I care for you

Binhi sang Pagtuo

July 20, 2009

Greetings from Rose Memorial, the venue of our Christ Emphasis Week celebration!

Our theme for this CEW is “Jesus Cares: Our Hope in Times of Trouble” and the scripture text found in I Peter 5:7 – “Cast all your worries upon him for he cares for you.”

Does Jesus care? Yes, I believe with all my heart. This past week was one of the trying times in my life. My 5-year old son, Kairos, was diagnosed with pneumonia and suspected to have an AH1N1 flu. He was subsequently quarantined together with my wife, Hermely, at the Western Visayas Medical Center. I was also under house quarantine since Thursday with our 1-year old little girl, Francheska.

Our CEW Theme and Text became meaningful to me. God truly cares, and God has shown me His care through the many individuals that touched our lives through their constant prayers, encouraging text messages and emails. I am very grateful for this.

It’s been a year since Bagyo Frank ravaged Western Visayas. CPU was not spared. The estimated damage was about P60 to P80 million. But by the grace and care of God, CPU has survived and hopefully will be getting stronger.

When Peter wrote his letter, he addressed it to the scattered Jews all over Asia and Europe. The Jews experienced the Diaspora – the scattering to all over the four corners of the Earth. The temple in Jerusalem was about to be destroyed by the Romans. Their revolution was brought to an end by the Romans, and they were eventually cornered in the mountain of Masada.

The scattered Jews longed to go home yet they have no home to go back into. Israel ceased to exist. It was only in 1948 that they became a nation again. The letter written by Peter was a great reminder to all of them that God cares in spite of the seemingly unfavourable circumstances.

Let me share with you a poem by Charles Brown.

“Reach out and touch that neighbor who hates you
Reach out and touch that stranger who meets you
Reach out and touch that brother (and sister) who needs you
Reach out and let the smile of God touch through you
Reach out because touching means
you became the hand of God to the people here on earth.”


May God bless us all! Please pray for our CEW celebration.

Sincerely,

Pastor Francis Neil G. Jalando-on
Assistant Chaplain