Mr.

Ahmed held both my hands in his and said that I had been an answer to prayers he did not even know how to pray.

He said that God had sent me to his family for a reason and that reason had been fulfilled.

He said he would never forget me and that he would continue on the path I had helped him find.

Madame Fatima could barely speak through her tears.

She just held me close and said thank you over and over.

Then she pressed something into my hand, a small gold necklace with a cross on it.

She said she had bought it secretly, that I should wear it and remember that we were sisters no matter what religion or culture said.

Amamira drove me to the airport with the driver.

We cried the whole way.

At the departure gate, she held me tight and whispered that she loved me, that I was the spiritual mother she never had, that she would honor God with her life because of what I had taught her.

I told her that I had not taught her anything, that God had done it all.

But she shook her head and said that God had used me and that was enough.

The plane ride home was long and bittersweet.

I was so excited to see my children, to hold them again, to be their mother in person instead of through a phone screen.

But I was also leaving behind people I had grown to love.

People whose lives had become intertwined with mine in unexpected ways.

When I finally landed in Manila and saw Rodrigo and Carlo and Isabelle waiting for me, I ran to them and held them and cried.

They were bigger than when I left.

Carlo was almost as tall as my shoulder.

Isabelle had lost teeth and grown into her face.

2 years is a long time in a child’s life.

But I was home.

Finally, I was home.

The adjustment was not easy.

The money I had sent back had improved our lives significantly.

We had paid off our debts, fixed up our house, saved some for the children’s education, but I had to relearn how to be a wife and mother in person rather than from a distance.

I had to reconnect with my children who had grown up without me.

I had to find my place in my own home again.

But God was faithful.

Slowly, day by day, we healed and reconnected.

I told my family stories about Dubai, though I was careful about how much detail I shared.

They knew something significant had happened there, but they did not know the full extent of it.

And then the messages started coming.

Text messages from Amamira telling me about her wedding, about her faith journey, about other young women she was helping.

Emails from Mr.

Ahmed telling me about his business changes and his quiet spiritual growth.

Even messages from Madame Fatima occasionally asking for prayer.

Sharing little updates about the family.

The story did not end when I left.

It continues even now.

The seeds are still growing.

The ripples are still spreading.

A few months after I came home, I got a message from Linda, the other Filipina maid who still worked for the family.

She told me that the household had changed completely since the events of that year, that the family was kinder, gentler, more generous, that Mr.

Ahmed had become known in Dubai as a businessman with unusual integrity.

That Madame Fatima had started a foundation to help abuse domestic workers.

That the whole family seemed lighter somehow, more at peace.

She said that people asked what had happened to transform the al-Rashid family and the family would just smile and say they had been blessed.

They did not give details.

They protected the secret but they knew and God knew and I knew.

I think about the house church in Dubai sometimes.

All those secret believers worshiping Jesus at great personal risk.

I pray for them often.

I pray for their safety, for their faith to remain strong, for God to protect them and grow their number.

Christianity in the Middle East is often hidden, but it is real and alive and growing in quiet underground ways.

Amamira tells me that the house church has grown.

More people are coming, not just domestic workers now, but other professionals, even some locals who have found Jesus and must worship in secret.

She says it is like the early church in the book of acts meeting in homes sharing everything supporting each other willing to risk everything for Jesus.

I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had not prayed that night?

What if I had kept my faith private?

Never prayed for Mr.

Ahmed.

Never answered their questions.

Would things be different?

Would they have found Jesus another way?

But I realize now that God was orchestrating everything.

My mother’s prayers before I left the Philippines.

The specific family I was placed with.

Mr.

Ahmed’s sudden illness, the timing of everything, it was all God weaving together.

Circumstances and people and moments to accomplish his purposes.

I was just a thread in the tapestry, a small simple thread.

But God used me.

And that is what I want you to understand from my story.

You do not have to be special or educated or important for God to use you.

You just have to be available.

You just have to be willing to pray, to serve, to speak truth when asked, to live your faith authentically, even in hard places.

God can use anyone.

a poor maid from Mindanao, a grieving mother, a lonely immigrant, a powerless servant.

If you give your life to him, if you trust him, he will use you in ways beyond your imagining.

My mother was right.

God sent me to Dubai for a reason.

Not just to earn money, though that was part of it.

Not just to serve a wealthy family, though I did that, too.

But ultimately, he sent me there to be a witness, to pray, to plant seeds, to shine a small light in a dark place.

And now those seeds are growing into something beautiful.

A Muslim businessman who secretly follows Jesus.

A wealthy woman who found peace through Christian prayer.

A young woman who gave her life to Christ and is helping others do the same.

a divided family that is slowly, quietly being transformed by encounters with God’s love.

It is not perfect.

It is complicated and messy and sometimes painful.

Not everyone converted.

Not everyone even believes.

But something shifted.

A door opened.

Light got in.

And once light gets in, darkness can never fully reclaim that space.

I am back in my small house in Mindanao now.

I work at a local sorry store and I help with children’s ministry at our church.

My life is simple and ordinary again.

But I carry Dubai with me always.

I carry the faces of the Al-Rashid family.

I carry the prayers we prayed together.

I carry the memory of God doing impossible things.

and I continue to pray for them every day.

I pray for that family in Dubai.

I pray for the house church.

I pray for all the secret believers in the Middle East who are following Jesus at great cost.

I pray that God would continue the work he started.

That the seeds would grow into a harvest.

That one day there would be freedom to worship openly.

Maybe that day will come.

Maybe it will not come in my lifetime, but I know it will come someday because God’s kingdom is advancing.

Always advancing, even in the most impossible places.

People sometimes ask me if I would do it all again.

Leave my children, go to a foreign country, work as a maid, face all those challenges.

Would I do it again knowing what I know now?

And my answer is yes.

a thousand times.

Yes.

Because I got to see God work.

I got to be part of something bigger than myself.

I got to watch impossible transformations happen right before my eyes.

I got to see Muslims encounter Jesus and be changed by his love.

That is worth everything.

Every tear, every lonely night, every hard day of work, it was all worth it.

So this is my testimony.

This is the story of what God did in Dubai through a simple Filipina maid who just tried to serve faithfully and pray honestly.

I did not set out to change anyone.

I did not set out to convert a Muslim family.

I just set out to do my work well and live my faith authentically even in a place where Christianity was not welcome.

And God did the rest.

He always does.

That is the beauty of it.

We are just vessels.

We are just instruments.

The power is his.

The glory is his.

The results are his.

If you are in a hard place right now, let my story encourage you.

If you feel small and insignificant, let my story remind you that God uses the small and insignificant.

If you are far from home or struggling or wondering if your life matters, let my story tell you that it does matter more than you can imagine.

Bloom where you are planted.

Serve with love.

Pray with faith.

Speak truth when asked.

Trust God with the results.

He is faithful.

He sees you.

He knows your situation.

and he can use you to do things you never dreamed possible.

My mother told me before I left that God would use me in Dubai.

At the time I did not understand, but now I do.

Now I see.

God sent me to that palace in the desert to plant seeds of faith.

And those seeds are still growing, still bearing fruit, still spreading in ways I may never fully know until heaven.

And that is enough.

More than enough to know that I was obedient.

To know that I was faithful.

To know that I played my small part in God’s big story.

The testimony continues.

The story goes on.

In Dubai and beyond, God is moving and I am grateful.

So deeply grateful that I got to be part of it.

To God be the glory always and forever.

Amen.

 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we come before you on bended knee with hearts that tremble, with [clears throat] souls that yearn for the light of your truth.

We invoke the intercession of the blessed virgin Mary, [clears throat] our lady of Fatima, queen of heaven and earth, who appeared on that hillside in Portugal more than 100 years ago and who spoke words, words that the world is only now beginning to understand.

Holy Spirit, breathe upon us.

Open our ears, open our hearts, and if there is any fear in this room tonight, cast it out.

For perfect love, the love of the father casts out all fear.

Let us pray.

Let us listen and let us not be afraid of the truth.

Amen.

I need you to stop right now.

Whatever you are doing, stop.

Because what I am about to tell you, what heaven itself spoke into history over a hundred years ago on a hillside in Fatima, Portugal, is unfolding before our very eyes.

Tonight, this week, on the news screens of every nation, on the face of this earth, a war has begun.

A war in the ancient lands of Persia and the Holy Land, Iran, Israel, the United States.

The missiles are flying.

The fire is real.

And I am standing before you tonight not as a man of politics, not as a commentator on military affairs, but uh as a servant of the gospel, as a shepherd who has read the signs of the times, as a man who has spent his life in the documents of Fatima and who tells you with every fiber of his being, our lady warned us about this moment.

She w and most of the world was not listening but you are here you are watching and that that is not an accident.

Stay with me because before this message is finished you will understand something that the mainstream world does not want you to understand.

Something that the corridors of power have tried to bury.

Something that heaven itself placed in the hands of three shepherd children.

Francisco, Jasinta, and Lucia on that sacred hillside in the Kova Dai area.

And I promise you, by the time we reach the end of this message together, you will never look at the news the same way again, [clears throat] stay with me.

This matters more than anything else you will hear today.

Let us go back.

Let us go all the way back to May 1319.

constituent.

The world was already on fire.

The first world war was consuming the flower of European youth.

Millions were dying in the trenches of France and Belgium.

And in the small village of Aljestro near Fatima in Portugal, three children, three simple, uneducated, barefoot shepherd children went out to tend their flock in the field called the Kova Da area.

And there, in the blinding light of noon, a woman clothed in white, more brilliant than the sun itself, appeared above, a small home oak tree.

And she said, she said to those trembling, I was struck children, she said, I am from heaven.

I have come to ask you to come here on the 13th of each month for 6 months, and then I will tell you who I am and what I want.

She came back six times.

She came back and each time she revealed more.

She revealed her identity.

She revealed her requests.

She revealed the state of the human soul.

And she revealed three great secrets.

Three secrets.

The first secret, a vision of hell so terrifying, so viscerally horrifying that little Justinta, who was only 7 years old, said she could never forget it.

Our Lady showed these children’s souls falling into hell like snowflakes.

Like snowflakes, my friends, falling endlessly, endlessly, unceasingly into the eternal fires.

And she told them that she had shown them this vision because she did not want souls to go there.

She wanted prayer.

She wanted sacrifice.

She wanted the rosary.

Now, are you still with me?

Because I need you to understand what the second secret said and this is where we begin to feel the temperature rise.

This is where the world should have paid attention.

The second secret our lady said and I am giving you the substance of what the church has revealed.

She said that the war then raging the first world war would end.

But she also said that if men did not cease offending God, a worse war would break out under the pontificate of pious.

She requested the consecration of Russia to her immaculate heart.

And she warned she warned that if her requests were not heeded, Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and the persecution of the church, the good would be martyed.

The Holy Father would have much to suffer.

Various nations would be annihilated.

Various nations would be annihilated.

Think about that.

A woman clothed with a son in 1917 speaking to illiterate children in a Portuguese village says various nations would be annihilated.

Does that sound like the language of fiction to you?

Because it does not sound like fiction to me.

It sounds like a warning from heaven.

Sounds like a mother crying out to her children before the storm.

But then then there is the third secret.

Oh, the third secret.

And I want you to hold that thought for just a moment.

I want you to feel the weight of what is coming.

Because the third secret is the reason we are here tonight.

The third secret is the reason that popes lock documents away in vaults.

The third secret is the reason that Sister Lucia, the surviving visionary, was not permitted to speak freely for decades.

And the third secret, the third secret may be the reason why when you look at the headlines tonight, something deep inside your soul whispers, “This is not ordinary.

This is not politics as usual.

This is something else.

Stay with me.

We are going to walk through this together.

Every word matters.

Now the Catholic Church in the year 2000 under the leadership of Pope John Paul 2 released what was declared to be the text of the third secret and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who would later become Pope Benedict 16 provided a theological commentary on it.

What did the third secret show?

It showed in the words of Sister Lucia herself, a bishop dressed in white who falls to the ground as if dead struck down amid a great city in ruins.

There are other bishops, priests, religious men and women climbing a steep mountain toward a large cross of ruff timber.

And at the foot of that cross, they are killed one by one by soldiers with guns and arrows.

And beneath the two angels of the vision, letters of blood fall upon the earth, a bishop dressed in white, a city half in ruins, the martyrdom of the faithful.

Now, the Vatican’s official interpretation tied this vision to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul 2 on May 13, 1981.

And that date, that date was the anniversary of the first apparition, May 30.

And Pope John Paul to himself holding the bullet that had been removed from his body said a maternal hand guided the bullet.

He attributed his survival to our lady of Fatima.

He went to Fatima.

He placed that bullet in the crown of her statue and he consecrated the world to her immaculate heart and there was great joy, great relief.

The church said, “The secret has been fulfilled.

The secret is over.

We can breathe.

But and here my friends, I ask you to lean in very close.

But many serious faithful learned Catholics, many who have devoted their lives to the study of Fatima.

Wait, has everything been revealed?

Has all been fulfilled?

Are we truly seeing the full picture?

And I say to you tonight with great humility, with great reverence for Holy Mother Church, with absolute fidelity to the magisterium, I say to you, the story of Fatima is not finished.

The mercy of God is not finished.

And the warnings from heaven are not finished.

Because now look at what is happening.

Look at the world tonight.

Iran and Israel are at war.

The United States of America has entered the conflict.

Missiles have struck Iranian nuclear facilities.

Thrron has retaliated.

The ancient Persian Empire, the ancient land through which the people of God once walked as captives.

That land is once again afflict.

and Israel.

Israel, the land that the Lord promised to Abraham in the book of Genesis chapter 15 verse when he said to your descendants I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

That land is under existential threat.

And you sit there and you say, “Cardinal Burke, what does this have to do with Fatima”?

And I say to you, everything.

It has everything to do with Fatima because our lady did not come to Fatima to give us a nice devotion.

She did not come to give us beautiful prayers for our personal spiritual comfort alone.

She came with urgency.

She came with tears.

She came as a mother watching her children walk toward a cliff in the darkness, reaching out her hands, crying out, “Stop.

Pray.

Repent.

Convert.

or the consequences will be catastrophic.

And the Bible, the Bible itself tells us in the book of Daniel 8, that visions of the end of days involve the region of Persia.

That the angel Gabriel explained to Daniel that the ram with two horns represented the kings of Media and Persia.

And Daniel saw a great conflict arising from that region.

And he fell on his face in terror.

He fell on his face.

When was the last time you fell on your face before God?

When was the last time the reality of eternity gripped you so powerful that your knees buckled and your heart cried out for mercy?

Cuz that, my friends, is where we need to be right now.

Not in panic, not in despair, but on our knees, in prayer.

Continue reading….
« Prev Next »