Empire Strikes Back

My "mansion." A two-story wooden house or "cabin" as I fondly call it.
See that makeshift covered porch below? That's one of the places I
hold Word sessions or bible studies with my disciples.
Someone said, the house looked like bird house.

A View of My Empire..Where Lil Job Lives

A year ago, in summer, a person I'm discipling for Christ gave us P100,000 to fix our small wooden house. I was thinking of having it renovated to all-concrete but then the money wouldn't suffice. We have a very small house, measuring 3 by 3 meters on the first level and about 4 by 4 on the second. I inherited the lot from my parents who bought the 400 plus square-meter compound, and my siblings live to the back of us with their own small lots.

Front view. People often smile, wondering how we can stand
up on the second floor with a super-low ceiling.

So, what happened was, I merely had the wooden second floor and some walls repaired, plus the wooden stairs, because they were badly dilapidated by termites. They have an empire here and its the "empire" I'm referring to in the blog title. So I struck it and they were gone...for a while. We enjoyed a termite-free house for some 5 months, but then they were back. And the empire strikes back.

At least, for now, no more badly dilapidated floor where we almost fell through to the ground floor if we weren't careful with our steps. The walls still look OK. However, there are signs the termites are there busy with their thing--on the floor and walls--and we actually hear them when there is less noise from the street. I worry a bit for my grand baby. but praise God he's not been sickly despite the dusty environs the termites are giving us. God, please protect us all, especially the baby.

We have a garage gate, but no car. The garage is where we hold our
worship. That's why the house church God gave me meets
in a garage.

Oh yes, last year, my 17-year-old son accidentally got his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant, and we really sorrowed over it. My wife and I mourned and felt so ashamed before God, and we reprimanded our son for it, disciplined him. I was angry, but then I also realized it's already been done, and we just needed to prepare for the baby. He wasn't born yet and he was already precious in our hearts.

But not to the girl's family. They wanted the baby aborted to save the "dignity" of their family. I told them,. what dignity was that if they were going to kill a human being. They refused to listen and determined to kill the baby in the girl's womb. They made her jump many times to abort the baby. Silly. We fought for the baby's life, prayed hard about it. And God rebuked them so that they decided to let my son and the girl decide the fate of the unborn baby. My son was all for keeping the baby, and I was glad to hear the girl was, too.

Our very small living and dining room, with my office.
That dilapidated door leads to our very small
bathroom.

Oh man, those months were difficult months--our life was already difficult, and this situation made it worse. But we were overjoyed at the thought of the coming baby. We regularly prayed for him and the young mother. Another problem was, my son couldn't get a job, and he still hasn't. Imagine the huge added expense. And those months, the girl's mother and family didn't extend any support. It was my wife who even accompanied the girl during check ups. The mother didn't do anything.

Well, today, the mother seem to want to catch up with her shortcomings then, and I hope she'd do it for good. She appears to love the baby.

The event was a real serious setback to my discipleship ministry. One Sunday, I told my disciples that I was about to dismantle the discipleship church because my son did something to mar my call from God. My son was crying, didn't mean to mar my ministry, and he was really sorry. My disciples also spoke up and said it wasn't my fault. They wanted to stay with me. They said I alone spoke the wisdom of God the way I did. They felt no one else could do the same. It was like how the disciples told Jesus that, "Where else would we go? You alone has the wisdom of God."

Another view of our living-dining room with my
office. And yes, we have a waterfalls inside.

Today, the baby is 9 months old and very fond of me. He's a cute, healthy kid, by God's grace. My son still needs a lot of things to chew and swallow on maturity and parenthood. We plan to have them wedded soon, with parental consent perhaps. We have to prepare the cost. They're not in a live-in setup but they help each other out raising up the kid. The girl is continuing her studies and may God bless my son with a good livelihood.

Anyway, back to the small empire here, I posted some pictures of how small the house is for an idea how we live. We have 3 small rooms upstairs. Godwilling, when the money comes, I plan to have everything in concrete and steel, and a roof deck where we could have our worship--plus an attic above it for 2 extra rooms. I plan to extend the second floor to add more small rooms because I plan to have small discipleship seminars overnight or for several days. Participants can stay at my place and that would be added bonding.

Our narrow kitchen, at the back of our living-dining
room and my office.

If the Lord permits, I plan to evangelize Project 8 (the district where we live), put up Jesus-style discipleships, do feeding programs and especially livelihood for the poor. All these in His will, time and resources.

I also plan to let pastors of different denominations from distant places stay at our place in case they have seminars to attend. It will be God's house. All these if God is willing.

Anyway, first things, first--I need to start with my house, before the termites finish it off.

Inside the garage: our
worship area.

And this is my 9-month old grandkid, taking a
bath in our garage, our worship area!