CFC-SvFL Servants for Family and Life-What is more powerful than Trusting God?
Yesterday, I had an awesome experience with my brothers in CFC Servants for Family and Life (SvFL). This took place during our household meeting at Brother Franco Arollado’s place in Pasir Ris. CFC SvFL is one of the family ministries of Couples for Christ Foundation for Family and Life. It is a vibrant community of men comprised of: bachelors (single men 40 years old and above); married men who are living apart from their wives and/or children because of work situations (ex. OFWs) or whose wives are not interested in joining the CFC FFL community; widowers; and separated.In our case, our current membership is comprised of the second category, i.e. married men who are living apart from our family because of our work situation. Call us “expatriates”, a distinct class of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
In CFC FFL, a household meeting has three basic elements:
(1) Alive and vibrant worship (singing songs of praise and worship, sharing of inspirational words, prayer of thanksgiving and prayer of supplication).
(2) A participative discussion / sharing. The discussion topic could be a gospel reading. The sharing is experiential and as such is life-giving.
(3) Fellowship – we are nourished not only in spirit but also from the food prepared by the household host. Bon appetit!
I believed that getting involved with this community is one of the best things that happened to me here while I am away from my family. Spiritual nourishment and development are part of the essential keys to overcome homesickness. It is very tough and challenging when you are away from your loved ones.
Another very vital key to personal growth formation for me is openness. I felt the sense of connectedness when communicating with my fellow brothers (even sisters too to some occasions). There are no inhibitions most especially when we share our testimonies about life’s experience. This is so crucial as we learn how to deal with life from each one’s personal struggles and overcoming life’s challenges. I’ve heard about life threatening experiences, financial struggles, problems coping with children, or just mere overcoming of fear. There were so many kinds of close to tragic stories but there is only one denominator that every one of us had experienced during those trying times, and that is holding on to our commitment to trusting in God.
Can you see from our faces how happy we are?
from lower left:Claus Arriola, Jay Nodalo, Franco Arollado, Aldwin Santos top left: Oliver San Juan, Jerome Castaneda, Carlos Cammayo, Arnel Riovaldez and Hector Millet Coria
Please also check out related topic on Sharing God’s Love to Us!
Financial Education Planning – Our Way or God’s Way?
Lately, I’ve been exposed to financial education about how we can better manage our financial resources. First, I got the chance to learn from my Christian community, CFC-FFL Singapore on one our Covenant Recollection on Financial Stewardship with Carlos Cammayo as the speaker. I want to start sharing these very powerful passage from the bible (mine is New International Version) Luke 21: 1-4 The Widow’s Offering (more popularly known as The Story of Widow’s Mite) 1 As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts in the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. (Greek two lepta) 3 “I tell you the truth,” he said,” this poor widow has put in more that all the others. 4 All these people give their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” The lesson is about the enduring value of faith. Her modest gift of two mites represented all that she had compared to the pretentious contributions of the wealthy. I must admit that for me this is a hard act to follow or perhaps my faith is that small compared to her.
There are 3 basic ways we can make use of our finances in the Lord:
1. Almsgiving – giving money or goods to the needy and poor both in and out of one’s community. Such is an outright grant. Proverbs 19:17 – He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.
2. Resource sharing – means sharing our material resources to meet the specific needs of our brothers and sisters. An example given was a brother who voluntarily share his car for fetching a guest or a couple who make use of their home for teaching and gathering purposes.
3. Tithing -giving ten percent (10%) of an individual’s income after taxes from whatever legal source, i.e. wages, rents, bonus, commissions, business, retirement pay, etc.
- It is a priority over everything else we need to spend on.
- It is given to the immediate body of Christ of which one is a part, and where one draws support for one’s Christian life. For us, this is our community (CFC FFL) and our parish.
a) Scriptural basis: Malachi 3:7-10 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty. ”But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. ”But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ ”In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
So we are robbing God if we do not tithe yet everything is own by God. We owe God whatever we presently have and what we will have in the future. Psalms 24:1 says1 the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
b.) Tithing is an essential part of our life as a growing Christian. How we respond to tithing can be a measure of our spiritual growth, i.e. a measure of our conversion to being self-less. It conditions our heart and mind to be generous, to think in the mindset of abundance and not on the scarcity mentality. Be a happy giver or a go-giver.
c.) The proper perspective – tithing is God’s way of giving us the privilege of being His co-workers. We give tithe to support God’s work to develop/train leaders, the resource to create a new heaven for new disciples. Focus not so much on the 10% we give, but on the 90% we keep for ourselves.
Lastly, within those times I had an opportunity to connect with another set of friends to play Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow 101 board game. The first objective is to be able to get out of the rat race by exceeding your total expenses with your passive income (cashflow you get from your investments in real estate, stocks/dividends, and other business). There was a time where I landed on the charity spot whereby you have an option to give 10% of your total income in exchange for the use of 2 dices instead of one. You will have this option on each of your next 3 turns. I managed to roll a higher total of number and this prompted me to get 2 pay checks in just a single turn. So my point is that even with just a game, the rewards of giving in this case 10% charity enabled me to get my pay check two times. I was actually the first one to get out of the rat race because of the other strategies that I had done with my investments.
For our reflection, 1. Do you understand that everything belongs to God and you are just a steward? 2. How do you see yourself in terms of the measures of spiritual growth?
CFC FFL Singapore – Sharing God’s Love to Us
First of all I am writing this topic to share the wonders of God’s love to me and to share His love to all of us. Ever since I came here to Singapore and started a commitment to my never ending personal development blog, the next best thing that came to my life was God’s community. CFC FFL Singapore (Couples For Christ – Foundation for Family and Life) is a community of God’s love and a commitment to my spiritual growth. I remember writing a Family Mission Statement based from one of our household gatherings which was a challenge for me and for other brothers and sisters in Christ as well. What really touched me was when my wife told me about my 7 year old son, Jed’s sharing about family mission statement in school. Her teacher really appreciated and thanked us for our son’s sharing. She wished that if only every family will practice the same kind of teachings, our country will be a better place to live in. Wow! that brought tears to my eyes.
It was never my plan to join any religious program or organization having attended different religious groups from the past. I attended my first seminar during the second half of 2008 when my friend invited me and told me that dinner was free. Without hesitation I attended the seminar with the food in my mind and did it again and again for the next series of seminars or talks. Yes I was indeed nourished by the food served to us. But it was from the talks and sharing of personal experiences that gave me the nourishment of my spirit.
It is truly a blessing to belong to a community of God’s servants considering that my family is not with me here in Singapore. When you’re alone working in a foreign country, any temptations are possible. CFC FFL community is a place where you can share your personal problems, inspirational stories, love, gratitude, fun and the smiles the can melt a heart. Indeed a family that you can count on whatever prayer requests you need, whether for a good health, a good career, or just a better relationship. Here, I was able to communicate my personal challenges in life, my experiences in personal development and also learned from others more challenging experiences. When I listened to other people’s experiences, I realized that my personal challenges are small compared to their life experiences. I heard about a wife leaving a successful business in the Philippines despite family and friends continuous discouragement of living a new life to be with her husband and family. Others shared their success and blessings from their career through continuous hard work, persistence and prayers. Truly with God nothing is impossible. It is through our abilities to believe, to desire and unwavering faith that we can achieve what we want in life.
I highly encouraged those who are away from their loved ones or for those who simply need peace at home with their family to seek us to share God’s love. I’m not limiting your choices to our group, there are also wonderful communities that will suit to your culture, religion, beliefs, or faith. What is important is you develop a personal and spiritual relationship with God and the people that you can connect with your life experiences. I assure and guarantee you that the time you spend with God and the relationship you develop with your community is truly worthy of your time.
To you, I offer you my short prayer of gratitude for visiting my site. I wish and pray for you all the good things that you deserved in life. To share the blessings that you deserved to our fellow.To learn from the bad things to become a better person. Please share God’s Love to Us, Amen!
PS
I’m sharing with you a presentation from the male group made during the CLS or Christian Life Seminar day itself so this was not really practiced well but the message was from the series of seminar talks. Also, please checkout How To Pray Effectively!. God Bless!
Thank You 2009 and An Exciting 2010 Goals!
WOW! 2009 will be my most memorable year! It was the year where I learned to develop my skills in internet marketing. My objective at that time was to learn how I can generate more leads to my network marketing business through pay per click. I learned more than what I expected and the thought of passive residual income while you sleep is such an inevitable and powerful tool. Internet marketing is such a lonely business if you do it by yourself so I highly recommend that you find a mentor just like when you enroll to get a college degree. I developed my skills in the field of search engine marketing – both in search engine optimization and Google adwords. It was my first time to buy a domain name for jeromecastaneda.com and learned to use this powerful blog resource of WordPress. Actually, I managed to rank on the first page for some keywords about my blog. Woohoo! I was able to dominate almost all the sites on the first page for my name Jerome Castaneda and hope to totally dominate it next year 2010. Indeed, wordpress is the king!
I had the chance to attend Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within 4 day’s seminar at the Singapore Expo. In those 4 days I had the chance to shape my destiny in my thoughts and managed to do a firewalker on burning coals. It was also in this event that I truly take care about my health especially the food that I ate. I just developed the love for green stuffs, vegetables and fruits. Wow, it was truly an awesome time to remember.
It was the year where I regularly attended a Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup with great life coaches, Mr. Patrick Lim and Ms. Jessica See. I’ve met like minded people and exchanged life experiences and philosophies to grow and become the person that I want to be. There were 2 things that I learned if you want to succeed or grow in life, 1. the people you know or associate with and 2. the books that you’ve read.
2009 was the year I started to grow my spiritual relationship with the Lord God through CFC-FFL Singapore (Couples for Christ – Foundation for Family and Life) as a member for the Servants of the Lord (SOLD) group. Here I got the chance to meet God filled spirited people where there’s no inhibitions about telling your personal challenges in life. Here we prayed for each one’s personal success, family and health miracles. I highly suggest to any individual to join a spiritual or religious group especially if you’re working away from your family just like me.
Now, some people (especially with hardcore employee mindsets) may ask me why on earth should I spend much time learning stuffs that is outside of my job skills as a Mechanical Engineer. My answer is very simple my friend, I have Big Dreams. I am taking Jim Rohn’s advise to work hard on myself than what I do on my job. Personal development builds up my character and my attitude at work. I have the power of concentration and the focus to become a very productive engineer not only at work but with my relationship and communication with my colleagues.
As I looked forward about my 2010 goals, I am very excited about the potential person I can become. Year 2010 will be the start of my 10 year master plan. I’ll continue the commitment of my never ending personal development blog, to become the best father to my son and a loving husband to my wife. I’ll continue to read or listen to books or audiobooks, to meet like minded individuals in personal development and internet marketing fields. I’ll continue to work and apply my skills in internet marketing, to help local businesses generate more sales to their business. I’ll continue to take care of my health by having a regular exercise and watch out on the food that I take. Most of all, I’ll continue to praise and worship God for all the blessings and for the person I become.
How to Deal with Homesickness and Challenges as an Expatriate
How to Deal with Homesickness and Challenges as an Expatriate (Overseas Filipino Worker or OFW, in our local term)?
- Living a Life away from home and family.
It has been more than 2 years since I worked here in Singapore as a Mechanical CAD Engineer for a Marine and Offshore Engineering/Consultancy firm. Working in a mixed diverse culture can be challenging especially when you’re 1,486 miles apart from the Philippines. It was really tough working in my first few months here as I have to deal with different personalities (egocentrics) being the only Filipino from an Indian dominated company.
In my first few months here in Singapore, I invested a lot of money from my long distance calls to the Philippines. After sometime, I managed to invest a laptop and a PC at home. With the current technology of internet, my family is just a computer away through Skype or Instant Messenger.
Being alone can really be tough so here are some of my effective tips to keep you active;
- Believe You Can Lah – You are the Best!
In my first few months, I received discouraging remarks from my senior colleagues about my poor drafting work. I was told that I was very slow and I must admit that I have challenges in 2D Drafting since I was hired there for my expertise in 3D modelling software (AutoCAD Inventor). My self-esteem was affected and lessened. These people can not even suggest how I can increase my speed and effectiveness when I asked them, so now I know where I stand. Here’s what I did, come closer so that you can hear me and so that you can apply this as well to your life if ever, I simply psyched myself up. Deep in my mind, I was shouting within myself that “I am the BEST and FASTEST “(repeatedly over and over again) while I was doing my 2D design detailing job. Well, it didn’t work right away but after sometime when I submitted my work for review, this guy told me, “You’re so fast huh”.
- Simply Connect
Days before my flight to Singapore, I simply get in touched with my friends, school mates so that they can help me in securing a place to stay. They are even generous to offer their place while am looking for my own place to stay. I managed to get a room for myself by joining some online forums. Google will always be there to help you connect.
- Join Groups, Meetups, Seminars, Sports Activities – Connect More
Even before I arrived here in Singapore, my friend already told me that he included me in their basketball line up for the coming basketball league. Joining sports activities will always be a good way to connect with different people as well as to keep you physically fit. Speaking of being physically fit, I managed to join a health fitness gym just in front of our office building.
My friend was the one who introduced me to join our University Alumni Organization (University of the Philippines Alumni Association of Singapore). This organization offered a lot of activities like seminars, sports, tambayans (a place for hanging out), and a lot of fun. I recommend you to check out your college/university alumni organization.
I would highly recommend that you join religious community in your area. Here you can share your personal challenges in life and you’re assured of trust and confidentiality. Most of all you’ll have a deeper relationship with God. In my case I joined, Couples for Christ – Foundation for Family and Life which I considered as a gasoline station for my soul and spirit.
Meetups and Seminars – one way of reinforcing your beliefs or if you want
To learn and grow is by attending seminars. This is how I develop myself which I will not find in my job.
- Read Books a lot – in my case listening to audiobooks
If there is one thing that I love about Singapore is the public library, my wealth of knowledge. Public Libraries are very accessible in every corner of Singapore. When I read their Vision and Mission, I was inspired that I can see the passion that it brings to Singapore; I’m sharing here their vision
“An inspiring beacon of lifelong learning, bringing knowledge alive, sparking imagination and creating possibility for a vibrant and creative Singapore. Spurring the heights of imagination from the depths of our resources. This is our vision, our NLB”
I would love to hear from your experiences living away from your family as an expatriate.
Family Mission Statement
Family Mission Statement
Finally, I got the chance to write about this topic on Family Mission Statement. I remember just a few months ago at a our household of CFC FFL (Couples For Christ Foundation for Family and Life) here in Singapore, I made a challenge to everyone to create a Family Mission Statement. We had a good learning discussion at that time about the challenges and the practices of day to day family life like disciplining the children, effective study practices for school, husband and wife relationship such as self-esteem, daily good and bad habits, and a lot more. Family Mission Statement will definitely keep you on track about your family values and principles. So if most of the companies that we worked with have mission-vision statements, why not apply to our family as this is the basic foundation of the society.
My reference for this discussion is , How To Develop Your Mission Statement by Dr. Stephen Covey bestselling author also of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He used one of the habits, Begin with the End in Mind. You need first to create in your mind where you want to go then create it in physical reality. You need to involve everyone in your family, children and even grandparents. This could be done in your family room, dining room or any convenient place of your home.
There are 3 steps to develop a Family Mission Statement;
First, Explore what your family is all about – you can ask a series of questions as to what governing values you wish to live by as a family.
Second, Write your Family Mission Statement
Third, Stay on Course.
Explore what your family is all about. Think deeply and discuss this with your loved ones. Some guidelines for you to start with, ask
1. What is the Purpose of your family?
2. What values do you want your Family to live by?
3. What is your Family all about?
4. What kind of Family do you want?
5. What kind of home do you want when you invite your friends and guest to?
6. What embarasses you at home?
7. What makes you comfortable at home?
8. for your children, you can ask them, What makes you feel drawn to us (parents) so that you are open to our influence and us to your influence?
9. for newly married couple, you can ask, What is the purpose of our Marriage? What’s the essential reason for our being? What is our high priority Goals?
Well this might be of a challenge to you so there are 3 ground rules of discussion.
1. Only one family member speaks at a time and everyone else listens to that family member with deep respect.
2. This is more challenging but enormously powerful. Whenever there is a kind of disagreements, Simply agree that no one can make their point until they restate the last person’s point to his or her satisfaction. This keeps people from judging each other. Instead they get them to thinking within the frame of reference of the other person. An example, Let me see if I can repeat what you’re saying. If the other person say yes, thats what I’m trying to say, I feel understood. Then it’s the next family member’s turn to speak and to have that also respected and impactedly listened to. This way you can avoid disagreements or attacking the person and so forth. When people communicate in this manner it brings out the best in every person’s belief.
3. Simply write it down or record it. Some one should write down the thoughts expressed by the family member. Writing crystalizes thinking , instills meaning, and bridges the gap between the conscious and the unconscious.
Now I also challenged you to include this task in your to do list. You don’t need to get it right the first time, you just need to get started and plan your course. Share me your experiences after sometime.
Remember, Stay on target! Stay on target! Stay on target!
