One step CLOSER...

First of all I would like to give my utmost gratitude to our GOD ALMIGHTY AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, for I have been broken, but through His grace I am healed and become better person, a closer child of Him. I've committed lots of mistakes, but through His discipline, He corrects my flaws. The road to being a true Christian is less travelled by some O Lord, but I am willing to walk through it and partake my role to Your marvellous design.

To MY PARENTS who are always there in spite of my secretive and mercurial temperament, thank you very much. Through that incident, I feel blessed and grateful that we've become more open about our thoughts and closer  with each other. I may have been existing for the past 21 years of your lives and levelled up in preparation to my career path, but no matter what happens, always remember that I'll be forever your baby Tona,:) konting tiis na lang po, mapapalago din natin ang AJ's Sari-sari Store to SM Supermarket's prestigious level, teeheeheehee!n_n

To my CANTOR COUSINS, couz, kaunti na lang magiging engineer na si ate AA niyo,n_n A piece of advice from your manang: No matter what happens, always remember: NEVER GIVE UP ON LIFE TRIALS, for God is always with you. HE NEVER GIVES UP ON YOU. Be optimistic, for you to be able to hear His voice and perceive His plans for you. Always seek His guidance. Pakisabi kay LOLA DOTE, bassit laengen, makakauwi na ang panganay niyang apo sa Pangasinan dala ang lisensiya bilang isang inhinyerong kimika,:)

To my BEST FRIENDS, CLOSE FRIENDS and FRIENDLY FRIENDS from SBDCC, SMDS, LDHS, and UST, especially to my UST ChE C 2012 FAMILY, thank you very much for all the care, concern, encouragements, beautiful memories, sermons, lessons and understanding you have given me. You have carved a great part of my life that makes me smile, cry and laugh every time I reminisce a montage of memories. You are one of the main reasons why I become this person who I am now. I'll cherish these until my last breath.

To UST Faculty of Engineering, former Dean Josefin De Alban and current Dean Philipina Marcelo, former and current Faculty Council members, to the Chemical Engineering Department, former Chairperson Dr. Edna Quinto and current Chairperson Prof. Lola Domnina Pestaño, to the Chemical Engineering Department members with special mention to Engr. Andrew Tengkiat and thesis adviser Dr. Maria Natalia Dimaano, to the UST Dominican priests, my deepest gratitude for all the considerations and support you have shown. I wish for your longevity of nourishing and inspiring new generations of Thomasian students through academic and real-life lessons, especially Thomasian Chemical Engineering students, inside and outside the university.

To DOST – SEI and UST – Engineering Class of '76, thank you for the financial and moral support you have given me. Like what the alumni have told, I'll never, never be complacent. I'll keep on growing, nurture all the aspects of my being. For every lessons I will learn, borrowing the tag line of Ryoma Echizen, I'll never fail to say “mada mada da ne!(There are still a lot of things that should be learned.)”

With all the changes I have gone through for my entire college life, from being a timid girl turned fan girl turned passionate lady turned God-loving person, I must say, HINDI KO PINAGSISISIHANG PINANINDIGAN KO ANG CHEMICAL ENGINEERING & UST SINCE THAT 11^TH OF APRIL 2007, in spite of the myriad temptations to give up my course and school, for these experiences in my book of life made me stronger and become a better, a mature person.

Thank you for this new stepping stone, my Lord. I'll never let go, never stop believing in You.

One step CLOSER. . .n_n

John 13:7

“Jesus replied: ' You do not realize what I am doing, but LATER YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.'”

Alumna no. 3-25-2007005766-12, officially SIGNING ON!

Modus Viviendi - Divergence and Resemblance

            When a job applicant fills out an application form or someone answers the question, “What is your religion?”, for us Christians, one might answer, “Roman Catholic”, “Iglesia ni Cristo”, “Jehovah's Witness”, or “Born-Again”. I have also seen those terms as being filled to as religion in most of the Facebook users. And I myself also have been responding that question with an answer homologous to those. But, are we really giving out a straight-to-the point answer? Is our answer really correct? Based on the facts that I have read, sorry to disappoint you, but our answers are wrong.

            First, let's define the word religion. Based on Merriam-Websters 11^th Collegiate Dictionary, religion is the “service and worship of God or the supernatural”, “a commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance”, “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, & practices, scrupulous conformity”, and “a cause, or system of beliefs held with ardor and faith”.  With those definitions reinstated, we can arrive to a conclusion that in order for a belief be considered as a religion, one must have a deity being worshipped and system of attitudes, beliefs and practices being followed. During our Asian History class in second year high school, I learned that there are lots of religions being practised by people here in Asia alone. Those religions are: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism.  After reading this long list of religions I have given you, at the back of your mind you might be asking, “Where's Roman Catholic/Iglesia ni Cristo/Jehovah's Witness/Born-Again there?” “Are you questioning my belief?”, or “Are you condemning my belief?”  No and no, I'm not questioning nor condemning one's belief, what I want to be corrected is our perspective, especially we Christians, of the word religion.

            Then how should we call Roman Catholic, Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah's Witness, and Born-Again then? Those are what we call church or denomination. According to Collins English Dictionary, aside from being a building where we worshippers practice our belief in public, church is an “institutionalized forms of religions as a political or social force”, “the clergy as distinguished from the laity”, and “a particular Christian denomination or group of Christian believers”. Therefore, those terms I have aforementioned are groups of people known as churches. All of us are Christians, worship God as the supreme entity with the Holy Bible as the ultimate source of dogma we follow in our daily living. But, here's the thing, if all of those churches worship same deity and all of them use same book as their reference, how do they differ from each other? Answer: Modus Viviendi or Way of Life.

            Roman Catholic, Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah's Witness and Born-Again celebrate their Sundays with God. One may call it “simba”, “samba” or “Sunday service”. They don't just differ in their terminologies, they also differ in their way of celebrating their communion with God on the Sabbath day. All of their modus viviendi are founded by Bible, but why is there a distinction among them? Upon observance of the said churches, the variation rooted to the priorship and consolidated understanding of the Scriptures in the Bible by each churches. If you would go back to history, this started from the Great Schism that divided Christianity into 3 major denomination or churches, namely: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestantism.

            One God, one Bible, one religion yet divided due to the diversion and existence of different churches that seemingly cannot be united. For a Christian who had a spiritual rebirth and just starting to have her walk with Jesus Christ, this proposition brings sadness to my soul. I have once read a status of a Facebook friend saying that she would rather stay as a non-believer than belong to a religion that is divided. Every soul counts and ought to be saved, but how can you bring Christ to her life and to people like her, with that kind of perception, for them to be enlightened and brought to salvation? For now this is beyond my human capability, and only God knows what must be done to enlighten the non-believers, for them to accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour wholeheartedly as the End Times approaches. Maybe someday I might have the gift of preaching and encouraging people to surrender themselves to God, and I will continuously pray for that time to come. As for now, I still have a lot of things to learn, things like how to introduce God to non-believers despite of the variation of the churches that follow His Will, and this is one of the hard nuts needed to be cracked by a Christian.