Monday, November 29, 2010
My two boys are joining The Great Pinoy Peace & Unity Swim on December 10. The organizers plan to set a new Guiness Book of World Record by having at least 6000 swimmers to swim the length of 60 feet (18.3 meters) in 24 hours. (That means an average of 15 seconds per swimmer!) If you wish to join this swim and be a part of the Guiness Book of World Records, log on to www.swimrelayrecord.com
Want To Create Passive Income Thru “Creative” Real Estate? My real estate mentor Larry Gamboa is giving a Think Rich, Pinoy Seminar this December 4, 8am to 5pm, at the PhilAm Life Building, UN Avenue, Manila. Larry will teach you what he taught me years ago: How to buy foreclosed homes, apartments, and condos—and turn them into passive income. You’ll even get a chance to play the Cashflow 101 Game invented by Robert Kiyosaki—and see how it applies in real life. Seminar Fee is P2950 only. To sign up, http://bit.ly/gnD9OM
God Will Never Abandon You
I date my mother every week.
And she loves telling me stories about her life.
So every week, I get a lesson in Philippine History.
Remember that my mother is 85 years old—and anything about her life is Philippine History.
When I was a little boy, I asked her, “Mom, did you see Jose Rizal?”
“Uh, that’s a little bit too early in Philippine History,” she said.
But last week, my Mom told me about the lowest point in her life…
The Bombs Were Falling From The Sky
“I got married during the Japanese war,” she said.
She was only 19 years old.
War was raging all around them. Japanese soldiers running around the city, looking for guerrillas. One million Filipinos will ultimately die because of that war.
Yet there they were, two lovebirds, getting married!
As if their problems weren’t enough, Mom’s mother was very sick. “I was an only child,” she said, “my father had died years ago. And Mama was totally bedridden, sick with tuberculosis…”
And six days after their wedding, bombs fell from the sky.
They heard the roar of American planes flying above, dropping their bombs all over Manila.
Everywhere they looked, homes and buildings were on fire.
Soon, their house caught fire as well.
“Bo, your father had to carry my mother in a wooden pushcart through the burning streets of Manila,” she said. “On the way, Japanese soldiers would block our road. We didn’t know where to go. But we kept running…”
All of a sudden, they saw a convent.
The gates were closed but they knocked anyway.
The nuns, seeing an old woman in a wooden “kariton”, welcomed them with open arms. “Those nuns were God’s answer to our prayer. God protected us there. If they didn’t accept us, I don’t know where we would have gone…”
They Had Nothing To Eat
One month after, my grandmother passed away.
So they brought out the pushcart again and pushed her to the cemetery.
And then my mother told me something I never knew before.
I’m 44 now and it’s the first time I heard this story!
Because it was wartime, they couldn’t find jobs. There came a point when they had nothing to eat anymore. Their cupboards were empty. Their wallets were empty.
Mom told me, “Everyday, your father and I would walk around the market, begging people to buy our tomatoes. We didn’t have a store or stall. We just walked with the tomatoes in our hands. It was the only way to put food on the table.”
Mom and Dad also foraged whatever little belongings they had left, and sold them all: plates, spoons, forks, anything that they owned which had value.
Click here to read the entire post >> http://bosanchez.ph/god-will-never-abandon-you/
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Are You Humble?
Today, I’d like to talk about the old-fashioned virtue of humility.
God’s big message for you today?
Stay empty.
Let me start with a story.
One day, a bus driver was driving a bunch of seniors—people in their 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. They called themselves Club 20. Because they got 20% discounts in restaurants and drugstores.
Soon, the little old lady in the front row tapped his shoulder and gave him a big bag of peanuts. And the driver ate them.
Ten minutes later, she handed him another big bag of peanuts. And munched all of them again.
Ten minutes later, the old lady gave him another bag of peanuts.
The driver said, “Thank you! They’re delicious. But I’ve had enough. I finished two big bags of peanuts.”
The old lady said, “Oh, I didn’t want you eat them, I just wanted you to throw them away for us.”
“Throw them away?” the driver asked, “Why don’t you eat them?”
“All of us don’t have teeth anymore.”
“So why do you buy them?” he asked.
She said, “Oh, we like the chocolate around them, and after sucking them, we throw away the peanuts.”
Removing The Confusion From Humility
Humility confuses a lot of people because it’s just like the chocolate covered peanut. We’ve mixed humility with other stuff that doesn’t belong to humility.
We need to remove the chocolate.
I remember a classmate who was a very shy person.
We called her Isabel the Invisible.
She was so shy and so quiet, we sometimes forgot she existed. The only reason we knew she was still alive was at the start of the class—when the teacher called her name during roll call. “Isabel” the teacher would say, and we’d see her raise her hand just slightly so. After that, she’d blend into the grey walls of the classroom and vanish.
And when we did see her, her hair covered half of her face, so we really didn’t know how she looked like.
But if you read our Yearbook, you’d see a description beneath her Photo: “Isabel is a very humble person.”
Why? People confuse humility with timidity.
But they’re worlds apart.
Timidity is matter of personality, or insecurity, or cowardice, or selfishness. But it isn’t humility.
In fact, you can be humble and confident at the same time.
Yes, you can be humble and aggressive at the same time!
How do I know?
The Bible calls Moses the most humble man on earth (See Numbers 12:1). And yet this “most humble” man challenged Pharaoh and told the guy, “Let my people go!” If that’s not aggressiveness, I don’t know what is!
So What Is Humility?
Humility is a multi-faceted jewel.
But all these facets point to one thing: Being empty.
I believe this emptiness has three distinct expressions…
o A Humble Person is a Seeker
o A Humble Person is a Student
o A Humble Person is a Servant
1. A Humble Person Is A Seeker
I love sharing this story.
One day, a young monk visited an older monk and asked, “Master, what is the secret of humility?”
The older monk said, “Let’s take a walk…”
The two men walked down to the river.
The older monk led the younger monk in the water. When the river reached their chests, without warning, the older monk held the head of the younger monk, and dunked him into the water!
The younger monk struggled, his arms splashing wildly, but the older monk held his head under the water.
When the younger man was almost blacking out, an inch away from death, the older monk pulled him up—and the young monk sucked in air like he was an industrial vacuum cleaner.
In between breaths, he asked in a frantic voice, “Why the heck did you do that for?”
The older man smiled and said, “The secret of humility is to seek for God the way you’re seeking for oxygen now.”
I repeat: Humility is being empty.
Humility is being desperate that God fill you up.
Click here to read the entire post >> http://bosanchez.ph/are-you-humble/
Are you humble? http://on.fb.me/eKHOet
Monday, November 22, 2010
Kerygma Conference - things you need to know:
1. Before entering you must exchange your ticket for the official waterproof bracelets. Wear these everywhere you go in PICC.
2. Food/Lunch is available via Via Mare in the PICC, food stubs are P 150 each. We are not allowed to bring food inside PICC.
3. Simultaneous conferences will be held in PICC, each with different speakers and topics. Select one before you buy your ticket. Details at the official site (link to streams)
4. Sunday Nov 28, is the grand feast at the PICC grounds (in front of Hotel Sofitel), no need for bracelets or tickets there. Everybody is welcome but ticket holders will be given preference.
See you at the Kerygma Conference. And one last time, let everyone know in your Facebook Wall (status updates elsewhere) that you're going to the Kerygma Conference, the largest Catholic Learning event this year!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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