pareho kami ni jaelene...:D

***You Are a Peacemaker Soul***


You strive to please others and compromise anyway you can.
War or conflict bothers you, and you would do anything to keep the peace.
You are a good mediator and a true negotiator.
Sometimes you do too much, trying so hard to make people happy.

While you keep the peace, you tend to be secretly judgmental.
You lose respect for people who don't like to both give and take.
On the flip side, you've got a graet sense of humor and wit.
You're always dimplomatic and able to give good advice.

Souls you are most compatible with: Warrior Soul, Hunter Soul and Visionary Soul


What Kind of Soul Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofsoulareyouquiz/

Fort Ilocandia pics

here are some pics with sheba during our fort ilocandia trip..hehe.:D

some notes from our company's president

"It is good to break down things into manageable proportions and do them sequentially, one thing at a time. Unfortunately, we can do this with things, but not with people."

"The truth is that most of us have been seduced by the tools of modernity, thinking that in applying them we get to colonize that corner of reality we are seeking to manage or count."

We are highly breakable pots of clay, but there is this treasure within us. Inside this fragile, outer couver is an indestructible life. For as long as our work mediates that life, it shall endure"

by Melba Padilla Maggay

All I Really Need to know I learned in Kindergarten

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:

* Share everything.
* Play fair.
* Don't hit people.
* Put things back where you found them.
* Clean up your own mess.
* Don't take things that aren't yours.
* Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
* Wash your hands before you eat.
* Flush.
* Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
* Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
* Take a nap every afternoon.
* When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
* Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
* Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
* And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

by Robert Fulghum

UPD Nav Alumni reunited

Last Wednesday was a mini-reunion for us, UPD Nav Alumni. Kuya Roovin, who now acts as our org President, called for a meeting to finalize our plans to do another "book drive" this year. This time, we are partnering with Compassion Int'l c/o Ate Jing Ocampo who will be in charge of connecting the group to a church in the Ifugao area. She also linked us with Trumpets (a theater group) and we have asked them to participate by doing an evangelistic show during the actual giving of books. Plans are starting to firm up and we are very excited for this event.



One of the joyful surprises during the meeting was to have Rheah Banatao-Garcia grace the meeting with her elegant presence! You could see in the looks on our faces in the photographs how happy we were to see each other. Good thing that by the time she arrived, the agenda was almost covered. Hehe! :D



Cheloy also managed to attend while she's in Indonesia. In the middle of the meeting, she called and the cellphone was passed around. We even took a picture of Jean talking to her just so we will have a proof that she was part of the meeting. KC, Abi and Trina also dropped by. Of course, we missed most of you... Kuya Jaime, Ate Nestine and Jaz, Tarts, Jay Arre, Erna, Ate Joy & Kuya Lem, Ate Rubelyn, Cleng, Andrey...and a lot more.



In the end, we agreed to meet weekly, devoting every other Wednesday for bible study and the remaining two Wednesdays for meetings/planning. I was kidding Kuya Roovin, saying we're just pressured because Kuya Jaime is coming back sooooonnnnn! But we know that deep in our hearts, we really are aching to commune with one another once again.:D

alone in someone else's house

9:20PM

i just finished watching "the devil wears prada," had leftover pasta for dinner and nips (filipino chocolate) for dessert. it is both strange and delightful to be alone in a friend's house feeling like it's my own. Now, i get to try how single, independent life is without thinking of the financial responsibility. Seems fun except when the house is filled with deafening silence which happens, for only a few seconds, when i review what i have written. For the most part, i have dog barks and lizard sounds as my companion. oh! i almost forgot, Tiger (my friend's cat) is here too.

Tomorrow, ate hannah (my friend who owns this house) and i will meet again with the single Filipino moms we met last week. Last time, we talked about our names and the stories behind them and reflected on the importance of names in the Bible. It is interesting to note that both our names [hannah (Hebrew) and charisma (Greek : xaris)] denote grace. Anyway, for tomorrow, we'll work around the theme: We were made for a purpose. My idea is for us to reflect how the Lord uniquely created each one of us, gifting us with diverse strengths and capacities yet allowing us to have weaknesses too. From there, I hope that we could look into how the Lord has been weaving each of our story to reveal to us what His purpose is for our lives.

We have just begun and we are looking forward to four more weeks of discovery about ourselves and about these new-found friends. We are praying to be able to build genuine friendships with the women and for our encounters to be truly transformational. We both find this very interesting and challenging at the same time. well, for ate hannah, because she isn't pure filipino and for me, because i don't have my own kids yet. but we are both excited to see what the Lord will be doing among us.

on the frailty of life, letting go and last wishes..

Yesterday, my officemates and i decided to visit a former staff who had been sick/bedridden since May of last year due to kidney failure. She was supposed to be scheduled for a second transplant but various circumstances prevented this from happening. Today is her birthday too but she ended up celebrating in the hospital. Her blood pressure shoot up and she had to be rushed to PGH.

I can barely look at her when we arrived. From what i remember to be a strong, active woman she now seemed to have shrunk and can barely move. But despite the pain and difficulty, she greeted us all with a warm smile, with much eagerness in extending her frail hands to hold us, even to embrace us. Later on, she requested for a one-on-one talk with each of the staff present. (and i found out later that this was her way of telling us, one by one of her last wishes. To me, she asks that i take care of her closest friend, with whom i recently got close to. She even told me it is timely that we got close at this time. i didn't know how to respond so i kept forbidding her to speak (out of sincere concern because she practically aches to let out words and at the same time, escaping the thought of a big responsibility that she's handing to me. and then suddenly, she complains of a throbbing headache. To some of us who are medically adept, they easily recognized it as an increase of her blood pressure. The BP reading reached to 200/120. Good thing, one of us took a caregiving course in the past so she was able to provide first aid/alternative ways of relieving our “patient” from pain. But eventually, the patient had to be rushed to the nearest hospital to prevent her from having a stroke. We were there along with her as she was being led to the emergency room. We carried her things while her relatives took her to her room.

I left her room gripped with the truth that life is temporary. We are merely fleeting soldiers, merely passing by. . .