#aiias

What a wonderful Saturday this was! This morning it rained so heavily I decided I was part of a beautiful there-shall-be-showers-of-blessings kind of Sabbath. Mmmm...such a wonderful gift from God! We were in the middle of the children's story when the rain started pouring really hard on our church's ceiling. The sound reminded me of another stormy Sabbath during my childhood in the Philippines.

My family and I attended the church services at the Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies (AIIAS). This was before they built their church and worship services were held at the auditorium. In the middle of divine worship one day, a heavy storm came our way. The drum roll of the thunder, the howl of the wind and the loud pitter-pat of the rain falling on the auditorium's tin roof made it difficult to hear the preacher. I can't recall the details of the sermon, but I do remember it being one of those powerful sermons.

Instead of competing with the crescendo of the nature's stormy day soundtrack, our preacher decided to pause his sermon. He invited our chorister, Pastor Ondap, to lead the congregation in singing Showers of Blessings. We turned to hymn #195 and sang all stanzas of the hymn. We sang that hymn with so much joy in our hearts! Every word of the hymn became so much more beautiful and true.

In the middle of our singing, the storm ceased. Quickly, too! The sun peaked from behind the stormy clouds. It reminded me of the story of Jesus calming the storm. I'm grateful today's weather brought me back to a distant yet vivid memory. :)

Since typing this blog post has made me realize just how homesick I am for AIIAS, here is a photo tour of the beautiful place I once called home. I plan on visiting sometime in the future. I kid you not, living there was a foretaste of heaven! There are people from different parts of the world. Potlucks were amazing! There was always a melange of ethnic foods! The campus is complete with apartments for institute students and their families, a campus food store, faculty residential area, an international junior academy, classroom buildings, a library, prayer garden, a gymnasium, soccer field, tennis courts...and I'm sure they've added more since I left.

A bird's eye view of the campus

A closer bird's eye view of the campus. The buildings forming a square are the apartments. I lived in the top left apartment building facing this way. The big rectangle building on the right is the auditorium/gymnasium where we had our church services.

Here is a beautiful picture of the bell tower. This is the first structure you see upon entering the campus gate which is monitored by security guards. Just looking at this picture makes me miss the cool breeze! The bell tower was usually our pickup and drop-off location for prayer conferences, Pathfinder trips, outings, gym nights, (Thursdays were badminton nights for me), socials, international talent shows, etc.

Meet AIIAS Junior Academy, my school from sixth to eighth grade. A great majority of my childhood memories were made here! See that open field? This was the field where I first learned (or pretended to learn) to play kickball. The same field where my shoe (instead of the ball) did the flying, drilled my Pathfinder team (Go Koalas!), participated in track and field...ahhh, I could go on and on! I digress.

Here's a picture of the prayer garden. It's so serene there! The building in the back is the junior academy...and if I'm not mistaken, the windows belong to my former 8th grade classroom.

A view of the library. The building to the right is the auditorium/gymnasium.

Inside the auditorium/gymnasium

The two classroom buildings, "CC1" and "CC2".