens opportunities

When I graduated March 25, 2007, I didn't have anything in mind but to review for the Licensure Examination for Teachers. I thought, I can better start with any job that comes along the way if I'm already a professional license carrier. There's a greater chance of getting hired to any institution, higher compensation and greater opportunities for promotion, privileges and other advantages.

But that plan was twisted when God showered me with good breaks. I already had my application form that time and the only thing left to do is to pay for the 2-month weekends review in my Alma Mater when Kuya Aldwin sent me an e-mail telling me to be his partner for supervising an adolescent reproductive health research project in Region VI. He told me about the benefits and the advantages of indulging in this activity and the things I needed to do. Besides, it's research and it means new learning, new experiences, new adventure -and that's priceless.

So, I kept my application form and prepared for the activity.

Leaving for Iloilo, I left my application letter and credentials at our Municipal Trial Court in Cities. I was applying as an office clerk. Yes, just an office clerk. But mulling over the fact that it is a national office, funded by the Supreme Court, there are fringe benefits.

It was an opportunity God opened through a mentor who has been there for me ever since we knew each other in college. That was my very first job application and I didn't imagine myself having endorsements from the President of my school, from a retired Chief Parole and Probation officer III and the President of the Philippines.

Still, those were through the unselfish efforts of one dynamic mentor - well not just in academics but also in politics, life and love. I owe her a lot.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court didn't declare the position vacant yet so my application in the office is chilled for a while.

Later, it was already August 3, 2007 - Friday - my grandmother died and I was a 90-kilometer trip away from home, still on research. I didn't have any other option but to pursue the researchers to do everything by themselves and to just update me for problems and questions. I badly needed to go home.

God was great! He moved the heart and hands of the researchers and everything went cool.

About grandma's death, though its a sad time for our family, we saw it as another opportunity. An opportunity to help other loved ones and the community around us to see the true meaning of life. Help them know the God of provision and promotion and help them change their outlook on death.

Now, it's 2 weeks after the funeral. No doubt, everything changed here at home after the burial of my grandma. But, she left us with a business. Because of how we "celebrated" her promotion to a better place of setting up a tarp wrapped with photos of blissful memories with her family, using balloons and ribbons and of making a colorful program prints filled with songs and laughter, people came and proposed transactions!

Now we have partners from few institutions for designs, lay-outs and prints. God's so cool isn't it?

While we were yet starting with this graphic designing business and while looking forward for the board exam, my cousin from Laguna, who is a Pastor's wife, called me up one morning and told me about another research project. Now its focused on the socioeconomic and psychosocial status of market vendors below poverty line in Mindanao. My function is to facilitate the workshops and document the proceedings, and make a report. This will start sometime in September.

This is a complimentary project under the Mindanao Basic Urban Services Sector Project (MBUSSP) of DILG with Asian Development Bank as its donor. Considering the job, I can already help my mother and my brother spend for the education of my my younger brother in the Technological University of the Philippines - Visayas taking up Electronics and Communications Engineering and my younger sister who is a special science class high school student.

What do I do now? Shall I hit 2 birds with one stone? Or shall I say 3 birds. By October we will have a Adolescent Reproductive Health Advocacy National Convention in Cebu City for another set of projects for the coming year.

Indeed, When God opens opportunities, you'd go dizzy choosing where to land and I will always be thankful to God and for how He molded me in the 16 years of formal education through the utmost support, love and sacrifice of my parents and of the inspiration of friends, relatives and church family. Worth were all the sacrifices in college. I graduated with honors and it brought me to being an awardee as an outstanding youth of our city (April 13, 2007) apart from my extra-curricular activities and services. My mother was also awarded as outstanding mother of the city. Thanks to the Kababaihang Rizalista Incorporada Kapisanang Pandaigdig, Inc. for such an award. It was then my first chance to be published on Visayan Daily Star. -lol-

Now, the only requirement for me to discern what to choose and what to pursue is through praying for wisdom - practical discernment. As James 1:5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."

And with all these, I praise the name of the Lord, express my deepest gratitude to my late father and my ever-protective mother and I humble myself.

On photos: [just click on it for a better view] Top The author receiving his diploma.
Bottommost (left to right) Eddie Yap (grandfather), Marisses Tampo (mother), Noel Yap (uncle), the author

The battle in 3 days.

The Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) is coming up fast and I can already feel the pressure - the squeezing I once experienced when I was yet filing for the Board. I never had felt of needing much prayers from my friends than now. Every time I'm OL, I'm in the community and in the church, I can't stop my self from asking for prayers from friends and my church family and from anyone across the globe.

Gratefully, I was talking a while with my cousin from Laguna and she told that their church prayed for me. My teachers from our school also told that they'll do the same. Also my own church family and our sending churches. Not to forget, my blogging friends also left a word here that they'll also include me in their prayers.

These really gave me a lift so I really really thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Indeed, we need others in this world full of shadows of grief, anxiety and pressure. "No man is an island" as we often reiterate it.

I came across a statement from Morrie from a the book "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom. He said that in the beginning of life, when we were infants, we need others to survive and at the end of life, when we are already near death, we need others to survive." But there's one secret he was using and maybe it was the reason why his life has been so inspiring for many people in the world right now. In between birth and death, he always 'needed' others. He invested in human family. He invested in people. He built his own community filled with the people he loves and who love him as well.

And with this upcoming exam? I tie up (or fortify the ties) with the people around me for my sources of encouragement, hope, courage and strength.

I hope and pray that everything will just go smoothly on Sunday. This will be a test of faith.

The battle is the Lord's!