A Journey From Strength To Strength: A Report and a Testimony
The following are the article I wrote for last month's issue of our church's newsletter and the short write-up I did for one of my Vancouver, VBC photo albums.
Read together, they constitute the summary of my lessons learned and blessings received from my recently concluded trips to US and Canada.
I share these with you in the hope that, as you read these words, God will speak a Word of encouragement into your heart just as surely as He did to mine while I was going through all these things.
Our God is a God of adventure, faith, goodness and blessing. I hope you find Him in these words as you read on.
Enjoy!
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Let’s see… Manila, Narita, LAX, LAX, Memphis, Florida, Florida, Memphis, Newark, New York, Charlotte, Dallas, Dallas, Charlotte, LAX.
Okay. So far that makes fifteen trips to different airport in thirteen days. Those days were from February 10 to 23.
I arrived Los Angeles International Airport (a.k.a. LAX) last Feb. 10. That was a 16-hour flight. Less than a day later, I was on my way to Orlando, Florida, another six-hour flight with a layover, for the first of two Master’s Commission International Network annual conferences, this year’s theme being “WOVEN”. This is the reason I get to go to the US each year – to represent the local MC network, MC Philippines-Asia.
I started going back in 1998 and, ever since then, the Lord has blessed the worldwide network and it has grown by leaps and bounds. This is why we are having two conferences this year instead of just one, MCIN wanted to “grow smaller before it grew [anymore] bigger”. Hence the theme, which hints at the intimacy involved in being woven together as different portions of the same tapestry.
I must admit, though, that flying 6 more hours after coming from a 16-hour flight, going through three time zone changes in a little over 24 hours proved to be quite taxing, physically. Jetlag. I fell asleep during the first half of the conference’s first evening session. Not good.
Add to this the fact that I had been sick with the flu two weeks before my departure, compounded by the anxiety of not having my recently renewed visa delivered to me on time. My visa, which I had to renew, was delayed and it was almost all my travel agent could do to get me on the Feb. 10 flight. Which left me less than 24 hours to arrive LAX, get some rest before flying out very early the following morning to Florida. And so, I was jetlagging the whole two days of the first conference.
Then I flew to New York.
There, I was met by Ptr. Joey and Gigi Mercado, dear friends of mine from way back to my youth days with the Asian Christian Charismatic Fellowship (ACCF), another AG church pioneered by ICS’s founding missionary-couple, Rev. Paul and Jean Klahr.
Joey and Gigi had already forewarned me that they would “squeeze the last drop of anointing” out of me as I would “hit the ground running” with the virtually non-stop ministry schedule they had set up for me. I thought they were kidding. Nope.
After 4 days of Bible studies, youth group, two churches and a visit with Lady Liberty I then flew out to Dallas, Texas for WOVEN II. Not surprisingly, I fell asleep during the first evening session there, too. I came back to consciousness just as they were getting the offering, right before the closing prayer.
I should mention, too, that during my last night at home in Manila, just before I was to fly out to LA, I finally gathered the nerve to look up something called “Post-Polio Syndrome” (PPS) in Wikipedia. What is it, you ask? In a nutshell it is the effects of the polio virus back with a vengeance after several decades from the initial infection. This time, it’s the working parts of the victim that it goes after. It is a progressively debilitating condition that will cause the person to become increasingly weaker until he or she is reduced to physical helplessness, with 1 out of four PPS sufferers succumbing to death.
Why bring this up now? Well, for the past three years I had already been noticing periodic episodes of sluggishness with my left leg. The good one. And, prior to this trip, I had been noticing it more and more. I heard about PPS about 2 years ago, but I never really had the nerve to look it up, although I had already sensed that, somehow, my new symptoms were relevant to it. Apparently I was right.
And so it was that on this trip, my craziest, most jetlag-filled one in a very long time, I also had to carry around the excess baggage of a being mentally and emotionally tormented by the idea of being a total cripple by the time I hit 60 or sooner. Not a pleasant prospect, to say the least.
To be honest, I almost didn’t want to go, visa or no visa. And even after I did, I was almost entirely in defeated/hopeless mode.
When God brings us to the end of ourselves it is usually so that He can get our attention long enough to let Him do all the fighting on our behalf.
Well, He got my attention.
Stranded in the airport in Florida for three hours, with my only lifeline, a loaned cellphone, becoming totally useless in my hands (the screen just went totally white for no reason!) all I could do was pray. And pray, I did.
I wish I could say it was one of those dramatic, Hollywood-ish “Lord I give You my heart” prayers that produced instantaneous spiritual victory. It was more like a “Alright, You win” kind of prayer mumbled under my breath. But He heard it, nonetheless. And He began to take over.
First off, during the first plenary session in the morning of the first conference, the topic of the very first speaker was all about a guy named Mephibosheth. Go ahead, say it – Meh-fib-oh-sheth. Guess what? He was a cripple. Dropped by his nanny as a bay, the boy lost the use of his legs.
But by the time we found him in the story spoken of by the speaker, Mephibosheth had been invited to live out the rest of his days in the palace of the King, to dine at the king’s table with the princes and princesses of the land. And how God’s tablecloth of Grace covered both his crippled feet. At the Table of the King, there are no cripples.
What are the odds of me walking into a conference halfway across the world with the very first speaker speaking on this topic, of all things?
And that was when it hit me. Being cripple is really more about the condition of one’s heart and mind. If you start believing you are cripple, and begin to live like a cripple, then you are a cripple.
But the King has called me to His Table! And His Grace has covered my feet. I have lived with polio all of my 42 years. And there was actually a time when I thought of myself as “pilay”, a cripple, a disabled person. But that was before I met and surrendered my life to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Since then, I have come to understand that, despite my weak leg, I am able to “do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” I have seen Him take me, in my weakness, and in spite of it, literally bring me across continents, into nations, and into peoples’ lives with His Word and by His Power.
It’s like what my friend and MC mentor, Lloyd Zeigler, said to me when I shared all this information with him over dinner one night, “Isn’t it funny just how much junk the enemy tries to get into your head, simply because in spite of all he’s already done to you, you’re still here?” He was totally right!
The enemy has already taken one leg, my right one. Well. left leg or no left leg, I will not let him cripple me ever again. Greater is the God Who lives in me, strengthening and sustaining me, that the liar who roams the fields of this earth, looking for some poor sucker who will believe his lies.
I see now that God has taken me by the hand through all these years, and yet again on this trip, not from weakness to greater weakness, but from a position of strength to greater strength. For His greater Glory.
I am happy to say that, as I type these words, I have put in all those hours of ministry and Body-strengthening behind me on this trip. Here in LA, I have already spoken in several home churches and in one church. I am now looking forward to speaking in more Bible studies, starting tonight, where I will get to encourage a church’s young adult community to live their lives for God.
After that, I will speak this coming Sunday in 2 more churches here in LA [ I spoke in three actually - Carson First AG, Heights Worship Center and New Hope International Christian Center - jbd] before flying out to Vancouver, Canada (more airports!) where, I am told, another church awaits my arrival for another week of Spirit-led ministry.
So let’s look at it again, shall we? Florida, New York, Dallas, California. And then Vancouver, back to California. And then back home, where I belong. And where a calendar-full of ministry opportunities already await.
[All told, I went 22 times to 10 airports, and was in the air for about, ooohhh, 56 hours? -jbd]
Not bad for a jetlagging, one-legged guy.
I SURVIVED CAPILANO SUSPENSION BRIDGE!!!
Awhile back, kuya David's daughter Beverly showed me her photos of her time in VBC with her dad. They went to this place called Capilano Bridge, which is a suspension bridge that leads to a preserved forrest area in North Vancouver. I looked at those pictures, saw how beautiful the place was and, in my heart of hears, said something like, "That's a really cool place! Too bad I'll never get to experience that just cuz I'd never survive all the walking..."
Well, today, kuya David, together with Justin and his girlfriend Koochie, took me there.
And, by God's amazing Grace...I SURVIVED CAPILANO BRIDGE!
Hallelujah!
Not only that! I also went on their Treetop Adventure! Essentialy, it's a tour of the forrest area from the top! They built more suspension bridges, but this time they built them on the treetops! They used the largest trees, the Douglas firs, to carry the load of the elevated walkways.
Needless to say, it was quite an exhilarating experience. I haven't felt that great in such a long time! By the time we were done, I was sweating like a mule...in freezing cold weather! And I really, really felt super good.
God is good.
And I am NOT a cripple!
In the words of the apostle Paul, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Phil. 4:13) |
