My Baptism of Fire... The Untold Story of the CCBC Book

Last July 2 was the official 50th birthday of CCBC (my church) and guess what this was also the day I paid THE much-awaited visit to the printing press to submit the 1st half of the Final Art for its golden anniversary commemorative book, in which I have been “privileged” to be its Headitor – Head & Editor, a term borrowed from Mariel, a blogger friend from NY.

And of course, as expected, this day didn’t go without any glitch – I lost a job… I lost a phone… and lost half of my wits! Whew! Welcome to Ministry Work – that’s what the blinking sign says in my head. Allow me first to tell you how I ended up carrying this cross anyway…

It was roughly around the last quarter of 2008 when my church invited me for a brainstorming session for the upcoming 50th Anniversary which was still several months away from that time. Lots of exciting ideas were thrown into the table, and one of these was this book. I don’t want to take the entire credit for the idea but I remember being one of those who were very enthusiastic about coming up with a coffee table book to chronicle the history of CCBC. At that time, the group was egging me to be its writer. I thought, oh well, since I have been praying for a ministry from God wherein I can definitely use my skills to serve Him then this might be it. Although, nothing was formalized, the seed of burden was already planted in my heart.

Then 2009 came, and my husband and I finally received a Challenge Letter from the CCBC Office – to head the commemorative book project. The eager beaver in me almost didn’t bat an eyelash in saying “yes!” Good thing I had a husband who’s been a seasoned ministry worker (who practically grew up in CCBC) to stop me in my running tracks. He didn’t discourage me but he was also quick to warn about the journey ahead. I remember him saying, “… get ready for a spiritual battle!” Okay this might not be the example you were expecting to hear but I felt like I was Frodo determined to protect the One Ring. I “theoretically” knew it was going to be a tough job but I never thought it would actually drive me nuts! Here was how the ride became wild…

We launched the call for writers, artists, proofreaders, etc for the commemorative book as soon as we signed up to head the team. I was overwhelmed and felt pretty blessed with the good turnout of volunteers for the commemorative book. Of course we were so grateful to God for poking the hearts of these people – especially those pew warmers – to finally step up and become part of His Kingdom Building. Since we were initially gifted with an impressive roster of talents, it was but natural to DREAM BIG. We wanted to make it super special… We wanted to make it oozing with this generation’s creativity… We wanted it to be the BEST! It is the 50th Anniversary after all. It only happens once!

But when our ship finally began its voyage, rough seas soon met us without warning. Before we knew it, commitments of the staff became shaky and one by one our volunteers jumped ship – some bade farewell while others just mysteriously disappeared; and one even rocked the boat. This even became worse when I started assigning them work to do. Deadlines were ignored, and my e-mails were not replied to. Since we all have our daily grind to get busy with, we made it a rule to use the Internet as our major means of communication. When I wasn’t generating the response I was looking for, my initial reaction was exasperation. I thought how could they dishonor their commitment to the team, and most of all to God? I muttered in my head like a child, complete with a big pout painted on my face. I started becoming more irritable when work was piling up on me and helping hands were becoming scarce. All of them suddenly became too busy to do this ministry but how about me? I have a living too! I also have a career that demands a lot of my time. As a freelancer, income only comes in when I actually work.

On the surface, it may look like typical human negligence on their part and personality clashes among us but underneath, unbeknownst to me and everybody else for that matter, the ENEMY had in fact already deployed his demonic armada. The spiritual battle has begun…

So one day I woke up and realized that the grand commemorative book project had already lost its writers and artists. So off the drain went our lofty artsy-fartsy concepts for it. So we were “forced” to rethink the whole MTV-ish treatment and go to a much simpler direction. I was hesitant at first because the truth is I didn’t what the 50th Anniversary souvenir book to be no different than the ones published for the 40th and the 30th anniversaries. It was my own pride refusing to budge and at the same time my misguided passion to offer the grandest of grand to the Lord. I was of course mistaken and I would learn all that much later.

Pressure was increasing… While my own plans weren’t coming through, God’s plan on the other hand was taking shape. Unfortunately, I was too caught up in my own melodrama to notice His movements. I was already complaining “Lord, this is your book! You tell me how it should look like!” And guess what? On that same week, the Lord lead me to a magazine stand in the mall and found this last copy of the SM 50th Anniversary magazine. When I opened the pages, I thought I heard angels singing. This is it! God wanted this design for the CCBC Book! The layout was much simpler and cleaner – none of the razzle-dazzle artwork I was looking for – but it was elegantly beautiful.

I immediately went to my printer to discuss printing costs for the new specifications. I’ve written for publications before and even much recently but to be honest, the last time I was dealing closely with the printing press people themselves was about 15 years ago (yes in High School!) when I was the Editor-in-Chief of our school paper. Technology has definitely gone a long way and the variety of stock has become too numerous for any newbie. Although I’m not exactly a dummy, I sure learned a lot about the different new kinds of paper, finishing, and layout design software that’s being used in the industry now. So I finally got my new price quote. It was reasonable enough so I presented it to the Church Anniversary Committee for approval. A breakthrough at last…

The original concept of the book was to highlight 50 Milestones of CCBC, thus we took inspiration from the ‘stones of remembrance’ in Joshua 4. But that concept required heavy research and most of the writing would be feature types. With Joseph, me, Tita Vesta (Tolentino), and Tita Rica (Tarroja) left as the last men standing out of the 20 original staff members, we surrendered to the fact that we could not do 50 stories all by ourselves. So we re-conceptualized without straying too much from the ‘Stones of Remembrance’ theme. We still wanted to come up with 50 stories to symbolize the 50 years but who would help us write them? Then God whispered what He wanted for His book. He told me to let the ministry workers write their memoirs. And so it dawned on me – since God has blessed this church with 50 years of faithfulness, it’s definitely time for its members to personally praise Him by sharing their ministry testimonies.

So we began tapping the movers and shakers of every ministry and Circle of Care that we felt deserving of the spotlight for this celebration. Instead of highlighting the past, we decided to focus more on what we have right now. The past souvenir programs have already immensely chronicled our history anyway. We felt that merely putting together old photos and attaching captions to them was bland too. We didn’t want to come up with just another yearbook. We wanted something personal… So we asked these ministry workers – from leaders to members – to share their CCBC stories. The book was going to be anthology of memoirs.

What I thought would make our work load lighter turned out to be a bigger hassle. Although I know that none of these people were ‘writers’ to begin with I still somehow expected that the assignments would be relatively easy because they’d just be writing about their personal experiences anyway. But much to my dismay, deadlines were once again not met. My production calendar was becoming tighter and tighter as each day passed by without any progress. Time was running out but we barely had five memoirs in our hand, and we still had to produce 50! It almost came to the point when my husband and I considered dropping the whole 50 stories thing. Nobody’s sending their stories so maybe nobody cares so why should we care?

On the outside, I was bitching like any editor faced with a deadline. But in the inside, I was crying for many reasons. I dug deeper to check my motivations too. Personally, there was a lot at stake for me. I confess that aside from the hunger to serve God, there was also the craving for approval. I have said so many times here in my blog that marrying my husband also made me marry not just his family, but also his much bigger family – his church. And like the new in-law, I oftentimes still find myself adjusting to my new kin. It was like this 50th Anniversary was the annual Thanksgiving Dinner and as the new member of the family I was cajoled into preparing the spread’s piece de resistance. And we all know that anybody in the same situation would want to do it right because nobody in her right mind would want to be forever remembered as “The one who burnt the turkey!”

This book was my “turkey!” My reputation as a writer, as a wife of a current board member, as a daughter-in-law of one CCBC’s finest women leaders, as a new Christian who’s supposed to be impassioned with Kingdom Building, was at stake. It didn’t even help that some people also doubted if my capacity as “a baby Christian” would be doctrinally qualified to run this project. In the Media Industry, you’re only as good as your last job. I was stupid to think that the same thing applies in church. I forgot all about God’s grace.

Finally, the stories and photos trickled in. As expected, several of them lacked that certain creativity that any natural writer would have added in; while some barely told a “story” at all. I knew what they wanted to say but of course as non-writers weaving words and thoughts to achieve a beginning, middle, and end was easier said than done… or in this case “written!” At first I thought, well if the stories didn’t come in this late then editing them would have been fine for our schedule. Fixing the articles to achieve their brevity would put me on another backlog so I dreaded it. I had to edit 50 stories, not to mention, write some of them too, and time was against me. But I had no choice. So I went through each memoir, and slowly but surely God revealed me to me why I had to stay; and why I was the one called for this duty.

As each memoir landed in my Inbox, amazing and inspiring stories of breakthroughs and blessings unfolded right before me… and soon I found myself falling in love with CCBC.

Reading the memoirs was like opening a lost diary of a grandmother whom I never knew. It made me care more… and it made me want to do this RIGHT. So after much hissy-fit on the deadlines, coupled with all the domestic drama happening in my life, PRAYER put me back on track. I realized that even if I wanted to offer a fine commemorative book to God, its aesthetics would be worthless in the absence of a pure heart. I was even more convicted after listening to God through Pastor Phil’s message about producing work that’s GOLD. It was all about doing Work that GLORIFIES GOD… Work that is out of OBEDIENCE… Work that is motivated by LOVE… and Work that makes DISCIPLES. Work that is GOLD! Like gold, ministry work had to be put on fire to test its purity (1 Corinthian 3:14). The commemorative book became a Baptism of Fire for me.

I was rejuvenated after that and stepped on the gas pedal! But the enemy also went full speed ahead! Suddenly my very important flash disk was missing. I have already picked out some digital photos from the stacks of CDs from Apol (in charge of Research & Documentation for the entire Anniv), and have already categorized them in folders. All of these sorted and labeled materials were in that flash disk! Now that it’s missing, I have to go back to square one! Argh! I knew I should have kept a back-up in my hard drive but my laptop was as cluttered as my life back then. Anyway, I was able to fix that but there was yet another roadblock to tackle – we didn’t have a Layout Editor yet!

Julius A.K.A Sosoy was supposed to lead the layout team but conflicts in schedule got in the way. The other graphic artists in church were also MIA. Chris, Tita Rica’s son, was able to step up again to do the cover design but we still needed someone to do the inside pages. We had no choice but to hire a professional in lieu of the unavailable volunteers. So we prayed for a layout editor and God brought us Elijah dela Peña (his name alone gave me heaps of hope!) It took a while before we were able to get our schedules aligned to meet and discuss the project so I was beginning to get desperate. But the Lord told me to hold on and wait. So finally, with just barely a month to go before our target date of release, we finally met Elijah. The cards were immediately laid on the table – our calendar was extremely tight. Even if Elijah was a gifted fast worker, we still needed extra hands. Guess who the Lord sent to save the day? We learned that Elijah was actually a colleague (a direct subordinate) of Julius, our former layout editor. So now, Julius had no choice but to “prove” himself now because it would be quite a shame if his staff would turn out to be a better worker than him. Haha! The Lord sure has a clever sense of humor! (We love you Sosoy!)

So we were finally on a roll. We were about to layout a 164-page book in one week! How? More than our skills pooled together – God was the chief artist! Through a lot of intercession by our prayer warriors (you know who you are) we made it to the last stretch! There were a lot of challenges along the way which I wrongly took against some people involved… only to realize that everything had been a SPIRITUAL BATTLE! I regret blowing my top off and expressing my selfish complaints; digging myself in a much deeper hole every time I did it. So I wasn’t only stressed out with the project’s progress, I was also becoming depressed and guilty about my mood swings.

Finally, we were on the verge of victory! Half of the Final Artwork has been done and ready for the printer’s proofing. By July 2, Elijah, Julius and I have lost several nights of good sleep already. That day alone I just had about a couple of hours sleep but I had to bring the DVD of files over at the printer’s. So with only practically 30% of my brain functioning and with an almost-senile cab driver who didn’t know how to go to Panay avenue, it was like running towards the end zone with shackles on my legs.

Alas! I got to the printer and submitted the files just in time. But just when I was about to relax and move on, I realized that my other phone (the one I use for family) was missing, while the other phone (the one I use for business) received a message from one of my clients saying, my project with them has been cancelled because I’ve been out of reach for the past few days. Argh! I was so caught up with the CCBC Book that I totally forgot about my work. Now with the possible income vanishing in thin air matched with my urgent necessity to buy another phone, I’m suddenly on deficit. And ironically, my missing flash disk suddenly showed up out of nowhere, just when I had practically no use over it now.

I was just too tired to feel upset. I trudged back home wondering how I figured myself in this situation. Oh I remember… I PRAYED FOR A MINISTRY, didn’t I? Slowly I sank and went down to my knees. I felt the Cross on my shoulders and His words permeated my soul, “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do’.” (Luke 17:10)

As of this writing, the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Book of CCBC is already in the hands of our trusted printer. I have learned so much not just about Ministry work but also about myself through this journey. I kid my husband that it’s like giving birth to our first child. It was an intense labor but it was all worth it. Countless mishaps happened because the enemy knows many will be blessed with the stories... many will be inspired to take part in ministries... and many hearts will be warmed up to serve the nations. The enemy threw some punches but God made us dodge the blows and filled us with the power to get back on our feet. Whew! What a fight! What a spiritual battle!

It is only now when I am seeing the book taking shape that I realized what a privilege it was to have been called by God to do this. I wasn’t perfect in obeying the Lord in this endeavor so I can’t take any credit for this book at all. The only perfect thing was His plan. He planned for all of my challenges to happen; plotting all those obstacles along the way… May the best of Jill win! And by the grace of God, I survived the fire, leaving only real GOLD. I’ve been put to test… purified… prepared for the next level.

This is just a draft of the front & back cover of the commemorative book.
Books will be available on July 26, 2009