Its quite amazing that after the long pause Kuya Ponch is already on his way to recovery from this operation that he underwent a few weeks ago. I must admit that it has been 3 weeks already since I've had attended my sunday school class at church, for the reason that Kuya Ponch, wasn't able to be with us at church because he was still resting from his operation and that there was also this simultaneous theological class that's being taught at that same time and its sad to say that I didn't attend that theological class though I think it is very cool, and I am ashamed of myself for not starting it out.
Going back to Kuya Ponch, you may be asking why does the pressence of my sunday school teacher at church really mean a lot to me?
For starters he is afterall my sunday school teacher and I enjoy attending his sunday school class I like his banter at teaching scripture, I enjoy his fellowship as well as the fellowship of my fellow attenders in that class, after all that fellowship is also what other churches would call as a cellgroup. And the people in that class are my fellow cellmates.
But more importantly is that he is a good friend, that transcends beyond that of a typical friend whom you either grew up with or have had a lot of common things, experiences and the like. No it wasn't that he's a lot older than I am. As a kid growing up in church I've already seen him teach at our church's Junior Worship Service when I was still in pre-school.
So why then do we share this bond of friendship, well to start with he was a very good spiritual mentor for me and I must admit that almost all that I am teaching to Laix, Aga and Ryan are partly taught to me by him.
Another is that if ever there were spiritual father's he would have merited to be as one, though I didn't value it during that time that he was giving me this one to one Bible study way back then, still he continued to set me straight and he didn't gave up on me despite the fact that I won't show up for my weekly Bible study with him, for reasons that I could no longer remember.
Another was that he was also the one who continued the started work of my previous
discipler, Kuya Chito after circumstances caused my small group with him to disband.
Moreover, he also was the one who became an encouragement for me to value the habit of reading, especially with the systimatic study of the Bible as well as in the area of reading books whether it may be Christian or secular, and if it wasn't for him I would've missed out on such classic literature written by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Isaac Asimov.
To look back as to how far I've been mentored by him not once did he gave me the cold shoulder nor treat me in accordance to the offenses that I did, nor did he treated me and my silly manifestations of hedonism and the like with harshness.
I look up to him because I can see that God is truly at work in his life.
I look up to him whenever I remember this prayer covenant that we had when our BS was still starting where we prayed for our family to spend Christmas together because an earlier problem between the doctrinal stand of my older brothers shattered and strained their relationships. And indeed our family did spend the Christmas together at that time. And I can remember him for really being that passionate with his prayer life that he'd always give extra emphasis on that whenever we'd close our BS, as well as the part that he played when he along with other people at our church started the overnight prayer meeting at our church
on Fridays.
I look up to him because I really see him as a good teacher of the word and I admire his creativity in preparing for his lessons for me during our BS where he'd augment elements from Shin Tzu, Starcraft, U2 and musical references to The Cure at our lessons. I liked the way he challenged me to treat Bible study to a level that supercedes that of how I treated my academics. Another is the idea that he also encouraged me to request topics of study for our BS.
I look up to him, because I admire his devotion to studying the word. He once said that he made a covenant with God to finish the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in a year and he has done that since the 1980s and I admire him because he does his quiet time twice in a day, apart from the lessons that he prepares for our Bible Study, the Junior Worship Service, the prayer meeting and for the visitations that does on Saturdays.
Lastly I look up to him for being a good friend to me, thus being a good witness to what he preaches, he helped me with my studies, he visited me at the hospital whenever I'd be sick, he plays computer games with me as well as with other people at church, he lended me disks of PC games that I've never been able to return and he really took the time and effort to listen to me whenever we'd talk.
And seeing him back again at church and telling us of his experience in the operation and in the recovery process, he tells us that when he'd really think about it he said that such experience was given to him by God to really spend more time in taking greater study at His word and he even mentioned that during that three weeks he was able to finish entire books of the Bible in a day, just imagine how he thirsts for the word and I would really like to be like that and the greater fact there is that he choses to share what he's read in the Bible to others as a teacher of the word, as a deacon at our church and as a witness of the saving grace of Christ Jesus our Lord.
I could not help but again feel encouraged this past weekend at the mere fact that he's back and well to minister at our church.

posted by m35b @ Tuesday, August 31, 2004

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