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hi everyone.
Drama: It's everywhere you want to be. If drama were a real person, she'd've asked for a vacation by now. "I need a holiday. A very long holiday. And I don't think I shall return -- in fact, I mean not to."
Bilbo Baggins needed a holiday. So I thought I'd take one of my own. I went to GAT. If you want the whole drama of that, this is it. I got more drama HERE.
i went to GAT 1998, also known as oggatcrew. :-) if y'alls dun mind, i'd like to share a little bit about my experience during GAT... like i said i would... several days ago. hehehe... this isn't what everyone experienced. this is my own personal take on the tour. if you like the fellowship in your own YFC right now, you are going to love this tour; it is two weeks of nothing but CFC teachings and fellowship. hopefully some of you have decided whether or not to go, coz it's gonna be really steep financially if you haven't decided to go yet. ...
but then again, i decided to leave for GAT only a little over a month before i was to leave. at that time, the invitation was only given to area cluster heads, so i didn't even think of going. when the invitation was extended to include everyone and anyone who could go, i jumped at the chance. i had just emigrated from manila to chicago four years prior to 1998, and i decided that it was a good time as any to go back home.
i think that's the worst possible reason for wanting to go to GAT. if you are a recent immigrant to your new country right now, going home to attend a 2-week mission trip and attend to your friends and family obligations at the same time is not a good idea. this is for my case, tho. i left my life in the philippines so abruptly. i knew i would not be complete -- as a person and as a servant of the Lord -- unless i went back home.
that's the main reason i wanted to go home: i needed to understand what was happening to me, what group i was part of. with all my involvement with yfc-chicago, i didn't really understand what the group was. it helped me spiritually... but that wasn't enough. maybe the cliche sentence would be that i was chaff blowing in the wind coz i've lost my roots. :-) roots i carelessly burned after every yfc activity i went to. roots i used to cling to because i knew my very life and identity depended on it.
lemme backtrack a lil' bit: through my letters, pictures and e-mails, friends back home said i had changed dramatically. i remember being very critical of everything while in manila. i had a dark attitude toward everything. i wasn't smart, but i liked learning and i absolutely loved the school i was in. i put that ahead of everything else. i avoided all religious freaks (as i called them then) because i know listening to them would take time from my study, my exploration. and i had a whole new university and life to explore and study.
but all that was taken from me. my dad passed away barely two months after i started school. soon after that, my mom spirited my sisters and i to a new country.
so now you see how God cornered me. i had no friends, no school, and a whole world to shut out.
so you can prolly imagine how hard it was for my mom, my uncle and sisters to reach me. to make a long story short, i was tricked to go to camp (august 1995), got prayed over, learned how much the Lord knows every inch of me, and met yfc. they seemed happy all the time. the music was awesome, for a religious group. and best yet, they were filipino -- strange, white-accented flips, but they were brown nonetheless. i could prolly stay a few more weeks. and then i could save up enough money to buy a plane ticket and go home. for good.
but i started school at a local community college, and they were setting up the college newspaper. i was learning about the Lord through yfc. i guess things were going well, and my friends back home wondered what the heck happened to me. i told them about the Lord and yfc. and then, i graduated from community college.
and then the announcement about GAT came. and so that's why i don't think it's a good idea to go home for GAT if you have a ton of other baggage to bring.
sike. just wanted to make sure y'alls r still awake. :-) without GAT, i would never have thought of going home. i didn't think it was possible then. but i went home, and was happy and surprised to see nine other chicago yfc there too.
so anyways. i've digressed. hope this whole letter made sense to you. i wish i can tell you what the others thought -- i was just too wrapped up in my own thoughts at that time. for sure, GAT changed me as a servant of the Lord. i learned more about the community, and was totally humbled and floored with how powerful the Lord truly is.
after coming back, i didn't immediately start campus-based at my new school, loyola university chicago. i thought i needed to rest for only a few weeks. the weeks turned into a whole semester. my potential counterpart wanted to set up yfc at school, and i was very reluctant (mainly coz i was doing *really* well at school, hehehe). but yanno what... with God's grace, there's yfc-loyola university now. but that's another story that i can also share with... another time... if y'alls have the time. :-)
have fun at GAT... bring back more than new camps, ideas, activities for the community. those are easy to come by -- the mission workers will hand those manuals to you and even pray for you. like i told the others at GATfamily, you will learn how to worship and pray like you've never before.
bring back something more meaningful for you alone. bring back trinkets for your blood family here. bring back... a piece of yourself. bring back that gift of God that is yourself. that was one of the things that the leaders in the phils told us about, to learn something about ourselves. it was only one thing, but to me, it was what meant the most. i learned about the community that God has called me to, and i learned about my family and friends -- all parts of who i was before i left manila.
and i learned more about this God that followed me wherever i went, even while as a student at my old university. while on tour, i hope you learn how to see Jesus Christ in everything that you see in the philippines. pray for new insight. you'll be surprised how much you can relate with the "natives." i'm sure that's possible because majority of the previous GATters were born outside of the philippines. they came back in better shape than me. (you can also ask them how much of a handful i was, bein all insane and gettin lost at ateneo and baguio and whatnot... hehehe... but keep it on the down low.)
it's really easy to see God's hand in the philippines -- the community over there is huge. the phils boasts to be the only Christian country in southeast asia -- that's really true. be mindful of the miracles that you see. i think y'alls should stay at least a month, bring a journal, a good camera, lots of money. oh, and pack light. there's gonna be a lot of... baggage... to bring back. :-)
(What? Of course I'd be the focal point in here! BWAHAHAHA -- oh) |
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