Come and hear, all you who fear God,
And I will declare what He has done for my soul.
A month before I came to the Journey to the Heart, life at my home was falling apart. Problems that had been discreetly covered over in public life were causing so much anger and pain that life was almost unbearable.
I grew up in the Philippines. I loved the people, loved the ministry, and loved seeing so much of God. His hand was working in troubled lives through the testimonies we shared with one another. He was ever present and always sufficient. As I got older, the cares of living caught up with me, people and relationships became more tangled and I began to put God farther and farther down on my list. He became so common that I took Him for granted.
Then our whole ministry came crashing to pieces.
Ugly problems that had been working in secret finally surfaced. My father sat me and my older brother down and said: “We are leaving.” The only thing that came to my mind was that this was some king of cruel joke. It could not be happening. It was not possible.
It was true.
In one month our entire lives were packed into boxes and I found myself in a foreign country (but my passport said it was “home”) where I knew little more than the geography and the language . . . and little of that.
For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
The next year I spent much time working on my own to survive. I waded through the morass of teen life trying desperately to salvage some sort of meaning. The mission climate I had been accustomed to made “teen problems” seem shallow. I buried myself in books to find some life wherein I could understand people, where life had meaning, and where my wounds wouldn’t hurt so badly. I sunk so deep into depression that I would wonder why I even wanted to remain alive. Into my vortex of pain, God began to tenderly turn me toward Him.
Come and see the works of God;
He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.
He turned the sea into dry land;
They went through the river on foot.
There we will rejoice in Him.
In 2008, during a session with Teen Pact, they gave a time for personal prayer and meditation. For the first time in about 4 years, I was able to still my mind and I asked God if I could ever go back to the Philippines (my life goal, basically). Suddenly, almost like a physical touch, I heard the word “Here.” “Here?” I asked. “Why here? continue reading… 
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