By the thousands

This photo was taken during our first LAYF (Lakas-Angkan Youth Fellowship), at the CLSU Auditorium. We've decided in December last year to relocate to a larger place because the church facility at the NIA-CLSU can not anymore contain the growing number of regular attendees. God is really multiplying this generation by the hundreds!

And indeed, that first LAYF in auditorium, God showed up, and He didn't disappoint. We can not contain the overwhelming joy we felt when we saw huge numbers of youth who came to seek Jesus. We almost filled the main hall of the 2,500-seater CLSU auditorium. God is able to give us the campus by the thousands! 

I remember that night, I was at the back together with some of the youth leaders, our ates and kuyas, and we just fell silent, watching God's spectacle. Our eyes were swelling with tears, and when we can't anymore contain the joy, raised our hands and jumped and danced in celebration. Is this what God meant when He said He is able to win this generation? 

When you can see before your eyes what great things God is doing in this generation of young people, you can really be assured that He is capable of doing more. And I am convinced even more that this is where God is calling us--this stewardship of future leaders and prime movers of the community. If we are going to impact the future of our nation, we have to do it now and we have to do it in the campus.

The Christian minister Frederick Buechner said in that famous quotation: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." I now appreciate that even more, now that the trajectory of my life has been altered by the grace of Him who promised that He can finish whatever He has started in me. I can see myself in no other calling than the one before me. I believe that God will be there to affirm and to deliver!