Joy and I, together with 2,700 other people, attended the Singles for Christ Metro Manila Conference last weekend in Baguio.  It started out as a seven and a half hour trip from Manila last Friday when we left at 6:00 pm and arrived at 1:30 am early Saturday morning.  It ended with an even longer ten and a half hour trip on the way back to Manila, coincidentally arriving at the same time 1:30 am. But what happened in between the trip to and from Baguio, is a journey like no other I have experienced for a long time.

The conference was entitled “The Christ Pursuit”.    To be honest, unlike the other previous conferences, I felt like I did not contribute much to its preparations. I was not a speaker, nor was I a resource person for any workshop.  I was not asked to write any talk.  When asked what my role was, I would say “I will be there as a participant.”  At the back of my mind, I welcomed this thought for I felt I could focus on God’s message for me.  

And He did not disappoint me.  I can summarize them into three main points:

God’s love is real

The whole conference was founded on God’s love for all of us.  It was evident in how the talks flowed from the speakers’ mouths and how sharers gave life to these talks.  It was evident in the worship and the praise fest which touched the extremes of my joyful emotions.  It was evident in the quiet reflection moments which filled my mind with visual images of His immense love for us.  It was evident in how He proved once again that He is more powerful than any logistical problem or any PFO concern by taking control of these things in spite of our human limitations.

God’s message is personal

 Days after the conference, emails from different people started to pour in narrating how God spoke to them during the weekend.  As I sifted through the messages, I could not help but be amazed at how the messages were so personal.  It was as if God reserved Himself solely to talk to each participant, no time limits, no deadlines, and no other people in the queue.  And He did it for all the 2,700 delegates.

God’s message came to me right before the Saturday mass started.  “These are my children. Take care of them,” He said.   My first reply was, “How can I, there are so many of them?” referring to all the delegates in the conference.  Then He made me remember that I was the SFC International Coordinator.  “Oh, you aren’t just referring to the people here, but all the SFCs all over the world?” 

Silence from Him.

God’s call is universal

The answer came towards the end of the day, during the 3rd talk later that night.  The speaker emotionally shared a vision revealed to her years ago:  “Bring them all back home to Me.”  Then it struck me, that the message for me was “These are my children. Take care of them ALL”, not just the delegates in Baguio, not just all the SFCs, but everyone.  Quickly, the SFC vision revealed to us last year flashed into my mind “Every single man and woman all over the world experiencing Christ.”  It was amazing how different events at different points in history and how individual messages seem to converge to a higher calling from God.

My fear of having responsibility to take care of all these people quickly dissipated with a few more messages.  Recall that the Gospel reading for that Sunday was the feeding of the five thousand people. While there was really the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and fish, I sincerely believe that the other miracle that happened on that day was the miracle of sharing.  The five barley loaves and two fishes would not have multiplied if the little boy did not offer to share this with others.  And with this simple act of sharing born out of love, a multitude was eventually fed.

The responsibility of ensuring that every single man and woman all over the world will experience Christ does not rest solely on me.  Nor does it rest solely on you.  But all of us can be channels of God’s love in whatever limited roles we may have in our lives.  The reality of God’s love which we experienced should not be kept as a mere personal experience, but instead should be shared.  The call to love one another is universal, and the ultimate vision, distant and impossible as it may look, will only begin to happen if each one of us does our little share of loving.

We can start with the people we are in constant contact with: our family, our officemates, our brothers and sisters in the community.  Take it further to our acquaintances, even total strangers we bump into during the course of our daily routines.  Who knows where the love we once received and which we pass on will eventually end up?  Each one of us can actually feed our own five thousand people with this love.

Perhaps this is why the Lord revealed to me, once upon a time, what is and continues to be one of my favorite passages taken from Matthew 10:8 “You received this as a gift, so give it as a gift.”  This indeed is a gift I truly am thankful to give away for it has been so generously poured upon me by the Giver.  And I know it stands only to return back to me a hundredfold.

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing this Tito Aldy. :)

I am deeply touched as I am reading this because I am reminded by my own Christ Pursuit experience. After seven years of serving God thru SFC, just when I thought that I already experienced every facets of His unfailing love, He would just awe me with His love that is just so real and personal and dynamic. And the conference was a helpful reminder that God is really the most beautiful thing that can ever happen to a person`s life. The journey with Him goes on. Wherever He takes me, I would always be thankful to the community for helping me know Him, serve Him and love Him.

I pray that you and all the leaders of SFC will continuously lead us in making our vision of sharing our Christ experiences into real action. :)

I praise God for revealing His love and greatness to us despite our weaknesses and imperfections. I also praise God for the anointing of our leaders in you Kuya Aldy and Ate joy! Its always a blessing to serve with you!

Yes indeed God really spoke to each and everyone of us in the conference. God really spoke to me personally with his music. During the praisefest after the 3rd talk, I was firmly praying and asking God why all this are happening to me? I wasn`t have a successful career so far, I sacrifice a lot away from my family which I`ve started to miss them, I experienced total emptiness, I am still single and never experienced the one they so called true love, and I can`t imagine myself be married. As far as my service to God is concerned, I give everything I got, I bring out best that God gives to me and a lot of things. I started to feel the stress, in fact during the whole MMC I am suffering a fever and I felt it just before I go to Baguio. Then just like Tita Penny said she ask for 5 minutes and she got an answer just for 3 minutes. When I am praying I told God before I go down to this mountain I wish for an answer. But in a matter of less than 10 seconds, God answer me in that very same night I`ve questioned him. When the HEART OF WORSHIP started to play, God starts to spoke to me and I`ve cried very hard like a child, I don`t care what the people around will say, I am very much overwelmed to his answer to me. He said to me laud and clear " I am in charge, everything that happens to you is all about me, keep trusting in me and let me control of everything and I guarantee you a wonderful life ahead of you." At first I don`t feel to be in a conference mode cause of the stress I felt, and I feel this is the worst conference I ever had. But God always finds ways to make it the best even in a last minute.

To God be glorified!

thanks aldy, to you and joy for being so REAL and REACHABLE to us. for allowing us to see and be part of the vision. entrusted in your hands by the Lord, you guys nonetheless consciously let us actively do our part - and you lead us and applaud us as we do so. as our ICs you succeed in making God`s love very real and truly personal - praise God!