BEIJING OLYMPICSAND THE STATE OF PHILIPPINE SPORTS

The Beijing Olympics opening ceremony was marvelous. It showcased in detail the Chinese culture and arts that have taken its modern form after thousands of years of refining and preserving!

The fire cauldron was lit by Li Ning who at the the very center of the stadium lifted from his feet and ascended to the top of Bird's Nest and started running on air like those in typical Chinese superhero movies!

Overall though, the opening ceremony was majestic!

What's Wrong with Philippine Sports?

The Philippines sent a mere handful of athletes- a little more than a dozen!

The athletes sent were Harry Tanamor (boxing), Miguel Molina, James Walsh, Joan Christel Simms, Ryan Arabejo and Daniel Coakley (swimming) Sheila Mae Perez and Ryan Rexel Fabriga (diving), Hidilyn Diaz (weight lifting) and long jumpers Maretella Torres and Henry Dagmil. Shooters Eric Ang and Javier have been in Beijing since last week, while taekwondo jins Mary Antoinette Rivero and Tshomlee Go will only depart on Aug. 11 since their event will begin Aug. 20.

There are countries that have sent lesser number of athletes, but for a nation like ours that became known all over Asia for being one of the most athletic countries and won a lot of golds in the early days of the Asian Games, instead of progressed, digressed egregiously in sports over the last several decades.

If you take note of the names of the athletes we sent, three of them have foreign names!

We sent a little more than a dozen athletes most of whom perhaps were trained some place else, to the biggest sporting event in the world. I don't know with you, but I'd say, that reflects the pathetic state of Philippine Sports! Filipinos know nothing but boxing and basketball!

How do we improve our passion for sports? There really aren't many programs that promote athleticism in the country. I mentioned in my last entry, I met Lloyd Dyson last year when he came to visit Manila from the UK (his mother is Filipina). He was just 16 when I met him but hed already been engrossed with rowing! I know rowing is typically British. But the point is, at his young age, he already possesses the passion for that sport! What caught his attention? What sparked his interest? What did the adults around him do to develop a greater passion for his sport?

We do not have a lot of programs that allow for the discovery of skills in slumber within every kid! As a kid, all I learned to play were volleyball and basketball. We had other kinds of sports at school and I had friends who were promising at every sport. But none of them ever pursued. The most agile friend I had who would have made a great gymnast now runs a small grocery store. A classmate named Donn and his team were some of the strongest volleyball players I've known. Donn now runs a beauty parlor! They are among those who have been discovered to be gifted, whose passion for their sports have been doused by a major Philippine sporting reality!

Reality: IT DOES NOT PAY TO BE AN ATHLETE!

And because of that, sporting has become a mere hobby for many Filipinos. We would excel in our fields according to our own set definition of the word "excellence"! We make it quite well in the Southeast Asian Games. We barely win 10 Golds in the Asian Games anymore. Our involvement in the olympics is reduced to mere participation!

We have a measly national budget for sports! Our supposed sporting experts go to work just to get paid and forget that they are to forge in young lives a love for sports.

The games have just begun. I'm praying for our athletes, and I still hope that the Philippines will get a medal!

OLYMPIC DREAMS

Since I was 10, I have but one simple dream:

To watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics LIVE!

As a young school boy, I remember vividly sitting on our carpeted living room floor in front of our old Samsung colored TV watching three Koreans lighting the cauldron at the Seoul 1988 Olympics! Since then, I never missed watching the televised opening ceremonies, and there was never a time I never wished I were there on site LIVE!

During the opening of the 1992 Barcelona Games, my jaw dropped at the sight of an amazing archer shooting a lit arrow from the floor of the stadium to ignite the cauldron several meters high and away! It was perhaps the most dramatic lighting I've ever seen!

My mother was invited to attend the National Association of Realtors convention held in Atlanta three months before the 1996 Olympics! It was very disheartening to say the least! All I got from that trip was a black T-Shirt with a nice colorful embroidery of the 1996 Games logo! The Parkinsons Disease-stricken Muhammad Ali shakingly lit the cauldron with both hands.

At the Sydney Olympics 2000, the cauldron emerged from a pool and ascended to the top of the stadium's side via an escalator of sorts, complete with a waterfall! It was beautiful!

At the 2004 Games in Athens, the cauldron looked like a gigantic pen that swung upwards after it was lit! It wasn't as fancy as I expected it to be-- Athens being the place where the Olympic Games were born!

Today, the Beijing Olympics will open and the same feeling as I had at every opening ceremony is rekindled. Again, I am wishing I were there-- in Beijing. Obviously, the television and the internet are the only means by which I can be at the opening.

I don't think my childhood dream will ever get off my head until it is fulfilled. I hope that at the 2012 LONDON GAMES I will be able to actually be at the opening (and closing) ceremonies! (PRAYING! PRAYING!)

In addition, last year, I met Lloyd, a teenager being trained for the Royal Rowing Team of the United Kingdom. He might participate in the 2012 Games! At least, by then I know someone who might actually participate!

STRANGE THINGS

A Photo. A girl handed me a photo last Sunday and asked if I could give to the librarian so her Church Library ID will be processed. I had no other place to put it other than my wallet. So I slipped it over my own ID. Over breakfast the next day even as I insisted to pay the bill, a relative saw the picture in my wallet and concluded with great joy that I have finally found a girl! No one will know how much explaining I had to do to convince my well-meaning relative that the girl in the picture is just a friend! He believed.

A DVD. My relative realized on my second attempt to explain after his second round of teasing that the girl in the picture isn't in any romantic way related to me, he gave a DVD, No Reservations- the reason being: "besides the fact that you find Catherine Zeta-Jones pretty, you need some romance in your life." Thoughtful. Just a wee bit out of place! I should say though, that I have been wanting to buy a DVD copy for a fairly long time since the price went down from when it first came out. I bought a VCD set several months ago and accidentally leaned over the poor CDs on my bed and cracked 'em beyond use! I'm watching the movie as I type this entry!

A COLD. Four day into this really nasty cold, I'm hoping for a miracle for this to go before Saturday worship and choir rehearsals. Last night at our midweek service, I led worship sounding like my nostrils have been stuffed with loads of cotton, and I had trouble reaching high notes. I am feeling a lot better now compared to the last couple of days when I found my head on my office table tucked between my two arms. I knew I should have stayed at home to rest but I had so much things to do! For some reason, the medicines at the Church office hardly worked! I had taken a few pills since I began feeling I was coming down with a cold. I should talk to the HR Director to put in a fresh and effective supply of medicines!

A NEW OLD BOOK. A week ago, I bought this book by Jim Cymbala called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire which is sort of like the biography of the church he pastors, The Brooklyn Tabernacle. It now sits on my nightstand. It's an old book really- released perhaps 10 years ago but like it's title, I feel a blow of fresh wind everytime I open it and read a chapter before bedtime. It's inspring, really- inviting people to go back the basics of a life lived out in the power of the Spirit. I dare not do a book review here just yet- I will wait until I read through the whole book. But it is a must read for every pastor! How did it make it to this blog entry titled Strange Things-- well, I have walked past a pile of it in a shelf at a local bookstore, always wanting to purchase a copy but never actually doing it until lately. Now, I wish I read it earlier!

EXCITED YET SICK, AND A THOUGHT ABOUT ASLAN

Having been drenched last Friday after Passion Conference, I started feeling sick- coarse throat, a whole lot of sneezing, runny nose, and until after leading Sunday's last worship service, I started coughing real bad!

I had just returned from a friend's birthday dinner at Eastwood. All throughout dinner time, I was tried to not move much, hoping I wouldn't throw up a perfectly good minestra dei frutti di mare. Now I am feeling a wee bit nauseous, and typing this in bed!

I feel so weak. But I am also excited-- tomorrow, I'm scheduled to lead worship in our staff fellowship in the morning, and the midweek service in the evening. But I am weak! I cling to Christ! I cannot do otherwise. I am leading worship this Sunday- for which I am doubly excited, particularly with how the service is designed to flow and all that's supposed to happen! I am always excited to go to church each Sunday and see how the Lord works His will in lives during worship! I always see that God's will is at all times, good, for He is good. But often, His work is not safe in the worldly sense of the word. He wants to change us, and with change come blessings.

In the wonderful children’s classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis reminds us that the divine-human struggle is fraught with danger. In this famous fantasy four siblings – two brothers and two sisters – find their way to a make-believe world called Narnia through a passageway in an attic wardrobe. There they confront difficult moral and ethical conundrums that will test their character, courage and faith. The story takes inspiration from the Gospel themes of betrayal, death, resurrection, and redemption. The character Aslan is Lewis’s representation of Jesus. [1]

At one point, the two sisters, Susan and Lucy, ask Mr. And Mrs. Beaver to describe Aslan. They ask if Aslan is a man. Mr. Beaver replies:

“Aslan a man? Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know ho is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”

“Ooh!,” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”[2]

Our God is good, but not safe. I don’t know if you hear that as good news or not, but many Bible characters discovered in their weakness, it’s the truth. And embedded within this truth lies a blessing that’s beyond our wildest imaginings....

____________________

[1] Stephen Bauman Limping and Blessing, CCNYC
[2] C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, HarperCollins, New York, 1978

PASSION MANILA 2008

It was drizzling as we walked from church to the PhilSports Arena just a few blocks south. As we made the turn from Julia Vargas Road to Meralco Avenue, the hug traffic build up was a give away that the PhilSports Arena will be filled with thousands of people.

A long line of people surrounded the whole block where the arena stand. The block, let me say, is unusually huge because in it are the Department of Education is, an international school, and a huge football stadium. you can just imagine how people would surround such a big city block!

The line moved and I walked on as I talked on the phone with Jourdan hoping I'd see them somewhere in the line. Before I knew it, I was standing inside the holding area near the lobby where I met James Tioco of Makati Gospel Church, Jayjay Lizarondo of Pasig Bible Baptist, and Beth Murray of Passion who handed me a wristband, and let me in.

I was suprised to find no chairs on the main floor! College kids were sitting on the floor. A kid from church called out my name who saved me a "seat" on the floor. In my mind I said, "Uh-oh, mosh pit!!!" (I hate mosh pits!). I made my way to my saved section when a pastor from the Christian Reformed Church and the Youth Commission Chair of Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches approached me. We talked (occasionally interrupted by "hi's" from people I know, and don't know) until the program began.

The service began with a video that segued to an awesome praise and worship led by Chris Tomlin and his team. It was beautiful seeing 8000 redeemed sing their praises to the Risen King! We sang The God of this City which was first sung in a brothel house in Pattaya, Thailand by a band of Irish worship leaders who got invited to perform in a bar, and presented Jesus in the process. The song is a prophetic claim that God's own Pattaya-- so is Manil, and everything else!

Chris Tomlin was joined by Louie Giglio to do some announcements and a presentation of what Passion Movement is. It was good he did so, because until about half an hour before the event, I was overhearing people talk about Passion being a "concert!" It was laso awesome to learn that a month ago at the Passion London, the people there committed to pray for the Manila event, and in turn, Manila was asked to pray for the one for Kuala Lumpur! Just a number of weeks ago, I was reading Tim Hughes' blog about Passion London where 3000 attended.

It's both amazing and disheartening to learn that the Christian Church in the global south (the southern hemisphere) is growing in leaps and bounds, while the northern churches have lost a great number of people due to the imminent secularism and materialism! This is evident in as simple as the Passion Gathering. Passion Kampala Uganda gathered 25,000 students, while the Paris event was attended by 1400. London had 3000, Manila had 8000+! God is moving in the global south! I know He will revive the church in the north too!

Kristian Stanfill led a second set of worship songs- both familiar hymns and new materials! He did a good mix of old and new songs that both warmed our hearts and lifted the name of Jesus!

Kristian Stanfill and his son, Isaac

The time came for Louie Giglio to preached about the "the Lord's renown" and our role in making His renown a driving force for our existence! He shared about Ashley Akinns and Fruitcake, reading directly from the Ashely's Journal- which is perhaps the most moving story I've ever heard in years (click here to read her story in Louie's blog). Her story, coupled with the Biblical teaching and the Spirit's prompting just made every heart at Passion last night so moved that each life will never be the same.

The event closed with another "wild" praise and worship time led by Chris Tomlin, interspersed with giving an offering, and encouragements from Louie!

PRAISE GOD FOR PASSION!