On Persistence

My God is persistent.  He is persistent on loving me, persistent on burning in me, persistent on keeping me wholly for Him. 

This is what He revealed to me about Himself in the last few weeks. 

October 19, 2012 was the expiration date of my Thai non-immigrant visa.  This visa is the hinge of all our documents here --- my work permit, Jason’s visa --- thus allowing us to legally stay in Krabi.  In February of this year, I acquired my U.S. citizenship in Hawaii where I was granted my US passport.  This event marked the end of a long process of making sure that it’s okay for me to stay out of the States for a very long time.  Thinking that since I am no longer a Filipino citizen both Jason and I agreed that I should use my US passport in entering Thailand.  And our first agenda on the first day of our arrival here was to go to the immigration office to figure out how I can transfer all of my visa stuff from my Philippine passport to my US passport.  After explaining our situation with what we thought was enough information to the immigration officers, the advice we got was to wait for October --- the month of my visa renewal.  Needless to say, we took it as raw and as simple as the advice came from the authority we believed understood where we are. 

Our naïveté brought us eight months later to a huge immigration bureaucratic mess that could have ended up with us leaving the country.  Learning of our mistake, our hearts were crushed and, I must admit, I was very angry.  It is never as simple as that.  Not with immigration.  Now we have this exorbitant amount to pay at the border with money we don’t have, and I have to leave the country immediately.  For me to go back, I have to re-apply at the Thai Embassy in Penang, Malaysia hoping to be granted, despite being branded as overstaying for 208 days in Thailand, with a new visa on my new passport. 

We prayed. We spoke to fellow Christians, and they prayed.  We shared with our supporters, and asked for prayer and help.  And we prayed more.  And in 3 days or so, not only did we raise more than enough money to pay the fine and for the trip to the border but our hearts were filled with extreme peace and comfort with the assurance that all will be well. 

We felt your prayer.

We felt God.

The incident that happened turned out to be a reminder for us that God is persistent in keeping His love, in keeping His promises, in keeping us wholly for Him.  He wanted to show His strength when we are totally weak and desperately in need losing any control over the situation.  The confusion at the immigration and the anger that resulted out of it was definitely the enemy’s handiwork, but the glory that came out of the mess because God’s people gathered together in strength for Him was definitely our Lord’s handiwork.  

For some, what happened was mere bad luck.  For us, what happened was a God moment.  One that would make you look to Him and say, “You are indeed amazing and persistent!”

Staying Married is Not About Staying in Love (from "This Momentary Marriage" by John Piper)

Marriage passes through breathtaking heights and through swamps with choking vapors.  It makes many things sweeter, and with it come bitter providences.      - John Piper


In a few days, Jason and I will be celebrating our second anniversary as a couple.  Still on the honeymoon stage, as many would say, and still such a young couple.  In some sense, that is true, but in another it isn't. As you know, we moved to Thailand to obey the Lord's call on our lives.  We are serving the Lord together in a very dark place, and are experiencing the effects of it on all sides of our marriage.  Good and bad.  But the best thing about it is that we have been brought to a different, very intimate height in our relationship not only with each other but, on a personal basis and as a couple, with our God.

We are young and still very much inexperienced in marriage.  We both know that we still have so much to learn, so much we don't fully understand.  But one thing we do know is that marriage is the doing of God.  And ultimately, marriage is the display of God.  These are not my own words.  These are borrowed from John Piper in his book, "This Momentary Marriage."  This is the foundation of marriage.  It exists for God's glory.  Many of us forget that marriage is not just about two people coming together to share a life together, but it is about God joining two very imperfect people in one flesh.  That through marriage we may experience the beauty of God's love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. 

Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to His redeemed people, the church.  And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.  (Again, these words are borrowed from John Piper.) This, therefore, means that staying married is not mainly about staying in love, but most importantly, it is keeping covenant.  This also means that marriage is not held together by money, sex, kids, or jobs.  All good things, but also not strong enough to keep the joy and peace in our marriages.  Only God can fully satisfy us in all our needs.  Only God can truly sustain marriages.

We all have been lied to with our culture today of easy love and casual marriages.  We all have come to believe that marriage only lasts as long as these mushy, warm feelings in our hearts stay.  And when these emotions move on, we are left devastated and disillusioned.  Some have learn to stay in the marriage for the sake of it, others have learned to move on and find the "mushy, warm feelings" again with another person.  Only to find out that even with this person it will not stay on. 

Staying married is not mainly about staying in love.  It is about keeping covenant.  I hope we see that the main doer in marriage is God.  May we see it as the wonder God has created it to be; and may we live it as God has purposedly designed it to be.




Jason and I are currently reading the book, "This Momentary Marriage," by John Piper.  I recommend it to everyone who is married and are seeking to be married one day.  I will be posting more about what we have learned from this book in the coming days. 

On "Desiring God"

I am currently reading, "Desiring God" by John Piper; and I have been extremely blessed with the depth and genuineness of his writing catching myself often reflecting on his ideas in the last few days. I have yet to finish the book, but I want to share with you some lines from it that struck me the most. The whole book has got me thinking a lot on loving the Lord and the joy that comes with it, so really these lines are by no means representative of the whole but it will give you a glimpse of the profundity of the subject on desiring God. So here it goes...

"Happiness in God is the end of all our seeking. Nothing beyond it can be sought as a higher goal."

"The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."

"This is a subtle thing. We strive against God's all-sufficient glory if we think we can become a means to His end without making joy in Him our end."

"On the contrary, the one who actually sets himself above God is the person who presumes to come to God to give rather than get. With a pretense of self-denial, he positions himself as God's benefactor --- as of if the world and all it contains were not already God's!"

"Strong affections for God, rooted in and shaped by the truth of Scripture --- this is the bone and marrow of biblical worship."

"Love is the overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others."


"Love is the overflow of joy --- in God! It is not duty for duty's sake or right for right's sake. It is not a resolute abandoning of one's own good with a view solely to the good of the other person. It is first a deeply satisfying experience of the fullness of God's grace, and then a doubly satisfying experience of sharing that grace with another person."

"Love abounds between us when your joy is mine and my joy is yours. I am not loving just because I seek your joy, but because I see it as mine."

"But in truth, everything Christians 'give' to God is simply a rebound of God's gift to them. All our service is done 'in the strength that God supplies' (1 Peter 4:11), so that it is in fact God who 'earns' the reward for us and through us."

" ... there are rare and wonderful species of joy that flourish only in the rainy atmosphere of suffering."

"When the Holy Spirit awakens the heart of a person to delight in the holiness of God, an insatiable desire is born not only to behold that holiness, but also to be holy as God is holy."

"It is an indictment of our own worldliness that we feel more exhilaration when we conquer an external mountain of granite on our own strength than when we conquer the internal mountain of pride in God's strength."

"The miracle of Christian Hedonism is that overcoming obstacles to love by the grace of God has become more enticing than every form of self-confidence. The joy of experiencing the power of God's grace defeating selfishness is an insatiable addiction."

"Normal Christian life is a repeated process of restoration and renewal. Our joy is not static. It fluctuates with real life. It is vulnerable to Satan's attacks."

These are but a few of the lines that caught my attention while reading the book. I hope that it has given you some insight on being a Christian and our happiness in God. But like I said, these lines don't represent everything that the author is trying to convey.

The Lord Will Be Your Light

Do not rejoice over me, my enemy;
When I fall, I will arise;
When I sit in darkness,
The Lord will be a light to me.

                                    Micah 7:8

Have you ever been at a time in your life where everything is falling apart and the enemy seems to be winning? I have; numerous times. At thirty – one, I have gone through the cycle of ups and downs, highs and lows in life too many to count. My life is riddled with questions that most would undoubtedly be left unanswered in my lifetime; and yet, I have so much peace in my heart that one day everything will make perfect sense because I have my God. That is what keeps me together even if circumstances around me are crumbling. Not only does He control everything, but He has already won the battle for me. I can never be defeated, because He holds me.

When life throws you a curveball, you don’t try to evade it and run to preserve your life. When you feel that all odds are against you, you look to the Lord; you worship Him; you thank Him; you praise Him. He will be your light. He will rescue you. He will fight for you.

You see, it’s easier to worship the Lord and to thank Him when all is well and comfortable. The real test comes when you are thrown into the furnace. Will you still sing to Him? If you still do, then you will experience more of His faithfulness and more of His strength. He will show Himself strong in you in the midst of your weakest moments in life. He will not only deliver you from destruction, but will sharpen you as a soldier of His kingdom.

Do not let the enemy take away the joy of your salvation fellow soldier! Do not let him rejoice. For when you fall, you will arise because the Lord is with you. For when you are in darkness, the Lord will be your light.

Be on fire for Him, fueled with overflowing gratefulness and passion for who He is!

Kezia Lewis
11:09 pm
Krabi, Thailand

The Proper Response

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. - James 1:16-18


It is easy to be deceived these days.  Today, the world values hard work and independence to a degree of idolizing these characteristics; and we adapt this view without even knowing it.  The danger with this is not that we become hard working people.  The danger rests on the lie that because we are hard working people we can live our lives in any way we want; or that, we have the right to claim all the good things in life and to keep them.

This is a lie that Christians and non-Christians alike buy into; and this lie has robbed us of our joy and peace because we are in constant battle of keeping ourselves afloat so we can guard all the good things in our lives as well as hoard them.  What we have forgotten is that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above!  God owns all of these good things in our lives whether in the form of talents, skills, finances, or families.  He could have chosen to not give them to you or to me, but instead He chose to entrust them to us for a purpose.  He wants us to use these gifts so we can bring honor and glory to Him.  That through these gifts, we might bless others and lead them into seeing His love, His mercy, His grace, and ultimately His gift of salvation.

Our response for these gifts should be one of grateful admiration and praise for Him through living a life with a firm resolution in our hearts that these gifts are not ours to keep but to share and to bless others with.  We are not to live our lives in any way we want, but to live a life that is pleasing to our Lord.

I know it is uncomfortable to think that we don't own anything that we have, but that is the truth.  We don't.  To possess this life and these gifts means that God gave them to us so we can fulfill the purpose He has created us for.  If we constantly insist to live a selfish life, then we will always be seeking for something to fill this seemingly endless emptiness within.

We will never find true satisfaction.  Only He can fill that hole.

A Privilege to Teach in Krabi

Not everyone is called to teach.  Not everyone is given the key to shape our children’s minds.  Not everyone.  To teach is a privilege only a few are blessed with to love.  I am blessed to be called to teach and to love doing it, and I don’t take it lightly or for granted.  My heart is there when I am in the classroom.

Prathom 1 students hard at work

A few months ago, God placed in me a hunger to really connect with the local Thai people and to form friendships with them.  The language has been a big barrier as well as the setting to do this despite living in Thailand.  So I began praying for doors to open and for God to send Thai people in my path and be connected with.  I did not expect my love for teaching to pave the road for answering this prayer, but that is exactly what happened. 

Before the end of January, I was asked to help a local school (Sangthong Vittaya) to teach their Prathom 1 and 2 (equivalent to Grade 1 and 2) English classes for the remaining months of the school year.  Sangthong Vittaya is the largest private school in the province of Krabi with over 4,500 students.  This gave me the opportunity to be in close contact daily with local Thais, both adults and children.  It helped me improve my Thai, start conversations with fellow teachers, and eventually form friendships with some of them.  My term in the school ends this month, but I know that this doesn’t close the door for me to share to them the love of the Lord and the gospel. 

Below are more pictures of my students. 

ฉันรักสอน!!! (I love to teach!!!)