After His Own Heart

This week was the first time for me to discuss in our Bible study sessions from Monday to Saturday. I thought that if I were to be engaged in teaching for 2 straight days I’d get drained out. But somehow I managed to deliver well. This afternoon I will also be discussing at the chili farm.

One thing I don’t like about having too much speaking engagements is the fact that I couldn’t have time to study God’s Word for me only. Like a private moment between me and God and not between God and the study notes and thus avoid being convicted myself.

I have to say that even if I did manage to teach straight in a week, I will still need private moments with the Lord. It’s hard preparing for discussions when I’m still committed to my day job. At least that’s what I thought. It’s a good thing though that Hazel and I love to discuss about theology that in our spare time we would talk about the things we learned from our studies. We were able to meditate on God’s Words for most of our waking time even when I’m on my day job. However, growing as a Christian way back in Manila, I was taught to have quiet times with the Lord at least 30 minutes a day. Doors should be closed. Hazel shouldn’t be there. In other words, there shouldn’t be no possible distractions coming my way. This should be the moment wherein I would have private conversations with God. Just me reading and meditating on God’s word and pouring out to Him my concerns.
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I’m still in the process of digesting all of this at the moment but I would like to share with all of you who come here what I recently discovered.

I am an Israelite.

Yes, I am. If you’ve been with me on Facebook, you may have already read my status messages which I shared in real time, as each discovery of my origins unfolded before my disbelieving eyes. How did I come about this, you may ask? Here’s the story:

Since last week, I have noticed that my blog is being viewed by someone in the south and this gave me renewed hope that my biological mother might still be located, after all. I have launched a nationwide search for her when I was eighteen, but there was no internet yet at that time and long distance calls to the province of Leyte proved to be pocket-draining for an eighteen year old newspaper correspondent/college student like me. Eventually, I got tired from hoping and so I quit searching.

Then, came two days ago when, as I have said, this southern reader gave me renewed hope. Google became my ally by being my launching pad. I typed the surname and there they were, a bunch of people who shares the same surname as my mother (as told by my Dad)… Well, not quite a bunch, there were only five of them who came up and who all are located in the same small province – Leyte. I could not be far off the mark. If there are only five people of the same surname in the whole country coming up on my search, then I am certainly right on target. I sent about four of them an email inquiry and please, please do pray for these people to respond. I have to keep in mind that I may not be welcome to this family since, as Dad confirmed just now, my mother could be a product of an unwanted/unwelcomed love affair.

Anyway, so how did this all lead me to the conclusion that I am an Israelite? I remembered a time when my Dad told me that my mother had foreign blood in her, he specifically said Italian (or so I thought?), so I grew up thinking I am of Italian descent. But then, because I am naturally partial to Sicilians, I somehow was hoping that my forefathers are from Sicily, and the “curious George” in me turned once more to Google and what came up was to date the biggest surprise of my life. My surname is included in an Etymological diary written by Heinrich and Eva Guggenheimer entitled Jewish Family Names and their Origins.

My first question when this came up was, “What?!! I’m of a Jewish descent???”, not that there is anything wrong about that, but come on, Dad said I am Italian! Anyway, still not fully convinced, I went to Facebook and on the search box typed my mother’s surname and guess what, every Facebook account holder with that same surname is located in Israel, there are a few in Turkey and about six or seven who are scattered all over the Eastern United States. I am dumbfounded, to say the least.

Then, I told my husband about my discovery and he asked, “so from which tribe did you come from? The Levites?” rather jokingly, well, he was really just kidding but I took that question seriously and again, Googled what kind of Jew are we (or the surname, that is). And that is when it all started to add up.

I came from the Sephardic Jews, the term “Sephardic” came from the Hebrew word “Sepharad” (see Obadiah 1:20), who were exiled in the Iberian Peninsula. The Iberian Peninsula encompasses what we now know as modern Spain and Portugal. Now that makes a lot of sense because in 1521, Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese, discovered the Philippines and his voyage landed him particularly in the island of Cebu, a southern province only roughly 200 nautical miles from Leyte. If my forefather is a Hispanic Jew, then there is a great chance that he belonged to Magellan’s army and probably one of those who fell in love with the island and settled here with his family. Of course this link to Magellan as to the story behind my ancestors setting foot in the country is an intelligent guess, but it is highly likely.

Wikipedia also supports my own implications as it gives a summary of how the Sephardic Jews were distributed by circumstances:

Following the 1492 expulsion from Spain, and the subsequent expulsions in Portugal (1497), these Jews, the nascent Sephardim, settled mainly in Morocco, the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey, Greece, Southwest Asia, North Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina), southern France, Italy, Spanish North America, (Southwest United States New Mexico, Texas (Tejano), Arizona, and Mexico), Spanish South America and the Philippines and Portuguese Brazil, as well as the Netherlands (whence a number of families continued on to the former Dutch possessions of Curaçao, Suriname and Aruba), England (as well as English colonies such as Jamaica), Germany, Denmark, Austria and Hungary.

As a result of the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, many of the Sephardim from the Middle East relocated to either Israel or France, where they form a significant portion of the Jewish communities today. Other significant communities also exist in New York City, Argentina, and Montreal, Canada and Gibraltar.

Well, there goes my brief genealogy for you. I am still quite amazed at this discovery, you know, all I was trying to look for was my biological mother and what I unearthed instead is a great history of my origins, it’s just mind-blowing.

I still don’t know from which “tribe” did my family come from, but does that still matter? Knowing that I am an Israelite is already too overwhelming already, but anyway, maybe I’ll find out soon, who knows?

Oh, by the way, I called Dad and asked him a series of questions and this is how the conversation went like:

Me: Dad, you mentioned a surname, see if I’ve got this correct, it’s __________, right?
Dad: Yes, you know as a matter of fact I have a suspicion that she did not use that in your birth certificate to hide her identity because she was a runaway…
Me: Yeah, okay, so I searched for people in the Philippines with this surname and they are all from Leyte.
Dad: Those are your relatives, dear.
Me: Okay, didn’t you say my mom’s Italian?
Dad: No, she’s Arab.
Me: What? But you said Italian, specifically!
Dad: No, it’s Arab. Her father is a Middle Eastern man, and so are her grandparents.
Me: Okay, Dad. I did a quick search on that too, I have Jewish forefathers.
Dad: *quiet, pregnant pause*
Me: Dad, I’m an Israelite.
Dad: *laughing but serious*, Yes, you are…

***Cross posted from ZoeGrapho

San Jose Mission Point

Need to make a quick update before things start to pile up. This week alone has been amazing. Aside from getting a paid vacation from my boss, some folks from the Bible study that Hazel and I are currently involved in have professed their faith. Our maid, who also happen to join these studies, also professed her faith.

I can still remember those times when we held these outreach program, they all looked bored. No signs of interest. Yawning here and there. I was so discouraged that I lost my passion for preaching to them. I was already at the time waiting for some big thing to happen to make me stop evangelizing to them. But this week has been amazing. Some people from Hazel’s group (Thursdays) and mine (Fridays and Saturdays) have professed. Some even made testimonies. According to them, they were already feeling the conviction in their hearts several weeks ago. Those were the times that I thought nothing is going thru their heads. But I was wrong. God was already working in them. And more importantly, God was working in me. Giving me a patient and humble heart. Teaching me that salvation is purely under God’s control and not mine. Praise God!

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We started out with the service wearing bright,happy faces, sang worship songs, sat through the preliminaries and yes, even through the whole preaching, unaffected and “just fine” except for that part when Dr. Supan said “we have here people who are unable to bear children and they cry out to the Lord, ‘Lord, Lord, give us a child and we will teach him Your ways, O Lord!’” which sort of surprised me and wrung my heart, like one would a towel, dry. Other than that bit, I was fine. Until I heard my husband sobbing beside me.

Back home, we talked about the many things that ran through our minds during our church’s Father’s day celebration and tribute. I thought about my own father, what he is and what he isn’t, what I had hoped he would have been and what he had been. I thought about my husband’s dad, who passed away when Warren was only five, and the post card he sent his youngest son while he was receiving treatment for lung cancer in China. I thought about the scribble on that now-sepia-colored card, and how in three short and playful sentences the man was able to convey his love and devotion to his precious son. I thought about how he would have been a great dad. I thought about the boys he left behind twenty-five years ago, and how proud he would have been of them and of how life would probably have been a lot easier for my husband and his brothers had he lived longer. And then, I thought about my husband, the man who cries out to the Lord, “Lord, Lord, give me a son, and I will teach him Your ways, Oh, Lord!” and how long it seems to be taking for the Lord to answer this cry.

Warren thought about his dad, and of how he was ‘deprived’ of that chance to have a father that would guide him as he grows and develops into manhood. And he thought about the child that he might never be a father of, and again of how he is being ‘deprived’ of the chance to experience fatherhood.

Oh yes, it was a pity party, all right. And many hours and many conversations have already passed since, yet, my mind would still wander to that moment I saw my husband covering his face with his hanky to muffle the sobs.

I pray for the Lord’s leading concerning this matter, sure we can go back to the specialist and complete the tests needed to know if we are capable of conceiving or not, and sure we can go to those accredited adoption agencies and adopt a homeless child, but would any of those two be His will for us?

I’d like for us to go beyond what we feel, beyond what we want and beyond what gaping hole this child could fill in our lives. I’d like for us to listen to what God wants for us first, more than anything, more than what pains we are suffering from in our childlessness and more than the void that our human minds are striving to fill.

May our hearts’ desire be His desires for us, if not, then we humbly and faithfully pray for hearts that are willing to submit with loving devotion to His will.

I asked a fellow Church mate if Hazel and I could visit her this Saturday and she went “who sent you? why are you doing this?” I know it sounds discouraging but if I would later be called by God to the ministry, I would want to test my faith first. I need to see if I would be affected if they continue to show hostility towards me even after I minister to them. In the back of my mind I would go “will it sound weird if I say we just wanted to have fellowship with you?” But I didn’t ask her that because I know it would be awkward and be putting her on the spot to answer a “yes” so its best if I just take the blow by saying “no, we were not sent by anyone. we just wanted to have fellowship with you.”

Hazel and I have discovered some discouraging things from our Church. One of them is the lack of Church discipline. And the effect? You have to trust me on this. It’s not good and I can’t give further details. If you’re a friend you’d know it. Otherwise I’m sorry to give you the suspense but I wouldn’t want to trigger a gossip circle here.

Church discipline is tough alright. But the lack of it would prove a great blow among the flock.
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Funny how Hazel and I think alike. She mentioned that for the past few weeks she was stressed out of not being able to express herself fully in her blogging for the reason of eyes-on-walls that are ever-ready to criticize. She is beginning to feel that this blog is owned by these critics. But I told her “hey, its our blog not theirs.”

Since we started this blog we had this unspoken rule that the blog will be governed by our honest thoughts and concerns and not by criticisms of others. But since we moved to this new church our judgments were influenced so that we ought to watch our tongue more carefully to avoid offending others. In other words we became less insensitive to the people around us. This is good so that we could avoid offending other Christian’s consciences and more so our Church members who stealthily visit this site. But this sensitivity mission has gone way over above our heads that even our blogs, which was supposed to express our honest thoughts and feelings, became too square for us to even visit. Our blog site has, sad to say, become a walking zombie.
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Just came home from a BS in Davsan. The Davsan BS is held every Friday. I started joining Bro.Norman several weeks ago. I was able to hold discussions there several times but mostly was held by Bro.Norman. I wanted to teach this afternoon but still felt that I’m not confident enough. For the moment I wanted to just “sit-in” in his group and listen how he handles the discussions.

This afternoon for example I learned that some members from our Church went thru several years of bible studies before they professed faith. As I was expressing my concerns to bro.Norman how I was discouraged in visiting Davsan for their lack of response, he encouraged me that some bible studies he held was even longer. This gave me encouragement and I hope I could get to teach in a consistent manner. Teaching gives me joy because it is where I feel dependence on God even more.

This morning, a dear friend and brother asked me if I would be sad for Warren this Father’s Day. I stopped dead in my tracks in an attempt to digest the question, would I be so callous if I’d say I won’t be? But, that is how I feel. I won’t feel sad for Warren, nor would I feel bad about it, just like I didn’t feel bad for myself on Mother’s day.
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One of our brethren, who was an ex-con himself, has a 3year ministry in our local city jail. In my previous blog posts I mentioned that I was joining him and at times ministering to the in-mates as well. Last night he mentioned to the church that he was having trouble discerning whether the person he is ministering to is a true Christian or not. He mentioned that he was convinced that his faith was genuine until later after the in-mate got out of jail he found out that he was thrown back in for stealing to which he was accused of in his first trip to the jail.

On another occasion, there were other in-mates who were coming out of the jail and are looking for a Church. Our brother then doesn’t know what to do thinking that they could be a serious threat to society. Here they are out of jail looking for a Church to go into. And our brother doesn’t know which Church to recommend so it should be practical for him to recommend our Church. But there’s this big chance that the ex-cons would be a threat to our brethren since some have rape case, some murder, some thievery. The security of our brethren would be compromised realizing that these folks live among us.
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This morning I read Luke 5:1-3. This is the scene before Jesus officially calls Simon Peter to follow Him. What’s interesting here is in verse 1 (Luke 5:1), Jesus was already meeting with some people. In fact, it was the people who came to Him to listen to His teaching and not Jesus coming to them. And Simon Peter wasn’t among the crowds. In fact he was busy washing his nets minding his own business (Luke 5:2) while others crowded around Jesus to hear His preachings. But inspite of Simon Peter’s reaction on the presence of Christ while He was met with the crowd, he didn’t bother to join the crowd and hear Jesus’ preachings. He wasn’t interested at all. But still, Jesus showed mercy on Simon Peter.

Why did Jesus not call some of the crowds that were listening to Him? They showed interest so why not pick some of them to be His disciples? Why choose someone who obviously shows no interest in Jesus nor His teachings? Practically speaking, Jesus would take this as an opportunity to gather for Himself a decent number of disciples. Perhaps Peter had some hidden talents that would flourish only by the time he was called to be disciple. But we see even after the calling of Simon Peter, he was continually being rebuked by Christ. In fact, among the twelve, Peter got the most rebukes. He even got rebukes from the apostle Paul.
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To God be the glory forever and ever!

I came home feeling so renewed, so blessed, so happy and so reborn on Thursday night after speaking before an audience of unbelievers who are so thirsty, so hungry and so eager for the Word of God. I have never seen such hunger before, I have come across so many unbelievers already but this group… They amaze me with their blind faith!

According to the sisters who have been evangelizing to this group for months already, these ladies, whose ages range from mid-30’s to mid-60’s, have heard of the Gospel many times in the past but for some reason they are just not yet being convicted. I know that God will make it happen in His time, for now though I am just happy and blessed to be a part of this ministry. I am just ecstatic to be one of God’s vessels in getting His mighty, amazing Word preached to them.

I will be speaking again next Thursday, it might become a regular thing for me or it might not, I really don’t know. For now, I just want to continue giving praise and worship to the Lord because it is not just Warren that He is using now, but even me.

Last night I was able to discuss for our Wednesday devotions. It was quite long actually because I fed a lot of details. It took me about an hour of discussion and I didn’t noticed I was exhausted. Hazel said she can hear me breathing louder in my microphone as I began the 2nd half of the discussion. But all in all it was a blessing to me. I enjoyed preaching generally and I enjoyed it more when people get blessed. But actually I wasn’t much happy about it.

For a moment I had quick flashback of my history when I was in Manila. I knew I attended church, had some friends there. I was born and raised in Manila. But I never realized that I wasn’t happy back then in Manila until last night. Last night was such a blessing to me as well as to others. And I couldn’t deny my feelings. I’m starting to feel at home here in the province. What’s sad about it is I grew up in Manila so if ever I would be enjoying my days, I would expect it to be in Manila. I would expect that I’m preaching and maturing in Manila, my hometown. I would expect my friends in Manila to be blessed. But somehow I couldn’t fit in. And I didn’t realized that until last night. I thought I was happy back then. I thought I was experiencing the love from fellow Christians. But this time I felt I had a real family here in the province.
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I was approached by church-mate last Sunday and she asked if I would be available to speak in a bible study group this Thursday. I was taken aback and my immediate response was, “is it an all-girls group?”, apparently it was and she offered the slot to several women in church prior to me but since school season had begun, most of the women they talked to are busy with their gradeschoolers, leaving me the only likely candidate who’d say yes.

I don’t even know if I am ready to take on such a responsibility, I mean handling the Word of God in a group setting is different, I need to be careful to make sure that only God gets glorified and the true Gospel gets preached. I also just started with my transcription job which keeps me up on my toes eight hours daily and I wondered if I would still have the time to study, not to mention that I am also a wife with wifely duties such as keeping home and all that stuff. Oh, and did I mention that I am also just beginning to get back to understanding and knowing God myself? Yeah. So, I agreed to speak this Thursday and Warren, as you all know how he is with these things, is 100 percent supportive. He’s been giving me pointers by sharing his own experiences with the hope that I will learn from them, pick up a lesson or two.

I finally found my text last night, as well. I had a few choices of my own that I’ve been thinking to work on since after I agreed on the task, but last night while reading and researching on the subject of Eve, one particular passage just “popped up” from my computer screen that really got my attention. No, silly, I don’t mean “popped up” literally like the words jumped up and down or something, what I meant by that was that I read through the passage and something in me stirred and when I left it to read through the next ones, something just made me go back to it about three or four more times and ideas on how this passage could be presented just came pouring forth. Anyway, I’m talking about Genesis 3:10, I’m a bit excited and also apprehensive at the same time, but a bit more excited than apprehensive I’m sure, so, I don’t know, we’ll just see how it goes.

My colleague encouraged me to speak more in Tagalog and more details. The people whom we are currently evangelizing to are not well educated and can barely read between the lines. I was too comfortable in mentioning theological terms that didn’t bother much to explain to them the details about it. To be able to make the message come across their world, I need to use their language. Which is a very tough task for me.

During our discussions I was enjoying presenting to them the Gospel of Christ. But I wasn’t so sure whether they understood it. Their silence spoke to me as they did. Until my colleague approached me and told me about their background and the necessity of speaking in Tagalog. I thought to myself that it was a bit late for him to inform me of that after several bible studies done. But if I would want the message to get across then I would definitely need to practice speaking more their language.

Hazel and I have been discussing a lot for the past weeks on certain projects we wanted to pursue however we can’t do them all while our hands are stuck in our day jobs. Here is a list of things that we wanted to venture on:

* Vlogging - I’ve been searching for Christian vlogs for the past few days but I couldn’t find any. If ever there are videos, all that I learn is how to improve copy/pasting YouTube URLs. To Christian bloggers, please lessen the copy/pasting of sources into your blogs. Be it books or videos or sound clips. People like me would want to hear from your thoughts not from John Calvin’s. Learning from other Christians’ experience would lead me to preach the gospel boldly just as Paul said to the Philippians “having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. ” (Philippians 1:14)
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Note: The following article is written with the questioning and still unaware youth in mind. I intentionally skipped some of the technical details to make it simple and basic, please feel free to use the comments page and post your ideas, comments and reactions. Thank you.

*****

Question: What exactly is Charter Change (ChaCha)?

Answer: According to this source, “ChaCha” refers to the process of amending or revising (layman: changing) the 1987 Philippine Constitution which is currently in effect.

Questions: Why are there attempts to change the Constitution in the first place? Doesn’t it serve its purpose well?

Answer: In the history of the country, the Philippine Constitution was already revised/amended three times. We had the 1935 Constitution, the 1973 Constitution and currently and in effect, the 1987 Constitution. Since 1973, the amendments/revisions were said to be more focused on preventing history from repeating itself. The 1973 Constitution focused on social and economic reforms as well as the equal distribution of wealth – a far cry from the 1935 Constitution which is largely focused on the country’s struggle for independence from foreign subjection. It is also during the effect of the 1973 Constitution that enabled then president Ferdinand Marcos to monopolize control over the nation through Amendment 6, so when President Corazon Aquino personally pushed for the amendment of the 1973 Constitution (which gave us the 1987 Constitution), it is not surprising that it was drafted in reaction to the Marcos regime.

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This is just a really quick post and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post my thoughts while they are still fresh.

When God sent His Son to die on the cross, our sins were automatically forgiven. And when our sins were forgiven, our relationship with God was also instantly restored.

Thinking about that, I asked myself how come it is so hard for us to find it in our hearts to extend the same grace and mercy that was also bestowed on us by a Holy God? People sin against us and we ‘forgive’ them for their offenses, yet we reject them afterward, we refuse to have any connections with them anymore, we cut the ties, we refuse to have any relationship with them and we think that it is enough that they are forgiven for their offense against us. Is that really how man should forgive?

God has set a standard for us Christians to follow and again, this would all still boil down to love and/or the lack of it in our hearts. Forgiving means opening the gates for the restoration of a relationship, loving and welcoming that person back into your life, they go hand in hand together. Otherwise, God would just forgive us but still send our souls to hell.

I don’t know, I am just basing my arguments here on how man is restored into his relationship with his Creator. Any other thoughts?

I realized that during those times I was far from my Lord, it became easier for me to fall into sin. Like I mentioned on my previous post, I failed to look into myself and instead focused on other people’s shortcomings. I could no longer count the many times I complained about other people’s irritating attitudes and/or the number of times I sat in silence observing a crowd and picking on individuals to criticize. I noticed every inconsistency, every wrong grammar used in every conversation, every unlikable attitude, every wrong choice of clothing, everything! I became a fault finder that I noticed even the most trivial there is!
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Remember what I said about me not posting here for reasons even Warren finds “valid”? I’m ready to tell the world about it now.

We all acknowledge the fact that the Christian walk is never easy, we all are aware that it is a consistent fight between the spirit and the flesh and that there are days when the flesh would win and take over, however there are also days of victory. It is a moment by moment battle that we at best, and by God’s grace, try to conquer.

The last few months, I happened to be the one at the losing end. I just snapped one day and decided that I needed a break from reading my bible. I went to church Sunday after Sunday, attended Prayer Meetings every Wednesday, did the usual Christian things but you know, I was well aware all the while that my heart was not there. There was something amiss, something not in its proper order, something not falling on the right pattern of the tapestry that threw me off rack and I tried to justify myself by putting the blame on others.

First, I blamed, of course as expected, my husband. For a time I didn’t like hearing him preach to me because for a time, too, I felt he neglected his responsibility as a husband. When he left his job to study online preaching courses, I felt I was dropped in the middle of an ocean to swim my way to the shore alone. And then I blamed the lack of discipleship in church, I saw a million and one reasons to not like Sunday School, and a billion and more reasons to feel like going to church is torture. I looked at every face, met every smile and accepted every handshake with much greater hypocrisy, because the truth is that I didn’t like any of what I was doing at all.

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Last night Hazel and I started doing a simple devotion. We just sat on our bed, prayed for guidance then read a portion of Scripture (we read 1 John 3:1-10), and discussed about it. We had no Bible tools, pens or notebooks in hand. We just discussed what we read. And it took us an hour and a half doing the discussion. It is also good that somehow we had an idea about sticking with the text so we won’t get lost in translation during the discussion. We felt that we were building a stronger and healthier relationship. It was fun and I wondered to myself why we were not doing this before?

Doing this kind of activity is very essential for couples, especially in our case wherein her group doesn’t dig deeper in the Word during Sundays. Not only am I filling the gap but it is also my responsibility as her husband to be purifying her with the Word (Ephesians 5:26). Of all the people I am ministering to, Hazel should be on top of my list; Before I preach to other nations of the world, I need to first preach to my wife. And I pray I won’t fall into the temptation of preaching to others more than to my own wife.
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