My Love Kita! Experience

Or Why I Attend SFC Conferences…

Attending the CFC-SFC Iloilo Provincial Conference for 2015 was God’s personal surprise for me.

I never expected that I would be able to attend the said conference. For the last two months, I have cajoled,convinced and threatened my mother to allow me to attend the said conference… but deep inside, I have already given up on the possibilities. I am far too cowardly to get what I wanted anyway.

I once threatened Nanay with a text message demanding that she should allow me to attend our ProvCon  since I am very close to my “snapping point”. When she asked me what I meant, I chickened out and told her to ignore what I said.

Nanay does not want me to go because she considers Carles too far (but its okay for me to attend work-related conferences to Baguio, Tagaytay and Cebu City… huh, figure that out). She also thinks that I can always worship God in my room or at Church which is the most important part of my relationship with God. (She just does not understand or maybe, she understands too well since she was once an active member of a religious org in her heydays!)

What changed the weather? I did. Or maybe, God enabled me to. He gave me the courage, the resources, and the opportunity to attend the conference at the last minute…

Few people will understand why Singles for Christ attend conferences like this one. In fact, until I experienced those conferences, I was never that eager to go. I mean, why spend the weekend in discomfort? (Our Love Kita! experience was definitely a story worth retelling).

Well, here are my reasons for attending SFC Conferences. Maybe someday, Nanay would be able to read this and understand why I feel the need, the longing to encounter my Beloved through SFC conferences.

1. I am given the chance to step out of the fast-lane called life and reflect on my part in God’s grand scheme.

Travel time from Passi City to Carles (the venue for the 2015 ProvCon) took 3-4 hours. We took the bus from Passi to Roxas and waited for the bus to Balasan from Crossing Lanot. After the two-hour ride to Balasan, we rode a jeepney to Carles (about 30 minutes).

 

The travel time alone is enough to let you think about life and where it is taking you. For me, the destination is not just the goal. Most of my significant musings and discussions with the Lord happens over the long-distance travel from our residence to wherever it is He is taking me.

One of my most memorable TRAVELOGUE with the Lord occurred on the four-hour trip to Concepcion, the venue of last year’s Intimacy Weekend Retreat. Because I had a prior engagement, I had to travel alone. And yes, it was the best travel experience of my life so far… because I felt His presence-His enfolding, protecting, loving presence on that bus ride to Concepcion.I felt so blessed and so overwhelmed that day.

2. I get to worship Christ on a deeper level, in the company of likeminded people who share in His love.

One of the experiences that I look forward to during Conferences is the Praise Fest. Praise fests are lengthy worship moments. During praise fests, we get to praise, glorify and worship the Lord through corporate worship,and by singing,praise and worship songs…

 

I am not a very expressive person but in the privacy, intimacy and solemnity of a praise fest in the SFC community, I feel as if I am able to freely let go and worship the Lord. I am allowed to openly immerse myself in His presence, in His pleasure, in His love.

During moments like this, I keep imagining the Lord, looking down upon all of us, with a pleased and happy smile on His face, and loving tears in His eyes.

I feel as if through this, I am able to express my love for Him and show that I know how good He is, how awesome, and amazing and how I believe that His love is so great and perfect. Through the praise fest, I get to express what words can never truly convey.

3. Through conferences like this, I get to encounter Christ.

 

Our Love Kita! experience has given me a unique perspective about life and about God’s love. The parish priest’s homily reminded us not to keep ourselves “exclusive” as a community. The charismatic revival, he said, was meant to empower the Church, to keep it burning hot and on fire. Instead of keeping God’s love within our community, we should reach out to the rest of the world.

And I realized what he meant by that the very next day when, in search of water (since the water supply in our lodging area was cut off), a poor couple offered us their home for our morning ablutions. They were not part of the community, and their home, after being devastated by Yolanda, was still in an impoverished state. But, they were very generous, and accommodating to us.

I think this is what the Parish Priest meant. Our activities within the community should not be limited therein. We must bring love especially outside the community for a lot of people need that love.

My encounter with the Lord taught me this…. We live in a broken world. Broken adults are raising broken children. And broken people, like broken glass, hurt others that comes into contact with it.

Christ is the healer of our brokenness and the world needs Him. It needs us to bring them to Him and Him to them through our actions, our words and our very lives.