A Conversation with Dollie Manzano

Was soo encouraged by a brief conversation i had dollie manzano earlier on tonight while we were cutting out leaves for Vacation Bible School. (The theme is Cruising the Amazing Amazon btw.. and its' really COOL. Three Rifles been transformed!! but i digress..)

She was just sharing about how she used to be from VCF QC and in her time, when she was still a student on UP Diliman, VCF's presence was only a small group with a few people that would meet and pray. And some how, after she graduated, in about 2 years time.. the campus ministry just exploded! (hmm, dollie.. could the factor be..You? haha) Soon, VCF QC had their own youth service on campus.. and the growth has just been unstoppable since!

My heart was beating faster just hearing this...I am just believing for the same vision for the campus ministry here in Singapore! As Dolly was describing what campus ministry was like in UP then, I couldn't help but think to myself "that's where we are now!" We have maybe just a couple of life groups here now with students, some in and some about to enter uni, and a handful of students that would pray and meet on campus during term time. and sometimes when u look around at the vastness of the campus and the super "focused-ness" of the students on their studies in Singapore.. you just feel so small!

BUT, I'm just believing that as we are faithful to keep praying for the campuses and students, and investing into the lives of these students in our time and encouraging them in the Word, God will bring about the harvest time! It may be 2 years, it may be more.. but we are called just to be faithful to keep plowing the land and sow the seeds.

I am just so looking forward to a time where many people on campus are just so attracted to Jesus and wanting to know more about who He is and eventually commit their lives to serving the One that loves them with all He has.

I know many challenges await me as i enter in as a part time grad student. The thought of going back to school with a subject like public administration is already daunting, this not considering the fact that i'll still be holding a full time job. So help me, God!

Sometimes i suspect God purposely kinda 'blinded' me from seeing the 'heaviness' of the subject i was just about to take just so i would apply for it ( 'o ye of little faith!'.. and it's probably true) and now that im in it and already agreed to take it.. i just can't back out! and reading the course description for each module sure doesn't help!!

I am fearful, excited all mingled in one.. but i am truly excited at that thought of seeing a youth service on campus come to pass in Singapore! it was a dream i had when i was still an undergrad in NUS and when i first joined MS in 2001. But it was a dream that faded into the backdrops of my life as i went on to working life.

So now a flicker of that dream surfaces...dare i hope?

And why not? 

Sometimes i think Hope, is one of the most fearful things i dare hold on to, for fear of failure, for fear of being let down.. not by God, but by myself.

Yet, I'll ask of God to help my unbelief. And I am reminded that 'hope does not disappoint us'. How apt that this verse should follow Paul's exhortation for us to persevere and in the process produce character and then hope!

I need to remember that as long as I keep my hope in myself, i WILL BE disappointed.. but if i keep my hope where it should rest -- on the One that is the same yesterday, today and forever, the God that does not change, for His glory, I will NOT be disappointed. We will not be disappointed.

"Now faith is being sure of the things hoped for and certain of what we do not see"
 - Hebrews 11:1

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
- Romans 5:2-5