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Dear friends,

After 20 hours of travel by land and sea from La Carlota City, Negros Occidental via Dumaguete to Dapitan, we arrived at our destination — Imelda, Zamboanga Sibugay. Tomorrow we will be traveling again by land and sea to Olutanga, the place in which the Western Mindanao Kasapulanan (Convention) will be held. What I noticed along the way was that there are a lot of checkpoints by police and military personnel (Mindanao, being under martial law) to check for suspicious activities and to ensure the safety of travelers.

In our life we also need checkpoints to check whether what we are doing is right, or if we are going the right way. A checkpoint will CHECK if:

C – Christ is the focus of our lives. We need to always pause for a while to check if our life is Christ-centered.

H – Holiness is the objective of our morality. We are sanctified by Jesus Christ and we are called to live holy lives.

E – Eternity is being lived today. Dr. Domingo J. Diel, Jr., our theology professor, reminded us that our eternity has already started the moment we accepted Jesus in our lives, and that we must live accordingly with that perspective in mind.

C – Compassion is in our hearts. The Gospels tell us that every time Jesus saw  people who are sick, poor and marginalized, He had compassion on them, and He did something about their situation. This should be the same with us.

K – Knowing more about the Bible is part of our daily agenda. Studying the Word of God should be part of our day to day activities. Our day should not be complete without meditating upon the Scriptures.

May we continue to welcome spiritual checkpoints in our lives.

Sincerely,

Rev. Francis Neil G. Jalando-on
Director
Office of Communications
Central Philippine University