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LEAH IRAO (May 2, 2010)

Good morning everyone.

I’m here today because God fulfilled His promise to me and I in turn promised Him that if He did, I will tell you all about it. So, here it goes.

He said in Psalm 37:4 that if I delight in Him, He will give me the desires of my heart. Didn’t realize until I was writing this that perhaps God was pleased with me for some reason and He saw fit to give me my heart’s desire, at least one of them. And for that I am truly grateful.

I have always wanted to study again. Yup, I’m a person who likes to read and study a lot. I wanted to pursue graduate studies. After several years of attempting to do so and trying to save up money for school, I let that desire go. Our God, however, has other plans.

In 2007, while trying to figure out what to do with my life, I applied for school here at Singapore. Shortly after that, I got an offer for a job that I thought was extraordinary. Yeah, you bet it was. It was extraordinarily difficult! I had a three year contract but had to quit after 15 months because I had back problems and was running empty. The reason for quitting that I gave my boss was I’m going to study. Since that was a valid reason, he didn’t give me a hard time and we parted cordially.

I quit my job with little savings and prepared to study here. I didn’t have scholarship and was unsure where to get the money to support myself. That also meant I will be unable to help out in our family during my studies. God in His manifest love for me worked overtime. I wrote some relatives and told them about my plans and you know what, they gave me enough to support my studies. The rest I was able to borrow on an interest-free and pay-when-able scheme from a very distant relative whom I only emailed and haven’t even met personally. God indeed has shown me great favors. Sisters in the faith even contributed to my allowance. I never lacked for anything, even have some leftovers. My family whom I was concerned about was taken care of by my younger brother; he even sent me money one time and contributed to my tuition which was pretty amazing to me. My mother who retired some time back even pitched in so that I won’t lack anything.

But my story doesn’t end there. I’ve been working for quite awhile now and am pretty confident of what I’m capable of. I went to school again because I wanted to validate some of the strategies and decisions I’ve made in the past. I had thought to just coast along and not bother with the grades. God, of course, wanted to teach me another lesson. I received an "F" – a failing grade for my favorite subject, a subject that I studied hard for, a subject that I thought I would get an "A" for. If I had known of this "F" before I made arrangements for this second semester, I would not have come back. God made sure that I will come back to witness His handiwork. I appealed my "F" grade. The result was long in coming that I had to take an additional subject this semester to make up for it. It came two weeks ago, I passed. I don’t have an "F" anymore.

Throughout all these challenges in this special period of my life, I have been comforted, encouraged and prayed for by my Dgroup here in Singapore. I can’t tell you how much I looked forward to Friday Dgroup meetings, to speak in Tagalog, share dinner and thoughts about our topic of study and just bask in the knowledge that no matter what happens, I am a child of God and even here away from my comfort zone, our God is looking after me through my sisters in the faith.

I just finished 5 exams; I have one more to go. The results I leave to our Father. God has brought me this far and I know that He will see me through. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says that the One who calls us is faithful and He will do it. I am a witness of God’s faithfulness. If He said it, He’ll do it. Taos pusong pasasalamat at pagpupuri sa ating Panginoon Hesus for all He has done and will continue to do.

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