8 Things I Wish my 16-year Old Self Knew

Delighted for this profound billet-doux! My kindred spirit inspires me too — A LoT! May you be blessed as you ponder on this open letter on a wish to time travel. 😀

Bouncing Back!

It’s been 5 months since the last time I’ve posted about my new website/blog Wanderful Wordsmith. It’s not my intention to abandon my beloved Curly Bookworm. I was too occupied to maintain two blogs! I really missed Curly Bookworm and my fellow bloggers in my community here.

So what happened in my absence here? Well, I’ve been contributing to two e-magazines in Thailand which is based in Bangkok. I actually juggled teaching ESL to Mongolian doctors, writing for e-magazines, and travel blogging! Check out my posts (click the titles):

August Awesomeness Overload It’s about awesome blessings from above.

• Pinoy Thaiyo is the first and only Filipino e-magazine in Thailand. As one of the pioneering team, I was assigned as a columnist for Amazing Pinoy. I feature Filipinos (even half Filipinos) who excel with expertise in their respective fields and give glory to our motherland. They’re exceptional and gifted people from all walks of life who inspire and imbue patriotism, perseverance, patience and persistence.

Don’t hesitate to connect with me, but I covered my number.Just send me a mail for any query.

Articles

• Asia’s Top Debaters: Brilliant Breed of Filipino Speakers
• Pioneer Missionary: A Molder Administrator, Molder of Dreams
• TALENTMAN: Transcendental Trendsetter

Exceptional experience indeed!

• Thailand Professionals is an e-magazine counterpart of a magazine for professionals established three years ago and was re-launched on August 12, 2015, during the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit of Thailand. I feature professionals and VIPs like the Queen herself.

Articles

• Mirthful Day for the Majestic Mother of all Thai People
• Dr. Doris Mendoza: Mother of the College of Medicine
• Redefining ‘La Dolce Vita’, the Expat Way

A monument of answered fervent prayers.

AUP College of Medicine: A Fulfilled Vision Aside from the affiliations from Thailand-based e-magazines, my blog about the inauguration of the most-awaited College of Medicine of the Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) was featured in The LinkSummer-Fall 2015 Edition (The Official Publication of PUC/AUP – Alumni of Western North America) and  PUC/AUP Cyberlink (The Official E-Newsletter of PUC/AUP Alumni) August 16-22, 2015 Special Edition.

Mongolian doctors, though Buddhists easily adapted to our culture and our Christian community.

August’s Astonishing Surprise This is about the extra blessings beyond measure. I was requested and hired to teach Mongolian doctors for a short ESL program at AUP

There are a lot to share, but I will be back to tell more about my adventures as a travel writer/blogger for Flybook Travel and Tours, and the official travel blogger of the prominent ATTA Calabarzon (Association of Travel and Tours Agencies). It’s accredited by the Department of Tourism and is a leading association within Region IV-A or Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal & Quezon).

Taal Volcano adventure: Gazing at the grandeur of Vulcan Point, the largest island within a crater lake in a volcano island within a lake on an island in the world.

For sure, I miss a lot about you guys out there. To keep receiving fresh updates, I highly recommend for my subscribers here to also subscribe to my new website. I would gladly appreciate that.

Feel free to explore my new website. Read and share my post to share the sunshiny experience! Wanderful Wordsmith

© 2015 LAF

 

Wanderful Wordsmith

For the past few weeks, I’ve scribbled my musings, and yet failed to blog about them. Then came an impression to jump start a new blog, Wanderful Wordsmith. This made me excited earlier last week. While I can’t consistently blog here in my main blog, I have a new one to catch up with. That could be really challenging, but I am hoping to really keep it updated with inspiring posts.

A wandering wordsmith who chases her musings.

So, what’s in Wanderful Wordsmith for you? If you’re a travel and nature enthusiast, you’ll surely look forward to reading some of my adventures. And you might as well love the virtual tour you’ll experience through my hotel and resort reviews, and wonderful places I’ve been.

Wanderful Wordsmith was conceptualized on the third week of June 2015. “Wanderful” simply means full of wanderings, and “wordsmith”, a writer. Its niche is focused, and yet, not limited on traveling and writing. Here are the entries and topics:
• Surreal Sojourn – travel and adventures, hotel and resort reviews
• Runner’s Reverie – running musings and race reviews
• Curly Bookworm – book reviews and author features (throwback posts from main blog)
• Ethereal Epiphany – spiritual insight and introspection
• Potpourri of Poetry – poems and poet features
• Wishful Writer– blogging and writing, advocacy and product reviews

This blog is dedicated to my late father who already rested from his life’s journey. His passion of traveling and wandering had left a lasting impact on me and my family. I missed my father so much, she could just rely on the Heavenly Father.

On Father’s Day, I jump started the new website to honor my calling as an apprentice of the Heavenly Author:
Chasing chances to change the world through the Word – one reader at a time.

This time, I’m very intentional. I will limit blogging here. So, I encourage you to follow and subscribe to my new blog:

http://wanderfulwordsmith.com/

 

© 2015 LAF

God’s gender: a cautionary tale

And I WONDER! 🙂

... because God is love

Is God a man?

Is God a woman?

Does it really matter?

These and similar questions seem to be doing the rounds again, on social media and elsewhere. My answers, in brief, would be “No”, “No”, and “Yes, very much.”

Why does it matter so much? Why does it matter what language we use about God, what pronouns and names and titles we use to address and describe God?

Let me tell you a story.

You know those arguments children have which go “boys are better than girls”, “no, girls are better than boys”, “no, boys are better than girls”, on and on and on? They’re especially annoying on long car journeys or in waiting rooms.

A while back, two of the children I work with, then aged about 5, were having just such an argument. I wan’t paying much attention, just keeping half an eye on things in case…

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Short and Sweet Advice For Writers – Have a Point (plus WIIFM)

I strongly concur! 😀

Wordsmith mode on!

Live to Write - Write to Live

If you want your writing to be effective, you need to have a point: a purpose, something specific you’re trying to say, a “Why” behind the writing. This rule applies no matter what you’re crafting – novel, short story, poem, personal essay, op-ed, sales page, website, flash fiction, screenplay. Having a point is what stokes your creative fire, and it’s what gives you the ability to write something that will make people care.

I have written in the past about the magic of clarity:

Clarity brings focus and purpose to your writing. It illuminates the ultimate reason you’re driven to write a thing and it helps you make critical decisions about what to include and what to leave out. Clarity is like a pair of enchanted glasses that filters out everything extraneous so you can hone in on exactly the things you need to tell your story. When you have clarity…

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Hair and boobs

This intuitive musing gave a boost! There are a lot of uncertainties, and sometimes, I focus on my worries. I forget to smell the flower, to gaze the shimmering clouds, and listen to the chirping birds. But I’ve learned to pause and ponder on the beauty of existence, life has a lot to offer; although sometimes things seem to fall apart, and the morning glory turns to horror — hearing a sad, sad news about my relatives’ misfortune.

But I opt to be positive and utter a prayer that my relatives who lost all their possession to ashes due to a possible arson in Boracay Island recently would recover soon. And your article really made a difference. I have more than my hair and boobs to be grateful of. 🙂

Zsofi Writes

On the morning of my 39th birthday, I was grateful for two things: my hair and my boobs.

There were other things too, of course – the way Sam buried his little face in my hair at 5:30 in the morning. The way he and Drew planned how to surprise me with breakfast and cake and presents.

But my hair and boobs were on my mind the most because in the week leading up to my birthday, one friend had to shave her head and another friend found out she might be losing her breasts.

I sort of hate to feel gratitude like this—it seems like such a selfish feeling. Like by being grateful I am saying that I am grateful that YOU have this horrible disease and not me. I am grateful that I have my hair, but too bad about yours. That’s clearly not what I want to…

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Parallel Worlds: A Call To Action

I am watching two kids playing while writing this. We are in a huge room with a play house and all sorts of toys. Both kids were playing independently. One was into trucks and little people, while the other was into cooking sets and teddy bears. Both minding their own business not talking to each other.

Parallel play.

This what you call this phenomenon in my world. There may be variations but the explanation is simple: two kids play along side but independent of each other. I play here. You play there. No interaction. No fighting. We may pick similar toys or exchange toys at some point but that’s all the interaction we’d ever get.

Ring a bell?

Isn’t that how you treat your office mates? Isn’t that your attitude when you walk around town? Isn’t that how you treat others from half way across the globe? Isn’t that how you treat people on the internet?

I am not pointing fingers here because I do those, too. I am also guilty.

The world has slowly become apathetic that we don’t care what happens in other parts of the world. We think our poor internet connection is a huge problem or the lack of spoon and fork in the McDonald’s you ordered is the end of the world. Little do we know that there are people who don’t even know what a computer is or don’t even have food to eat. There are people who don’t even have homes or are doomed to die even before they were born.

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

Praises to God there are people like the Benkert Family whose patriarch, Levi, was willing to stake his family’s lives to God and live to tell of the experience. In his book, “No Greater Love,” we are plunged into the life of a missionary family in Ethiopia.

Levi Benkert is actually a real estate businessman with a failing business due to the real estate crisis of the late 2010s. He brought his family from the US to Africa to organize and establish a fledgling orphanage. Due to a strong cultural belief, some parents were forced to kill their children or the whole village will suffer the consequences. Levi and family were to save these kids from death and put them in an orphanage.

We are told of their difficult transition from being a successful business magnate in the United States to God’s humbled and struggling soldiers in the forefront of Ethiopia’s tribal culture. The story telling is so heart warming, anyone reading the book would fight the urge to jump into a plane bound for Ethiopia the first chance he gets.

Believe me, I almost did.

Yet for someone like me who has seen the situation of children here in the country – the orphans, the children with disabilities and many others with special needs, the urge to stay was stronger than the urge to leave. In fact, as I am jotting these words down in my cellphone, I realized the weight of the work in the country.

As of this writing, I am here in the airport and I have just finished a side line job of assessing and evaluating children with disabilities in Davao City (my third time). In the several times that I have been here, I was able to meet and talk to parents who have been waiting for professionals who could help understand their children’s condition. Some of them travelled miles just to get their kids assessed and finally find some clarity in what to do with their child. It is hard to ignore their pleas.

The truth is, even though we may see Africa as more in need than our country, there exists a parallel problem.

Unknown to most, orphanages are full to the brim. There may be sponsors and willing hearts who could help, but there is still a need for better facilities. There is still a need for beds, toiletries and education services. Blame the government all we want, but as long as no one would take the leap of faith to help them, nothing is going to happen. Unknown to most, children with special needs outside the metropolis cities like Manila, Cebu or Davao are usually tied up to posts or put in cages to prevent them from roaming around. Their parents, in their shame and poverty, could not get the necessary knowledge or training they needed to handle their own son or daughter. Their neighbors and the whole town, in their ignorance, treat this family as either pariah or curiosities. While efforts are being done to educate and help, it is often not enough.

After reading the Benkert family’s story, I knew deep inside me that the way to help is not to go out of the country but to go deeper in it. Saying that Ethiopia is poorer than us or blaming it to our corrupt government wouldnt justify our inaction and inability to help. The Benkert family thought at first that giving money is enough. Yet once they experienced the need in Africa, they learned that being in the forefront of the battle is more life changing and more meaningful than just sending materials and supplies.

In the same way, would we just sit and give what was excess in our fat wallets or would we take that leap of faith, leave the comforts of your home and learn to surrender to God in the field?

The question is for me than for you.

Worthy Habla is speech pathologist by profession. Obviously, he’s a bookworm and blogger by passion. Aside from being a nature enthusiast, he’s empowered being an Adventist Youth Leader, a deacon, a deaf ministry co-coordinator and volunteer.

As much as he loves to capture memories, he is fond of chasing the wind through running. He strives to rise above the state of mediocrity, and literally, he challenges himself to conquer heights though hiking.

Check out more of his musings through his blog, MANACLED.

*Worthy is the first guest blogger, Curly Bookworm ever had. Grateful for his gaiety in responding to a bookworm challenge. Kindly read the blog post by clicking the title beneath:

BOOKWORM CHALLENGE: BOOK CHANNELING

It’s not in the blogosphere where I first bumped with this creative writer. I got acquainted with his articles in CQ (Collegiate Quarterly). It’s just surprising how we end up collaborating. And I’m grateful for God’s gift of friendship authored by the Heavenly Wordsmith.

Keep posted for the other guest bloggers! Who knows, the next could be YOU! 🙂

© 2015 LAF

Note: Photo credit to Worthy Habla. This blog has a copyright. The photos and articles should not be used, reproduced and manipulated by any means without a written request and consent from the author.

Winning Happiness, Health and Wealth with iWON

The paraphernalia signifying the Philippine flag beautifies SM Megamall where the iWON Mega Sizzle 2 and product launching took place last night. While heralding the Independence Day that would take place in less than two weeks, seeing the paraphernalia ignited an epiphany. The thrill almost swept me like the teasing tides of the scorching summer’s beach — oh how I long to be INDEPENDENT!

Who wouldn’t like FREEDOM from STRESS, HEALTH PROBLEMS, and FINANCIAL STRAINS?

While our country has been blessed by freedom from the tyranny of other governments who occupied the Philippines for hundreds of years, it’s ironic how worsening the cases of poverty, graft and corruption and economic crisis nowadays. They seem to shackle majority of the masses to greater poverty and endless stress! You’re lying if you tell me you aren’t affected.

Chasing Chances

Talk about multilevel marketing (MLM) or networking business, and I would give you cold shoulders. No matter how appealing and wonderful the products could be, you wouldn’t convince me. Believe me, I’ve been there for many years. Same old story.

I had my part for failing. Would you blame me being a victim of wrong companies and their wrong system?

BUT WAIT!

I’ve found out something new, very unique and set-apart company – a trustworthy one. It’s not the same as those who failed me before. You must have been also very tired of broken promises — ropes of sand. All you have to do is to set aside SKEPTICISM. Set aside your doubts and fears. Give iWON a chance to prove your dilemmas wrong. Give yourself another chance. These, I told myself.

Aside from knowing personally the President of the company, Ptr. Richard Tamayo, and the lifestyle coach behind PER.L.A., Dr. Blecenda “Blessy” Varona, I was astonished with the mission and vision of the company. iWON stands for Infinite Wellness Opportunity Network.

Chances for Change

We’ve heard many times that “HEALTH is WEALTH”. Countless times I braced that maxim and did my best to change and improve my lifestyle. Our family had been though the most excruciating pain and financial strains due to health cases: three deaths in a row for three consecutive years! That should stop. God is gracious, and he allowed things to happen for a purpose.

I am persuaded with a belief that when health is secured, happiness and wealth just follow. I have something to do to CHANGE. It should start within. That’s the main reason I joined iWON! I’m grateful for this wonderful opportunity to change my life holistically, help my family and others’ lives as well — be a world changer: one sick and poor person at a time.

Lifestyle Coach Vender Saddul during an IBP at Silang, Cavite. “Never underestimate the power of one, with the Power of ONE.” photo credit: Hope Agudo

Jam-packed SM Mega Trade Hall during Mega Sizzle 2. Exhilarating 1st wave of products launching. At iWON, we have a cure for the root of health problems: HEALTH EDUCATION and LIFESTYLE MEDICINE. photo credit: Hope Agudo

Meet PER.LA

Amid the hustle and bustle of life, stressful demands at work, can you still manage to have healthy lifestyle?
A phenomenal Per.L.A. (Personal Lifestyle Assistant) is a sure solution. It’s an amazing app that has been made out of the 27 years of experience of Dr. Blecenda Varona, a multi-awarded author, health educator and lifestyle coach.

Lifestyle medicine at the palm of your hands.
We revolutionize lifestyle medicine to help you achieve a healthy body and an amazing lifestyle.

If you want to take the CHALLENGE of a HUGE CHANGE in your life: to acquire HAPPINESS, HOLISTIC HEALTH and WEALTH, and to be a world changer, check our website and contact us through these details:

Website: ICONIC CARE

Facebook: IWON Incorporated

Don’t hesitate to contact US. Just inform you’ve got the info through this blog. 🙂

This event was a huge success! All Glory to God! Don’t miss the next mega sizzle! Keep posted! 🙂

© 2015 LAF

Note: Photos credit to iWON and iCONS. This blog has a copyright. The photos and articles should not be used, reproduced and manipulated by any means without a written request and consent from the author.

Meet Anne: A Slap-In-The-Face Interview With a Child of Surrogacy

I really don’t know what to say…kinda speechless.

Will get back once I gather my thoughts. 😀

jerry-mahoney.com

Last month, I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the first ever WordPress-sponsored Press Publish conference in Portland, Oregon. While I was there, I met tons of awesome people, but the one who probably sticks out the most to me was a young woman named Anne who spoke to me after my presentation. She wanted me to know that she was born through surrogacy herself. She was curious to meet my kids, because she’d never met anyone else who was born through surrogacy.

Anne

She was a wonderful person — smart, polite, down-to-Earth, and we had a very nice chat. I promised to put her in touch with some people who might be able to help her find other people her age born through surrogacy, and she gave me her card.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her, because I often wonder how my kids will feel…

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I Have a Vested Interest

I have a vested interest in this post! 😀

What a superb introspection!

Tenure, She Wrote

In the fourth grade, I was obsessed with marine science and sonar technology, and I’d spend Saturday afternoons watching The Hunt for Red October instead of Saved by the Bell. That summer, I toured a Navy sub in dry dock– my first time! — and I asked the officer leading the tour when we’d be going to the sonar room. “Sorry, kid. It’s classified,” he said. Masking my disappointment, I replied that it was okay, because I was going to be a sonar technician when I grew up, and I could wait until then. “But they don’t let girls on subs,” was the officer’s surprised reply, as he looked at me as if I’d sprouted horns. When I asked why not, he told me I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a sub with a bunch of smelly guys anyway. My “Then…why aren’t there submarines for just girls?” got no reply.

So, I have a vested…

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