Champions in Life

I am amazed by my wife, Jiji. How can she smile after 55 hours of labor? I guess she is smiling because it is over.
I can smile because I just had to wait for her to come out. Our little girl came out June 21, 12:22 am, 19 inches and 6 pounds. We named her Sabrina Leah. Now let the debates begin: who does she look like?

“Dad you are going the wrong way!” This is what my 5-year old son told me as I was driving him to school.  I decided to take another route to avoid the morning traffic. So in fact, we were not lost just taking a different road he was not used to.

Then I thought, how can this 5-year old know that we are lost? In fact, if I left him at the sidewalk (Jiji, I will not do that!!!) he would not find his way home or to school. As I kept driving I just told him, “Daniel, do you trust daddy?” He said, “Yes.” I said, "Then sit back relax and I will get you to your school." 5 minutes later we were at his school and in fact we were not lost.

Many times that’s the way we are with God. We question our Father saying, “Why are we going this way?  This is the not the way I planned it.” Then with a gentle voice our good heavenly Father tells us to relax sit back and allow him to take us where He wants us to go.

God knows the best way for us. If we can only trust him even if we are not sure of the way.

Yesterday, I was able to visit the Every Nation Ministries office in Nashville. It was nice to get reconnected with friends from the LA office, now happily adjusted to their lives in Nashville.

Going around the office, I bumped into Ed Stetzer (check pastor Steve’s blog about him), David Houston and Kevin York. Introductions were made and you can see the puzzled look in Kevin York’s face (who is this Lee roaming around our office?).

To clarify things to him I said that I was Jiji’s husband. “Oh great, before you said that you were just some random guy! Nice to meet you.”  This started the process of me being introduced simply as, “Jiji’s husband.” Paul Barker walks in and I am introduced, “Paul, this is Jiji’s husband.” Paul, “Nice to meet you Jiji’s husband.”

I am proud to be Jiji’s husband. Sometimes I still wonder how she puts up with me (Amazing grace indeed). Through the years I have also been referred to as: Guy’s brother, Lee the swimmer, Lee the Olympian, and then recently Daniel’s dad. All of that is well and good but there was a time I felt bad being identified with others and what I did than for who I really am. This no longer bothers me (Victory Weekend) but I do hope as I live my life I will be simply identified as: Lee a follower of Jesus!

In the last few days, I came across two people who has such passion for what they are doing and for a long period of time. Talk about endurance: Pastor Kevin Conner and a taxi driver. Both very passionate about what they are doing.

Pastor Kevin has been in ministry studying and teaching God's Word for 59 years and this last few days he shared principles that are useful for all of us. You can get the DVD of the seminar which I highly recommend.

The taxi driver I rode with has been driving cabs for 51 years, he told me he started in 1956. He recalled the times when he drove Studebakers and Mercedes Benz cabs. He sent all his kids through college driving taxis.

Both men has a passion for what they are doing and nothing will stop them from doing what they are destined to do. I am just encouraged to have that same passion in what God called me to do. To both men, thank you for your example.

We had a wonderful time at the Araneta Convergence this last Sunday. You can feel the excitement all over and at the end of the service. The beach balls came out and it was a challenge to get the balls up to the highest section of the bleachers.

Everyone was having fun except for me and my wife. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying myself grabbing hold of one ball and slamming it a few sections up. It got my blood pumping and then I looked over to Jiji, trying to see if she saw the raw strength that her husband just exhibited...our eyes met then bam!!! She gets hit by another ball she did not see coming.

She was not impressed with my amazing strength and skill, she just gave me a glaring look and if looks could kill... It was a look that said, "Why did you not protect me, how dare you enjoy yourself while I am here humiliated."

I was too far off to do anything about it. So for the rest of that time I stayed beside her no longer intent in getting the ball to the top but to protect my love. Did she show appreciation for my valiant act, not at that moment. During dinner, she did mention about the incident with the wayward ball/husband. She laughed about the look she gave me. She was laughing then because I came to the rescue the rest of the night. If I stayed focused on the goal to get the ball up then that would be another story...

There are times we have to set aside things we enjoy doing so that we can protect our loved ones. As Pastor Robert would always say, "A happy wife; a happy life."

Here is the first installment of "Lessons From My Sons", where Daniel (4) taught me a valuable lesson about generosity.

Daniel was going with Tita Pinky to the grocery store so that Jiji and I can concentrate on packing up our things to go back to the Philippines. As they were walking to the store, Daniel told Tita Pinky that he wanted to buy us all gifts. Jiji had given him the spare change we found around the house, which totaled $5.00. Tita Pinky was impressed with Daniel's thoughtfulness.

As they got to the store, he got one of the small carts and started going from aisle to aisle searching for gifts. He saw a balloon that said, "I love mommy", and he put it in the cart. He got to the toy section and got a toy for himself. He went to the baby section and got baby wipes saying, "Ian will need these". Then he got to the meat section and his eyes brightened. "Dad likes these things!", pointing out the steaks and turkey.

Tita Pinky was tempted to get everything but she wanted to teach him a lesson about budgeting. She told him that he could not get all the things he wanted because it would be more than his $5.00 and he had to put back the things he got and choose something cheaper.

After serious considering his options he decided to return the steak of his Dad, then returned the baby wipes and surprisingly his toy. Instead he got a bag of chocolates and kept the balloon for his Mom. Finally, he was within budget. He gave his Mom the balloon and he said that we would all share the chocolates. Those were the best tasting chocolates I have ever eaten.

I may not have gotten my steak but I learned a lesson from my son, Daniel: Sometimes we have to put our own desires aside so that we can give to the ones we love.

The Heavenly Father gave up his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, so that we can have eternal life with Him. Now that's another great sacrifice!

You may think, shouldn't it be the other way around, shouldn't I, as the father, be the one teaching my kids. I would like to think that I had all the wisdom to raise my children and not make mistakes but that's just not the reality (but I am learning from them as I go along).

Only our Father in heaven is able to truly guide us in the right path. Certainly, I rely on His leading but in the process I am learning a lot from those I am leading, my kids (another blog series that I will start will be "lessons I learned from my wife" and all the women said AMEN).

So stay tuned to this new series "Lessons From My Sons" and see what they taught me about generosity, love, faith, etc.

Many ask me who the best swimmer in the world? I am almost always tempted to say it's me but I would be lying. I have seen and swam with some of the best. I have seen and swam with Mark Spitz, Pablo Morales, Par Arvidson, and Matt Biondi. All Olympic gold medalists. I have seen Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe on TV. All great swimmers, but I have never ever seen any of them walk on water... So my answer to my original question would be Jesus who walked on water, fast enough to reach the boat the disciples were riding. Second best swimmer, if anyone was asking, would be Peter who walked with Jesus when he got out of the boat.

I love playing water polo in the Philippines. I played in our high school team in California and I was one of the smaller guys on the team but here in the Philippines I was one of the bigger guys, if not the biggest, on the team. Our college team had an average height of 6'4", no it was not a basketball team but a water polo team. Would not imagine playing with those giants because high school was tough enough.

I had to make adjustments when I started playing on the Philippine team because during practice I ended up hurting my own teammates. The same movements I had to make playing with bigger players were now causing injury to my smaller teammates. Adjustments were necessary and instead I uses my strength to my advantage without hurting my team. It turned out I became a more effective player.

Same thing for any organization: the bigger they are the more gentle they need to be to the smaller players or you end up hurting those around us.

Luke's heart murmur, which was detected  4 months ago is no longer there.  Jiji and I are just so happy that he is well.  Each month we would pray that he will be healed and the doctor confirmed it on his 5 month check-up. Actually, if you look at him there is no hint of anything being wrong. His height and weight at 5 months is equivalent to a 1 year old.