when the Lord is your strength

"The Sovereign LORD is my strength!"

Habacuc 3:19, New Living Translation, 2007

Our visiting minister shared a nice testament about last week's topic at church.

Back in '96, he was en route to Pangil, Laguna to visit our church there when the jeep he was riding was stopped by the NPA, a leftist group in the Philippines. The group was divided by gender and the women were left behind; he, along with other men, were taken to a far-flung place, near Quezon (he supposed). They were made to line-up and their hands were tied.

A man beside him asked, "Aren't you afraid?"

He responded, "If this is what God wills, then I am ready." The man next to him moved away, thinking he was crazy.

He was drawn away from the men, alone and separated. He was brought to the leader, who asked him, "Aren't you (our minister's name)? Don't you know me?"

Our minister answered, "No."

The leader said, "I was your classmate!" Our minister laughed at this point in the storytelling and joked to us that he hadn't recognized his classmate because the latter was now sporting long hair.

The NPA leader asked our minister, "What are you doing here?"

He answered, "I was on my way to visit our church in Pangil."

The NPA leader went on to interrogate our minister about his views and position regarding the government. Our minister calmly answered, mindful of his words. Once, the NPA leader asked, "Why do you think the government is like this?" referring to alleged rampant corruption. Our minister replied, "Because man follows his own rules and not God's."

At one point in their conversation, I am not sure of the chronology, our minister said to the NPA leader, "I just went here because I have a task to perform in our church. Please let me see to it and after it's done, I will come back."

In the end, the NPA leader had our minister escorted by two men with suspicious looking bayongs (locally produced weaved baskets) from the site and instructed him to "never look back or sideways, just go forward."

As our minister lived to tell the story, you can safely assume that everything is well. And he goes on to share a story proving that the Lord is indeed a reservoir of strength.

PS. Sadly, it was not the same for his fellow kidnapped victims; days later, corpses were found by the roadside near the place where our minister suspected they were taken to.