Word of the Week: Collaborate

For the past seven weeks or so, I have been choosing one word that would best describe my week or what I most want achieved that week. I would write that word down in my journal/planner, at the bottom of my weekly calendar.

I thought this week would be a tough one since there's so much to do I couldn't really focus on one project or goal. But then, my eyes fell on the opposite page of my journal where I'd just finished jotting down the things I'm most grateful for this week. Almost every item on it are people with whom I have been working with on one project or another.

This may seem like something very common to some, but not to me. I have always been inclined towards working alone rather than with a partner or team. It's pretty tough for me to brainstorm with others without either clamming up or monopolizing ideas. I also find it hard to ask for help or share a workspace with others. 

Thankfully, God has been patiently showing me this weakness and helping me overcome it by giving me opportunities to share more with others.

This week has been filled with those. And the opportunities came in so beautiful a manner that I didn't have time to feel awkward about it. 

There are the moms who are sharing their resources/plans/ideas for future Child Education projects. There's the youth who helped me clean out the office. There are the church brethren who give gardening advice and gifts for the kids' sunflower project that I started. There are the youth leaders preparing for our major activity this weekend. There's the Publishing Team and all the production plans for the upcoming camp meeting. And I'd even count in all the Facebook conversations I had this week that included some sort of plans, sharing, and agreements.

So the word for this week is COLLABORATE. It's to realize that truly no man is an island, that there's beauty in synergy, and that God works in the hearts of His people to bring them together in His service, like stones framed together for the upbuilding of His kingdom.

Best of all, "For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building." 1Corinthians 3:9

God is working with me on me, building me up to become who He wants me to be. And sometimes He uses other people as instruments for that work. 

Today's Teacher: Horror Vacui

Horror Vacui. I first learned the term in an Art class in college. It means  "fear of empty spaces," "fear of the empty," or "fear of white spaces."

Today, I came across it again while working on a layout project for our upcoming camp meeting. Thankfully, another sister has already chosen the images and created the general look of the design. My job, she said, was to arrange the elements. I am no artist/graphic designer. I'm just somebody who tries to do the best she can. So over and over again, I found myself changing images, resizing, changing colors and fonts, adding and deleting elements, and stressing all throughout. At the end of all that, I sat in front of the computer, face to face with 40-50% of white space.

This is it.
The boss battle.

I tried putting back some of the images I had already deleted. I tried one background after another. Almost exhausted, I asked myself, Why do I need to fill up this space? What is wrong with this emptiness, this silence?

When God created the earth, He made it with lots of air, lots of breathing room, lots of space, lots of peace and quiet.

That was when my favorite passages from the Bible and Inspiration came to me:

"When every other voice is hushed, and in quietness we wait before Him, the silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God." -EGW, The Desire of Ages

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10

"There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart and lives a life wholly consecrated to God." -EGW, Maranatha

Be silent. Be still. Do not be afraid of the quiet, of the inactivity, of rest, of what seems to be emptiness. It is room for the Holy Spirit to work in your heart.

Meanwhile, here is the promotional banner for the camp meeting. You are, of course, invited. And do keep us in your prayers. Maranatha!

What I Learned Most at the Recently Concluded Camp Meeting

These past two camp meetings, I have
been assigned to work with the children in a separate class. I spent the mornings and the afternoons teaching them scripture songs, memory verses, Bible stories, and the basics of our fundamental beliefs. This meant that I missed four of the five daily plenary sessions, since I am able to attend only the morning worship and the evening session each day.

But this has not hindered me from receiving some very important reminders from the Lord. One of them I learned through a mistake I made while teaching.

I was doing a lesson on the Judgment and the Book of Life, how we need to get our names written in that book so that we be judged worthy of eternal life. I was trying to make it easier for children to understand the requirements. I told them, “If you are good children, doing good things, helpful to mother and father, kind to other children, obedient to the commandments, your name will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

Right? Right?

The children all agreed. “Who wants to go to heaven?” Every hand went up. “Then be good kids, alright?”

A resounding yes!

I was happy with the attentiveness and the response, contented happy. I was doing my job as well as I could. I smiled from the inside. But then I glanced at my presentation notes, and in a split second I knew I made a grave mistake.

Of the way to be registered in the Book of Life, my notes said, “Receive Jesus into the life.”

Had I mentioned that? Had I told them that they had to have Jesus in their lives so they could be obedient, kind, good kids? Had I told them they couldn’t do it on their own? Had I told them Jesus died to make it possible? Had I told them how to receive Jesus?

Just then, one child or another began to be distracted from the class and in the next split second I was losing their attention.

So I let the thoughts slip by. I had them sing songs, memorize their verses, and color in their activity sheets. I drilled them on the sanctuary furniture, and on which things are holy and which are common. They really enjoyed that. Then we prayed and I let them go to their parents.

But today, more than a week later, it still bothers me.

So this is how it happened. This is one of the reasons why when I look around me and inside me, I see “adults” who have difficulty grasping that we are not saved by our own works, that it is the blood of the righteous Son of God alone that can cleanse us from sin, that only through Him can we have righteousness, that good works apart from an intimate, saving relationship with Him (if that is at all even possible), can avail nothing.

It is what we have been taught even as children.

God help me. God help every Sabbath School teacher all over the world. God help every parent and teacher. God help the children.

To and Through: The Beginning of My Mongolian Adventures

(A note from Gladys: Hello, everyone. Scribbles and Everday Miracles welcomes aboard Anthony, who will be sharing in this blog how God is leading him in his most recent missionary assignment. The following is only a first. We hope you are blessed by it and the others that will follow.)

On the morning that I received the confirmation of my travel to Mongolia, I was preparing to make an eleven-hour journey by bus to my parents’ home. It has been months since I first received the call to be a missionary in Mongolia, and for a while there it seemed that it would never happen. But it’s true that God does not think as man does.

It was a Wednesday, and I had planned to stay with my parents until the weekend. However, I was informed that I was booked for a flight out of the country on Saturday night. All plans of a nice and fuzzy weekend with family dissolved, and thus began a series of seemingly unfortunate events that turned out to be a story of grace.

I made the trip home to say goodbye to my parents (I’d be gone two full years!). The journey was supposed to be smooth, if not for the typhoon that raged almost all night and really slowed the bus down. As we reached the next province, a major part of the bus got broken and almost sent us rolling off the cliff. By God’s grace, no one was hurt.

From Better Way Foundation in Nueva Era, Ilocos Norte to my hometown in Echgue, Isabela, and back.

I arrived home Thursday morning. That same night I needed to travel back to the missionary campus. My parents sent me off with tight hugs and many tears. Two years would not go by so fast.

During the trip back came yet another typhoon. The stronger the winds blew and the heavier the rain poured, the more the bus shook, and the more intense the prayers.

Friday morning I was back in campus with only enough time to finish packing my things and say goodbye to my friends and fellow missionaries. If I were to make it to my Saturday evening flight, I had to make another night trip by bus.

The rain poured the entire day and flooded the creek that crossed the path to the campus, completely washing away the footbridge. But I and some friends, wet from the rain and wading in the creek, still managed to attend the vespers meeting and the simple farewell program prepared for me. My missionary friends sang “God Will Take Care of You.” I was moved and motivated.

After the program, my closest friends braved the still-pouring rain with me, crossing the flooded creek to bring me by jeepney to the city two hours away, where I could take the bus for another 12-hour trip to the airport in Manila. I would then have 16 hours in Manila before my flight, a safe enough margin – if the typhoon wasn’t there.

But it was.

As the rain kept pouring heavily, the flood water rose until the roads looked like a huge river. My friend drove carefully and slowly. Still one of the tires fell off the road and we found ourselves stuck in the mud. There was no way to move in any direction.

The scene brought to mind an incident about three days back. I had a truck bring my things down from our mountain campus. One tire slid into a ditch and got us stuck there. After hours of trying, my two friends and I could not get the truck out. One phone call later, our friends arrived from the campus, with two carabaos (water buffalos) to pull the poor truck out of the ditch and get us back on the road. Praise God!

But this time was different. We were in the middle of nowhere, too far for our carabaos to come pull us out; and it was literally the middle of the night, too late for phone calls (phone services and electricity were down anyway, due to the typhoon). We spent hours pushing, pulling, doing everything we could, and finally we got through.

Still, the night’s challenge was far from over.

It turned out that all the bridges that led out of our little town were either broken or covered entirely with water. We went this way and that, tried all the routes we knew, all to no avail. We were left with no choice but to wait for the water to subside. Our clothes still wet, we slept in the jeepney for two or three more hours – each minute eating away the precious time allowance before my flight – before the water was shallow enough for us to safely cross the bridge.

By then, dawn was already breaking.

As we drove, we could see roadblocks and fallen trees everywhere, landslides, once-dry riverbeds filled to overflowing, rice fields turned to seemingly endless expanses of water. We could only be thankful.

Two hours to the city. Twelve hours to the airport. Now I just had enough time to make it to my flight.

At the bus terminal, I bid my friends goodbye. What a night we had! I took the bus, and the trip proved so much better this time. But this calm, it turned out, was only as the passing of the eye of a storm.

From Nueva Era to Laoag City to the airport in Manila, to Tagaytay, and back to Manila.

True enough, I arrived in time at the airport and breezed through checking in. But a tint of anxiety grew on me as I went through Immigration.

As it happened, I didn’t have all the needed documents to travel abroad, and I was held in Immigration for interviews.

One hour before the flight. I sent frantic emails to the office in our mountain campus (where there has been no electricity for days), the LIGHT office, and the hosting organization in Mongolia. No reply. Tick tock, tick tock.

“Lord, is it really Your will for me to go?” I have spent the last three nights on one vehicle or another, the last three days saying goodbye to loved ones; I have been through storm and flood, I have prayed and used up the best of my strength. “Is it really Your will for me to go?”

Tick tock, tick tock.

The plane left without me. I went to a friend’s house for a place to stay. The following day, they were leaving for their new house and invited me to come along. We got lost along the way, and they wondered why – but not me. Not anymore.

A couple of days later, the documents were prepared, another flight booked, and Immigration passed.

Mongolia. Finally.

At the Mongolian airport, I was met by my first Mongolian friend who was shaking when I first saw her. I understood why when she told me later that they met a little accident on their way to the airport. Wow.

Baaska, the girl who came to meet me at the Mongolian airport - but not without meeting a challenge first.

The following morning, we prepared to make the eight-hour trip to Starting Point Life University, where I would be serving God for the next two years. But as we were leaving the city, a car suddenly hit the back of our car. Oh, when will this end?

From Manila to Ulaanbaatar (via Incheon) to the SPLU Campus in Bugat, Bulgan, Mongolia.

Still, gratitude and praises to God filled my heart and my prayers as we reached the SPLU campus in Bulgan Province. It was the Lord’s will for me to be here, after all.

The Philippine flag I presented to Academic Dean Cathie  and Khisgee (John), the School President (right). 

In the campus, as I met fellow foreigners who will also be working with SPLU, I learned that they too had their own versions of the long and bumpy ride that brought us together in one mission field. Amazing challenges and miracles filled their joyful stories.

Their experiences and mine helped me understand more clearly the Lord’s ways of preparing a soul for bigger challenges in life. It may be a typhoon, a flood, a ditch, a bump in the road, or getting lost in the dark – all of these remind me that if it is God who has called me, it will be God who will carry me through; If He brings me TO it, it only means that He will bring me THROUGH it.

Now just thinking of what the next challenges will be completely thrills my heart. Anyway, I know that God will take care of me. Like it says in the song my friends sang,

“Be not afraid whate’er betide,

God will take care you.

Beneath His wings of love abide,

God will take care of you.

God will take care of you
Through every day, all o'er the way.
He will take care of you;
God will take care of you."

Do stay tuned for more Mongolian Adventures with the greatest Guide ever.

BWF Volunteers Bonding at the Vintar Dam

After five months of waiting, the volunteers of Better Way Foundation finally had the tiny window of opportunity (and we had to make it, too!) to leave our mountain home and spend time together. We went for a river adventure rather than the usual beach, and Vintar Dam offered just the perfect place. Only about 20 minutes from Laoag City Proper, Vintar Dam offers a clean and safe spot for swimming and other water activities such as boating and kayaking. Life guards also stand ready and watching for crying kids on solo kayaks drifting off from mommy and daddy in the (mostly) six-feet deep roped-in area, beyond which are the deeper waters restricted only for more skilled swimmers (such as our Bicol boys. Carlo, Joseph, and Joshua). At the end of the day, the volunteers had more fun than expected - especially with the abundance of food heartily given by brethren and friends. It truly was wonderful hearing God speak through nature, His Word, and experience in Christian fellowship how it makes Him happy to see His children living and working in unity and harmony. Till the next bonding moment!

The perfect sunrise backdrop to morning devotional on a floating cottage.

BWF Volunteers refreshed and ready for the day's water adventures.

BWF President Emerson Zarate pedaling off with one of the Dam's attractions. 

Of course, Yeng had to try it too! :D

Volunteer Mae Monarez on a solo kayak

Joshua and Rose Jean on a kayak for two...

...or three (when the guard's not looking. hihi).

Hello, me, with the BeCool boys, Carlo, Joshua, and Joseph. :D

Jelai Fajarito and the kayaks of many colors.

Let's go boating! with Jeniflor Ramos.

Tatay Rudy with some of the Dam's other attractions.

My jogging buddies, Carlo and Anthony, at the Dam.

The BeCool boys, again. Before diving in.

View from the Dam Watchtower.

The Happiest Place

If someone told me two years ago that I would be leaving my home and my church in Davao City to serve the Lord some place else, I would have laughed. I was practically rooted in that place, and was prepared to spend my lifetime helping the church there as I always have.

But here I am now, up in the mountains somewhere in Ilocos Norte, virtually at the other end of the Philippine archipelago, still happily serving my Lord and excitedly asking where He would take me next, and when.

January this year, I took the six-month Health Evangelism course with a one-month Public Evangelism exposure here at LIGHT Philippines. Little did I then know that I would come back after one month, fully convinced that it is the Lord's will for me and my ministry.

So I've been here as a volunteer for a little over a month, and that period seems to have gone by in a blur. With preparations underway for the school's first Grand Alumni Homecoming (happening now) and 5th Annual Camp Meeting (happening tomorrow), I practically hit the ground running.

Much of the past month was spent going to and from the office/bakery, which is about a kilometer and half from the school, and sleeping over to prepare for the homecoming and camp meeting. Many late nights later, I find myself looking back to home and asking why God has brought me here.

And the answer continues to be an adventure unraveling.

I've met many people, made new friends, learned that God's family is BIG. I've taught my first class, and inevitably have had my first teacher heartbreak. I've been through my first volunteer struggles. I've also quite gracefully survived my first storm - Typhoon Mario - which slammed through our huts, uprooted our trees, and destroyed much of our farm. 

Walking from point to point inside of this campus, I often find myself looking down at my feet and wondering why they are walking this part of the earth.

And the answer comes to me in remembering the life of Abraham:

It was no light test that was thus brought upon Abraham, no small sacrifice that was required of him. There were strong ties to bind him to his country, his kindred, and his home. But he did not hesitate to obey the call. He had no question to ask concerning the land of promise--whether the soil was fertile and the climate healthful; whether the country afforded agreeable surroundings and would afford opportunities for amassing wealth. God has spoken, and His servant must obey; the happiest place on earth for him was the place where God would have him to be.  

{PP 126.3}  

We bloom best where God plants us.

So I take my place among the many who are here, both searching and settled at the same time. I endeavor to work with them, pray with them, learn with them, and serve with them. For as long as God wills that I remain here, I will. And when this new family sing Steve Green's "I Will Go," I know and understand in my heart exactly what they feel and mean:

I will go where there are no easy roads,

leave the comforts that I know.

I will go and let this journey be my home,

I will go, I will go.

And I will go, Lord, where Your glory is unknown;

I will live for You alone.

I will go because my life is not my own.

I will go, I will go.

Back from the Mountains

Now that training's over and I'm off the boondocks, there's so much I can't wait to do: upload photos and vids, get my computer back to shape, update my blog, get home, do the laundry, see everyone, cook (yes, cook), research stuff, organize my files, share the things i've learned, buy clothes na pang Christian Living , and reply to everyone who's been messaging me for the past seven months, among others. I miss the mountains already, but I'm sure that wherever the Lord is taking me will be even more beautiful. I'm still not better than anybody, but I believe that I'm better than who I was. I praise the Lord for His goodness and for His faithfulness in my life. Everyday I learn that He loves me with more love than I could possibly know in this lifetime.

Kindergarten: Talking Donkeys

The kids totally enjoyed making their donkey puppets. The craft went well with our lesson on Balaam and the Donkey that Talked

Posted via Blogaway

Kindergarten: The Ten Plagues of Egypt

I know I promised a post on Baby Moses and I'm getting around to doing just that. In the meantime, I just have to share this puzzle activity on the Ten Plagues of Egypt because I put a lot of work into making it. haha


After making each individual piece fit, editing each piece, cutting up into 12 different files, fitting them up together to see if they'd fit back, and finally laying out for printing, I now think I deserve applause. and I still have to cut them up using real scissors and sort the pieces (120 pieces, to be exact) into envelopes. remind me why on earth I thought of this activity. I'm definitely saving this and using this again and again just to make the effort worth it.

The idea is to hand out the puzzle pieces to the kids and have them glue the pieces back together on a prepared sheet. I do hope they enjoy doing this.

Anyway, none of the clipart used is mine so I'm paying forward by sharing the puzzle here.



If you do use this for your class, do tell me how it goes.

God bless!

Rebuked. Refreshed. Redirected.

It’s always a blessing and a joy to be with people who inspire and motivate me to do more for the ministry, especially those people with more understanding and experience.

Yesterday was one of those inspiring days as I got to sit with a pastor from another church and share insights about our upreach and outreach.

Here I’m sharing a few of his insights in the hope that you too will be blessed by them.

“You know what really works? As Christians, we should be cheerful and happy. I’ve seen really rich people who are without joy. We should be the happiest. We have Christ.”

“In all my study, I have understood only one thing – that prayer is the answer to everything.”

Nothing is impossible to him that believes, and prayer is the expression of that faith.

“Do not be contented with the good that you are doing now. Seek further education, upgrade your knowledge and your skills… Seek education that will improve your line of ministry.”

Sometimes, it’s easy to fall into the routine of the work, to do what you’ve always done in the same way and for the same people. But there’s more, always more that we can do for God. We only need to submit to Him to be used by Him.

“Time management. You cannot afford leisure time. Every hour must be productive. Every moment must be one of learning.”

And the best lesson I learned yesterday afternoon:

“Fire in the ministry is only a result of fire in devotional life.”

Yes, I was (probably unconsciously on his part) rebuked. My love for the ministry has more often than not manifested itself in activity, in output, in planning, in outreach, in desire for more action. Perhaps in my desire to shepherd others, I have neglected to shepherd my own soul through much prayer and meditation. He suggested that I fix specific times of day for prayer, like every two hours or so. Jesus Himself spent an entire night in prayer before He chose the twelve. A “hello, God” and a “good night, God” just isn’t enough.

It has been a wonderful day for my soul – refreshing in the sense that I am renewed in my desire to serve and given a new direction in the work, a direction that reaches not only out but also, and more importantly, up.

Adventist Youth Program Ideas

Idea # 4: A Church Ministry for You

Objective: To find a place for every church member in the work of God. This is also useful for Ministry Heads to identify possible recruits for ministry projects.

Materials Needed: A list of all the ministries in your church (Prison Ministry, Radio Ministry, Publishing Ministry, Welfare Ministry, etc.), active and otherwise. Names of the ministries written in individual signboards. You can also have the option to make a list of the activities, projects, and plans of that ministry to go along with the signboard.

Mechanics:  Before the start of the activity, group seats according to the number of ministries in your church and place a signboard at each seat group. Have assistants stationed at each location. It might even be better if you can ask the Ministry Heads to act as your assistants for this activity. Begin by saying that the Church is organized for missionary purposes and that every member is called upon to be a missionary. Briefly introduce the ministries you have at your church. Instruct the congregation to take a tour of the different stations and find the ministry they feel they are best suited for. They are then to stay at that station with the others who chose the same ministry. When everyone is already seated, the assistants/Ministry Heads will begin to ask each person at his station to say why he/she chose that ministry and what he/she thinks he/she could do to contribute to that ministry. Ideas for new projects may also be gathered. Allow about 20-40 minutes for the discussions, depending on the size of the groups. If you have small congregation (like we do at my church), you can skip the regrouping and just ask the members to come up to the microphone one by one. When everyone has had the chance to share, end by saying that there is a place in the church's work for everyone and that God would be very happy if all would enlist and share in the burdens and joys of the church.

And that's it. Everyone participated, everyone found out what they can do for the church, and the ministries found a fresh batch of possible recruits. Make sure to do a follow up with the Ministry Heads regarding projects and activities.

If you try this at your church, I'll be glad to know how it goes.

Enjoy your AY Program!

my newest challenge

this quarter, i was given a new challenge at church: teaching sabbath school for kids ages four to six. i did teach Vacation Bible School Kindergarten for two consecutive years, but this new teaching stint is different because of at least three things:

(a) all the kids have prior sabbath school kindergarten experience; i don't.
(b) they have preference for the routine and songs from their previous teacher (which they've had from the day we put up sabbath school kindergarten); and
(c) 90% of the kids will have their parents in the classroom with them

these past two weeks, i spent a substantial amount of time just preparing lesson plans, learning songs, printing and cutting out materials, organizing visual aides, purchasing supplies, and basically just being nervous.

i'm not sure how many quarters i'll be teaching this class. this sabbath will be my third out of the 13 sabbaths in a quarter. so far, i have been able to keep the kids satisfied, but not ooh-ahhh-clap excited. the parents have been helpful, too - singing along when teacher doesn't know the song the kids want to sing and etc.

i have also managed to forget and completely skip major parts of the routine. boo!

so this week, i'm doing more prep work: researching on teaching strategies, organizing my materials better, and studying the lesson harder. i'm also going over their songs and fingerplays and thinking up ways to make our classroom more interesting for them.

my students, designing clothes (like Hannah for Samuel) in our makeshift classroom

in doing all this, i find many helpful places in the internet, such as

http://www.gracelink.net/article/3/kindergarten for lesson helps
http://www.kindergarten-lessons.com/kindergarten-teaching.html and http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/Play/Ktodayplay.pdf for teaching strategies
http://www.youtube.com/user/maranathakids/videos for children's music
http://www.mrprintables.com/ and http://www.activityvillage.co.uk for free printables

but my greatest help, as always, comes from the greatest Teacher. 

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  James 1:5

“For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” Luke 12:12 (NKJV)

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.  1 Corinthians 15:58

so bring it on!

it's September already?!

it's been a full month since my last post. i know, i've been slacking off. we've been really busy with all the buzz at church.
first off, we're moving really really soon into the new church location. it's a few kilometers away from the old one, a little far for commute but it's all worth it. it's half-a-hectare of land with so much promise in it. we'll start cleaning up this sunday.
along with that, we just started on a new business at church - one that'll help ensure we could pay for the land's monthly dues so it could finally be ours. we're selling Hope for Health's herbal supplements. it's the perfect business for us since it's helping people move away from synthetic medicine and providing them a safe source of effective natural alternatives. i put quite a bit of my time into building the website for that which you can visit here.
i've also been busy with paperwork for the church's registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. we've been unregistered until our prison ministry called for it - and now we are! :)
my current and upcoming projects include the next quarter's Sabbath School lesson, fliers, promotional materials for the herbal supplements, actually moving into the new church location, scrapbooks for the Earliteens class (yey!), blogging, more Bible students, and much much more.
i'll let you in on the loop as often as i can, so stay tuned. God bless you. :)

writing is a path to understanding

next to air, food, water, clothing, shelter, family and friends, the two earthly things i could not live without are pen and paper. that's how things have always been for me since as far back as i could remember. not that i write anything earth-shattering; mostly it's just doodles, ideas (that fleet without paper and ink), reminders, to do lists, insights. but you get the idea. i love words, the worlds they create, the worlds they make known.

when i look at kids of the younger generation - the ones who compose the Sabbath School class that i teach - i see a lack of this love, if not a complete absence of it. oh, how much they are missing!

what i did was provide them with notebooks to use as journals with the instruction that they write two entries per week. i don't care what they write about, their grammar, the language used (just as long as i understand), the spelling, the length, the viewpoint, the attitude. what i want them to do is to look at their subject and write about it. i am hoping that by doing this, they will learn to look beyond what meets the eye, inspect, analyze, compare, contrast, describe, think critically, form opinions, form attitudes and understand.

writing is a lot like public speaking, only you get more preparation time. the process usually compels a person to bring his thoughts together, choose the most appropriate words, structure a whole out of disjoint parts, and stretch creativity muscles. thus, a person's mind is exercised, strengthened, deepened, broadened and hopefully, elevated.

above all, i pray that the comprehension they develop will become one of their tools for understanding the Word of God and how it applies to the things they see and experience. God wants His every child to make full use of every opportunity for intellectual and spiritual growth. writing is one of those opportunities because it allows you to look not only at what you write about but more importantly into yourself and the things you value.

i am not expecting to suddenly discover Shakespeares or Davids in my students. i can't even expect to get them to share my love for words and writing. but who knows, i might be in for a surprise. this coming Sabbath, i'll find out. :)

what strategies do you apply to help your students understand?

the boys in my class

teaching the kindergarten class at Vacation Bible School was a most fulfilling and fun experience. one week of living away from home, crafting visual aids, pumping out energy for the action songs, and occasionally running after one or another of the 45 kids in my class was really, truly, completely exhilarating.

that is perhaps why the following week had been a little too quiet and uneventful (except for Sabbath and the tract distribution activity).

to make up for the i-miss-the-action mood, i am sharing photos of the boys who really, truly, completely made my VBS experience very much action-filled.

manoy! (trivia: he fell off a pick up truck once, off a tree another time, had us on a chase at least thrice, and threw a rock at a teacher once. we all miss him.)

seriously, who wouldn't miss this bright star?

Don't get me wrong. i miss the girls and the rest of the class, too.

but they didn't contribute as much to my temporary loss of voice. i miss VBS! :)

Working with God... and Ayn

For the longest time, I've been feeling that something's quite lacking in this blog. And yesterday, I finally realized what it is: ACTION!

So from this point on, I'll be putting up posts about the things that I do at work in the Royal Valley Free SDA Church. Allow me to start with the tract distribution activity that we conducted just this morning.

Our Publishing Ministry currently produces two kinds of tracts in two languages. One is about the seventh-day Sabbath and the other is about the eight principles of health. This morning, we set out to distribute them house to house in a subdivision near our church.

Now other people would think it boring and even embarrassing to go out under the sun and up to strangers to hand out "boring" flyers - but not us! The people at my church actually enjoy activities like this and some are so excited they're at the assembly area waaaay before the appointed time. And little kids came along, too.

One of the youngest to come out and join was four-year old Ayn who walked the streets hand in hand with me (very very lucky me!). I thought her little legs would tire easily so we just watched the other kids  gleefully hand out the flyers or put them into mailboxes while we took a much slower pace. Ayn had been my student at Vacation Bible School last week so I sang the songs we learned. Happy with Jesus  and I Will Wear A Crown in My Father's House . She giggles so cute.

When she learned from the older kids what we were supposed to be doing, she made it her duty to point the gates and mailboxes to me. Later on, she volunteered to put the flyers into the mailboxes herself. And each time I asked her if she was tired, she never said yes. Such a little trouper!

I didn't get to give away as many flyers as I used to in the other distribution activities because Ayn's little legs could only walk so fast. But she made it so much fun, I actually didn't mind.

It's obvious the other guys had fun, too. And all while doing the work of the Lord!