Flying to Manila in three weeks for a week-long e-campaign this year. Going with campus group again - some people are relatively new to campus, and there are a few from last year who will not be joining this year. Will miss their companionship, definitely! I still remember all of us sitting around Simon in his shared room with Andrew last year, on our last night, dropping tears as we shared our experience.
This time will be different because it will become, in a way, a more familiar experience. Yet there are things that are different. Manila will be a different challenge as compared to Negros. City environment, city kids. Tagalog instead of Cebuano. Different forms of bondage and obstacles. Big groups, more people. And yes, the heart, our hearts may be so easily deceived by thinking that because of past experience, we do not need to depend all the way, we do not need to exert as much effort as last time.
But be it city or rural areas, God's power to save is the same. God's love for the people are the same. Our compassion for souls should be the same, and the way we look at the people should be the same. Our weaknesses and necessity to fully, 100% rely on His powers and His abilities are the same. Everywhere, God saves. Everywhere, people have this common need for love, which can only be satisfied through Him. Because we are made for His love.
As we ran through a video of last year's campaign, although I wasn't in any of the picture slide shows, it did bring back scenes to my mind. How I almost broke into tears in my first classroom, but thankfully manage to finish my sharing. How the teachers in the staff room cried and how I cried with them. How each time the students will look from me at different places in the room with eyes that spoke of a longing for a hope. A hope that is so apparent there and is so apparent here in this garden city, in a different way.
God, prepare me to be your witness. Every way. Every day.
