Unsung Heroes

Have you ever played the martyr
Only for the reason of a prize
Can we ever give up trying
To be something in another's eyes

We're so selfish, self seeking
We're so desperate to be number one
So unworthy of what's given
What are we doing here... unnoticed

unnoticed
plumb

Unnoticed… that's what some of us are. We interact with various people everyday and many of them don’t even get the chance to know what difference has God made in our lives. Like we're just another face in the crowd... Im not judging anyone. I have been passing through life unnoticed for quite a while…

I remember my mentors, who inspired me to write this blog...

I remember a British man who took me to the mountains of the northern Philippines, introduced me to a people who were "reached" beyond the mountains because of the willingness of disciples like him to leave the comforts of the west to go the tribal peoples of the east. We had to walk up to the mountains for about 3 hours before reaching the villages. He taught me how to spot drinkable water from among the brooks. That was where I got to taste the most delicious water that I’ve ever drank. And that is no exaggeration. I can still almost remember how it tasted. I was like 19 then. His name is John.

I could still remember an American man and his family in north Thailand. He was instrumental in taking me to the highest places in Chiang Mai, ministered to the different "northern hilltribes" as they are collectively called, and the Burmese refugees in the mountain borders. I remember him inviting me to his house to celebrate my birthday with his family when I was almost alone doing my cross-cultural internship. His name is Craig.

Then there was this Filipino man whose passion was to reach the folk muslims in the south islands of the Philippines. He took us on an exposure trip, to have us experience an on-site taste on how it’s like to be with them, even just for a week. For the purpose of giving us awareness of a world different from our own. We had a water worship where we sang praises in the sea as a symbol of letting the sea waters conduct our worship to the connecting islands. I didn’t get the symbolism. I found it too charismatic. Too Pentecostal. Except that during our singing and celebration, little fishes gathered around us we could even scoop them with our hands. To this day, I still don’t get the message why God let us experience that. I didn’t see any miraculous significance. But it sure was amazing. It surely was supernatural… His name is Lut.

Then this recent mentor of mine. White skinned like my two other mentors. One of the pioneers of the work in the south of this country, among the descendants of Ishmael. He encourages me even without saying a word. Seriously. He doesn’t have to teach me or exhort when we meet. His life is more than enough to shame me of my complacency. Of my lack of passion and zeal to pursue the call… the call of letting Ishmael’s sons know that from the lineage of Isaac came the Masih… [Arabic for ] the Messiah. His name is… sorry not this one.



There are many more… Unsung Heroes. You wont see them speaking in big crusades or leading multitudes in worship or selling a million copies of their latest books or newly released CD… They wont be getting any prestigious award like the Noble prize anytime soon... They might not be getting any acknowledgement from any religious, social, or political clubs and organizations. Some of them i got to meet durin the conference i just attended. And im sure I’ll get to meet a few more along the way… Unsung heroes. Working where only the Sender sees. Whose reward is yet to come... When the Father says "welcome my faithful servant and fearless soldier."

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this blog is especially dedicated to a man named Dough, a mentor, an inspiration, and who i love like an older brother...

Beautiful Strangers

won’t you tell me now
when did i see you in need of water?
oh, and tell me now
when did i see you hungry on the street?

God, i hear you calling out to me
in the voices of the least of these
calling me to reach beyond my world
to the beautiful stranger...

"beautiful stranger"
rebecca st. james

Sometimes we are so caught up in our own world that we tend to forget that there is a world outside our own.

Sometimes we think that the world our own private world is perfect on its own that we dont seem to care about the imperfect world around us.

About people who think differently from our way of thinking. Who live differently from the way we live our lives. Whose manners might not seem to be as refined as ours. Or who might not seem to be as logical and rational as we are. Whose culture seem to be a bit off track, laid back or even outdated. Who worship a diety who is in no way comparable to the God we worship...

And this is my point, really. Most culture are shaped by the kind of faith they have. culture and religion are most of the time so intertwined that we cannot sometimes tell one from the other. A certain people can be so laid back but that's because they have been taught to walk the middle path. To not go to both extremes of apathy and arrogance. Then there are those who appear to be so culturally militant and that's because they have been raised to be radical for their faith to the point of going to extremes.

And then there's us. A people who know who they believe and follow. We have been taught to be wise like a serpent and meek like a dove. We have been taught to be passionate about our faith then also share it in humility and meekness. To walk the extra mile if asked. To turn the other cheek if needed to. To feed the hungry. And clothe the naked. And comfort those who mourn. To show kindness and compassion and sacrificial love to those who think such virtues don’t exist. To be compelled by the love of the Almighty. Cause only by then can they know the difference. Between the lotus and the cross. Or the crescent and the cross.

There's us. wonderfully and fearfully made. Chosen. And there's them. Lost. Careless. But still beautiful in God's eyes.

There's us. Set apart… Yet being sent to them... Yes, to them. Beautiful strangers.

Are we gonna heed the call?

Yeah, Seriously...What If?

give me your eyes for just one second
give me your eyes so i can see
everything that I keep missing
give me your love for humanity…

give me your hands for the broken-hearted
the ones that are far beyond my reach
give me your heart for the ones forgotten
give me your eyes so i can see

“give me your eyes"
brandon heath

Seriously. What if God would indeed lend us his eyes for just a second? What do you think would he show us? What would each one of us expect God to show us?

His glory? His glorious presence? It would indeed be more than awesome to even just have a glimpse of his radiant glory. To experience what Paul himself experienced when he was taken up to the third heaven. After all, it is God’s utmost desire to reveal his holy presence, the fullness of his glory, to all his creation. That everyone would bow down to his Majesty. Ah, the glory of God. It is everyone’s desire to have even just a glimpse of it…

Or how about a true picture of hell? How it’s like down there. Would it make us more zealous and passionate to be a witness of his salvation once we have a brief experience of the pit? If I remember it right, the founder of the Salvation Army once said that he wished that everyone in his congregation would have a vision of what hell is, so that they would be more radical for their Lord and be more passionate to witness for him…

Or maybe the end times. You know, the End of Days and the Armageddon… those kind of stuff. What it’s like when the so-called end of the world comes. What would happen during the so-called seven-year Tribulation. And the judgment day. Who really is the anti-christ? (Ouch, it hurts my teeth even just to say that.) To have a clearer picture of what John has vaguely(?) described in the book of Revelations. Doomsday preachers would so love to see all these…

Or would God give us a tour to the unfinished task? To the unreached peoples of the world… The tribes, and tongues, and peoples, and nations, who are yet to hear the message of God’s redemptive plan. People offering food and incense to a monk or some form of deity to make merit and receive blessing. People making pilgrimage to so-called sacred places, to attain some form holiness, purification, enlightenment, or even salvation.

But really… Does God really have to lend us his eyes for us to see the hungry, the hurting, the heart-broken, and the hell-bound? We see them everyday… We pass by them. Or they pass us by. We interact with them. We see them on the morning papers. We see them on the evening news. We see them… with our own naked eyes.

So then, if God would give us his eyes for just one second… or a minute, what do you think would he show us?

Change

put away all i know for tonight
and maybe i just might
learn to let it go…

take my security from me
and maybe finally
i wont have to know everything…

i am falling into grace
to the unknown to where you are
and faith makes everybody scared
it’s the unknown, the don’t-know
that keeps me hanging on and on to you

"unknown"
lifehouse


Change is inevitable. It’s the only thing that’s constant. Change happens in life all the time. And too many times, we are afraid of change. Because what if the change would be unpleasant? So we avoid it. We like the familiar. We like how things are. Change scares us. We are afraid of the unfamiliar.

We can learn from the experience of Elijah and how he faced a major change in his life. After declaring a drought as a prophecy against Ahab (or something like that), God sent him to this place called Kerith. There he was fed by ravens and drew water from a brook. He was Jehovah’s VIP (very important prophet). Life was good for Elijah. Talk about being fed by ravens with bread and steak. Talk about abundant provision of water to drink from a brook while everyone else was experiencing drought and famine. That’s pretty awesome! Until one day, something happened… The brook dried up. Just like that… his VIP life was over. He had to move out and move on. And he was even sent by God to a widow and her son whose food supply was just a handful of flour and a matching little oil. What kind of God would let his provision run out then send this prophet to a poor widow whose food supply wouldn’t even last a day? Isnt it ironic, don’t you think?

Change. It happens all the time. Sometimes when you least expect it. And it blows right in front of you uprepared. Unsuspecting. No warning shot or whatever. We don’t see it coming. So we panic. And we hide. We get scared to venture out to the unfamiliar. We cant possibly go to a poor widow whose food is running out anyway. Talk about recession…

What is your Kerith? What is that brook that you are clinging on to and almost impossible to let go? Sometimes God would require us to let go of the things that we dearly hold on to. To remind us that HE is our real and only security. That he is the source of everything we ever have and we ever desire for. To remind us that we also need to share the grace and goodness we received from him to others.

Thing is, Elijah has become reclusive in his little perfect world. With his brook and ravens. He might have forgotten for a moment that there’s a dying world outside his own recluse. Sometimes we get too attached with our own world, our own brook, that we forget there is a world outside our own. A world of hungry, hurting people. People in dry, dead places waiting for somebody to help them find the River of Life. That just as God has let us experience his love and miracles we also need to let others know of how great Jehovah is. We don’t hoard to ourselves the brook that he has provided for us. We share it. Or help others find their own brook.

Don’t get upset and alarmed over your drying brook. God gives. God takes away. We thank him just the same. Our brooks, whatever they are, are so temporal. Soon they will change. Soon they will dry up... There’s only one permanent... Eternal... Jehovah himself. Soon he will lead us to new brooks, better than the first one…

Change. We fear it. We avoid it. But sometimes, change is all we need. Sometimes change is a good thing. Sometimes, change is everything...

Compassion

There’s a God – shaped hole in all of us
And the restless soul is searching...
There’s a God – shaped hole in all of us
And it’s a void only He can fill…

“God – shaped hole”
Plumb


Not so long ago, a friend of mine asked me to go with him to pick up a dog from his friend. Actually, he just asked me to go with him because he didn’t know the way on how to get there. He’s a Thai... he has a car... he’s been in Bangkok for almost 20 years, but I know better how to get around the metropolis than he does. How weird is that?

His friend, whose name i didn’t have the chance to get, was giving the dog away. And even if I am not a big fan of these canine creatures, I could tell that the dog was an expensive breed. And the reason he was giving it away was because he (the friend) has been sick for more than a half a year and he couldn’t take care of the dog anymore.

Anyway, once we got there, what I saw was not a pitiful dog although he (the canine) seemed a little malnourished, but a guy who is more malnourished than his dog. Almost by instinct, I did my ocular evaluation of the sick person, just like the first thing that we do when a patient comes to see us for treatment…

A young adult, 23 – 25 years old, abnormally ectomorphic, significantly deconditioned… body is bent forward, gait is slow and forced, dry, course hair, tropic changes on his face mostly on his nose bridge and cheeks, teeth stained due to forgotten hygiene. Diagnosis is unknown cause neither my friend nor the mother could explain it (in English, that is). What a pitiful sight of a man who my friend said used to be a smart young man. He was on his way to finishing his bachelor’s degree in Culinary Arts or something. And now he has become a sick person who exerts so much effort even just to move around.

My spirit was struck with compassion. Compassion for a stranger who i got the chance to meet just because my friend asked me to go with him. Compassion because there’s nobody else in his family but he and his mother. I know I could help in a small way… give him assistive exercises to regain some strength, help him improve his gait and posture, pulmonary exercises to facilitate more normal breathing, and help him improve his overall ADL (activities of daily living)… Boy! im a genius! And that wouldn’t even cost me anything… just some time and a few bucks to get to his place.

I really wished I could extend some help but I didn’t know how. I told my friend to get the diagnosis so I can form a Physical Therapy treatment plan for the sick young man. He didnt take me seriously.

To this day, i still remember the sight of the poor guy. I asked my friend about him once. It seemed that they have moved to a cheaper place to stay.

But this was what really enveloped me… the fact that there are more people out there suffering from broken, crashed, and amputated spirits. Sickness… Poverty… Fragmented families… Broken hearts… Fractured lives…

Who can help these people who are raised in a culture and belief which teaches them “to be a man unto yourself?” Each person’s present situation, either good or bad, pleasant or painful, is a product of his actions, either from his previous life or his present existence. That’s his “karma.” You shouldnt intervene. Get your hands off him so he can pay his dues already… So he can have a better life in his next incarnation... karma sucks! Seriously...

Point is, there's a multitude of people out there who need the compassion of God in action. It’s just such a shame (even to me!) that not too many of the redeemed are willing to be God’s hands and feet. Some are even busy preaching fire when all these people need is just a bucket of cold water… or pizza.