Today is the last Sunday of the month and the church is celebrating its 51st Founding Anniversary and Thanksgiving, it should be also Easter Sunday but due to some circumstances some members didn’t agree that there should be a separate devotion at early morning, welcoming Easter.

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Anyway, Pastor E’s scriptural topic is Remember, Rejoice and Rededicate from scriptures of Deuteronomy 8:18, Deuteronomy 32:7, Psalms 64:10 and Romans 12:1. He started his preaching from remembering back the old days on how the church was built and started. He recalled how the older members served faithfully in the church, how united and active they were. Then Pastor E shared some reasons to celebrate and rejoice, on 51 years that had passed the church produces four daughter churches and it is progressively ahead than the mother church in the province.

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Rededicate, Pastor E told everyone that along the way we have lapses on our relationship with God, we are sometimes discourage with our relationship between ourselves and our brothers so we should settle this issues, restore our faith and commitment with God.

May our hearts be truly grateful and may we show our gratitude by the ways in which we live and care for others.

Well, after the church service, there is a small feast. Every zone bring food to feast but I went home and didn’t eat since I have no contribution in the food that our zone prepared.

There is devotional service and film showing at the church today for Good Friday but since there is a black out after a fire ignite somewhere there was no film showing. I have no plans to go to church because I didn’t like the idea that there will be no meditation and bible service but I went when the power didn’t come back even though it will be so hot inside the church without the electric fans running.

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Pastor E scriptural topic for Good Friday service is about God’s Greatest sacrifice, He sacrifice His life to clean us from our sins, His blood wash all our sins. God’s Sacrifice is greatest because His life in all aspect is very precious, His divine fullness is overflowing and His sacrifice is all sufficient.

The church proper service today didn’t started early because there is a small meeting on what to do next Sunday and who’s to send as delegates in the convention of Baptist churches next month. I was asked by older women member if I would like to go but I declined since it is going to held in far away town of our province. The convention usually take three or more days but everything from fare, registration and food will be shouldered by the church.

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This Sunday is also Baccalaureate Sunday so there is a recognition and dedication of graduates from all levels. One graduate also gave testimony on God’s faithfulness on her struggles while studying. Anyway, Pastor E finally delivered the scriptural message this Sunday and his scriptural topic is Building a Legacy that Lasts which can be found at Mark 12: 28-31. He asked everyone if it would make a difference if you learned you had very little time left? Would it change your priorities if you felt life slipping away?

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Just like Reverend R’s message a few Sunday’s ago, Pastor E’s basis of topic was about a person who’s expert in the law asked  God what is the greatest commandment and Jesus replied that it is to love God and to love the people God puts around you. Pastor E says Jesus modeled this perfectly, and his legacy has had more impact on the world than any individual in history. He didn’t leave a legacy of money, property or power. Instead, he left a legacy of loving God completely, and sacrificially loving us and a legacy of loving others.

Would it make a difference if you learned you had very little time left? Would it change your priorities if you felt life slipping away? We are all running out of time. The opportunity to leave the legacy we want is one day shorter than it was yesterday.

Pastor shared a few stories and parable about the goat and lamb and then asked everyone if what is the legacy we are leaving on earth since we are leaving foot prints behind us.

Maybe one of the things we wanted to avoid is being confined in a hospital but as we grow old our body is becoming vulnerable and prone to sickness. Last night we went to the hospital to visit my father’s second elder sister, she was confined in the hospital for the second time, her blood sugar went up to the roof.  She was diagnosed as diabetic and since then her weight loss tremendously and felt other issues on her body.

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The hospital is full of sick people, when we went there I almost didn’t breath because most of the people being confined are coughing their lungs out. It looks like the hospital mixed the patient altogether because one of my aunt room mates whom they know was confined for asthma and dunno the other three I didn’t ask anymore since I think it is improper.

Yesterday afternoon we are invited by  a relative to their house which is just a few meters away from us, the son of my aunt’s brother in-law is celebrating his second birthday. Her brother in-law just came home from abroad and he went home in the province with her wife and two older siblings living in the city to visit my aunt’s husband and family and celebrated his son’s birthday as well in their hometown.

The food was catered, there’s plenty of food for everyone and after eating there are some games for children administered by my older cousin. The kids enjoyed the loots and the food as well as the cash price for the games that were played.

Since my aunt’s backyard was a bit pebbled the kids move in the open field to play sack race and relay, dunno who win since we went home after eating like the most of the invited guests since the catering also packed their things after everyone ate.

It was second Sunday of the month today and it is changed pulpit Sunday, a different Pastor delivered a message. The service proper was started late because there is a short discussion about the upcoming Thanksgiving and Foundation Day of the church.

Some people at my back was a bit shocked when the leader sit in the chair where a Pastor usually seated, I heard someone asked if the leader will be the preacher, it answers my thought that there is something wrong when the service proper started. Anyway the scriptural topic delivered by the Pastor was “The Beauty of Being Faithful” and the scriptural verse was from Job 2: 1-6, according to Pastor R there are three beauties of being faithful and the first one is God is proud to us.  He is proud when we live a clean and upright life like the life of Job, the Pastor also added that God wasn’t lacking and He didn’t commit mistake when He send over trials and problems to us, maybe it was us who did something wrong.

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Secondly, God is concerned to us. He won’t let us down, He will help us when we are willing to help ourselves first. He doesn’t walk away but we are the one who walk away from God through the sins we are making. Pastor R also says if you are concerned to someone it means you love that person just like how God is concerned to us because He love us.

The last beauty of being faithful is God is sufficient.  There are a lot of things God want us to have, to experience but all He wanted first is for us to be faithful to Him.  How? Pastor R says we must do all things with love,in short  do all things to God with love.

My mother and sister went to town to pay some bills yesterday so while I was left alone at home I spend my day browsing and reading online, I read my horoscope and interpret pieces of my dreams, I can only remember a bit of my dream when I wake up in the morning that is why it is hard for me to blog about them. Anyway from my Facebook wall  I have read some statuses about solar eclipse so I immediately went out with my camera but what welcomed me is the scorching heat of the sun, I guess I was too late but it leaves me to wonder because a friend status says “at the moment and as it happens”.

Taking picture of the sun wasn’t easy, how much more looking at it directly. I wore my eye glasses and shades together but it didn’t help and when I wore the shades that my mother uses when watching movies, it works that I am able too look at my camera’s screen.

Well, I guess the solar eclipse wasn’t that much visible since my family who are in town didn’t even notice that there is solar eclipse happening, as what I have read it is was to be partially seen in the Philippines.

These past few days the temperature is getting severely hot during the day and especially during the evening, it’s already summer.  Water supply has been small since December 2015 and it is getting smaller as the day goes by so we have been busy during the morning collecting water and watering the plants since the water won’t come back anymore until the next day. Yeah right, the warm temperature doesn’t do any good, I felt so terrible and uncomfortable during the day and even I would like to freshen up myself it is impossible because of the poor water supply.

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To add more life discomfort the internet connection isn’t doing well these past few days, and then system failure after the network had maintenance on their system so I am doing nothing much at home but look upon the ceiling and count lizards.

What to expect this summer is heat wave,  a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. Many people has been reported collapsed and died in the street because of heat wave these past few years.

It was the first Sunday of the month and as usual the church service started very early.  Pastor E invited a new speaker in the person of Reverend R, he preaches in three languages, English, a bit of Tagalog and a bit of local dialect from his place of service but he speak mostly with English language.

The scripture reading was found in Matthew 22: 34-40 with a scriptural topic of Congregational Health. It tells about the Greatest Commandments, how a Pharisees expert in the law asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Law.

Reverend R focuses on relationship and love, God’s love to us, our love to God and our love for one another. He says, it is very hard for everyone to ask for forgiveness because of the so called PRIDE. The person who first asked for forgiveness and fixes a relationship wasn’t always the sinner; mostly it was someone with love in his heart. He added relationship is an important teacher, so we should be mindful with our relationship to God and to our neighbours. A good relationship with God but with no meaningful relationship with fellowmen doesn’t do good; in vertical aspect it has no power if we didn’t fix our relationship with others.

Reverend E says that the foundation of every relationship is love and the essence of foundation of relationship is God.  He aslo says love is more important than understanding and mysteries. Love enhance and increased the harmony, love is not become angry.  We are expert in adding pain in someone’s heart so he challenge everyone to be mindful with our relationship because what’s the point of collecting bad feelings when it doesn’t do good to us, it will just make us old. Reverend E ended his preaching by telling that let God take care for ourselves and let us take care with one another.

Christ is our peace, those who are divided are made one. Christ has broken down the barriers of separation by His death and has built us into one body, with God. To whomever repents and believes, Christ has promised reconciliation. So love as people reconciled.

Reverend E left after preaching since he needs to do another service in the nearby town as speaker. There is a church hopping after the service, and after which the church will go swimming in the well-known beach shore but I didn’t go with them, I went home after the service.

When my mother uttered out that there is a rainbow I immediately took my camera and take a photo of it from our window but when I wasn’t satisfied on my shots, I went out despite it is drizzling rain. When I saw my cousin’s little daughter I called her and pointed out the rainbow, she immediately went beside me and pointed out her cute pink pumps in her feet.

She was very proud of her new pink shoes and when I asked her who bought it, she immediately  answered that it was her mother, I subsequently talk to her while taking shots of the rainbow and even told her that it is raining and muddy she shouldn’t wear her shoes and when I asked her if she is going to school she replied she won’t and our conversation ended since she saw her playmate.