Philippine Update #2

Hello AGPMA Friends and Family,

Just completed my final workout/study of week one with Henry, followed by my first burrito here in Cebu (yum!). Wow! It’s been a fun and fulfilling week with so much to tell you about and some exciting Kingdom results to share.
So here we go…Friday I was having breakfast in the café here at the hotel when Henry arrived for our first meeting scheduled for 8:00am. Now let me introduce you to my teacher, Henry Jayme, a well rounded Pilipino Martial Artist with a background in Shaolin Kung Fu. Henry is one month younger than me, so that makes him 28 years and 11 months oldJ! Ok, ok…I know you don’t buy that. Henry is 52 years young and he began studying Balintawak (a style of Pilipino Martial Arts) in the late 70s. Over time he has been able to marry the Balintawak and the Kung Fu styles in his personal training.
After briefly getting acquainted, I go over my objectives and purpose for being here and then we’re off! We catch a cab and…oh boy…flashbacks from China, Brazil, and Thailand (Is my life insurance paid up?) After a few close calls and no time wasted, we arrive safely at Henry’s home/school. I am always impressed and inspired by the simplicity of the environments in the foreign countries that I have visited, and this is no exception. Basically, there is nothing wasted. They make do with very little and they make it work very well. Henry’s training facility is basically a small shed about 8ftx16ft. Nothing fancy…in fact, it makes the first back street Rocky gym look like an uptown training center for the pros. We get right down to business, starting with Lesson 1 of the 16 Balintawak Lessons that he has written on a dry erase board. Lesson 1 is their version of the 12 Basic Strikes with two footwork variations. Then we’re on to the 12 Defenses, followed by the 12 Defenses at random with Pakgang. Lessons 1-3 down and we skip ahead to Lesson 13, Combat Judo. Henry explains that, in this version of Combat Judo, they don’t believe in taking the opponent to the ground. Instead, they use joint locks to control him, then they just kill him while he’s standing (Did he just say "kill him"?). He goes on to explain that they believe it is too risky to take the opponent to the ground, so they just finish him off while standing!
Over the course of Friday through Monday, we had daily review (and correction), and to date we have covered most of the 16 Lessons along with a few disarming techniques and some knight fighting. While the stick training has been fun and interesting, Henry is also teaching me some Tat Kun Tao ("Touch Fist Way/Knowledge") forms. These are Pilipino style inside fighting forms based on boxing fundamentals… very interesting. This has been an unexpected pleasure and it complements my personal fighting style very well. I love it!
My training sessions with Henry are each 4 hours long. They go by fairly quickly most days and I manage to get in some Bible training with him at the beginning or end as well as go over scripture during breaks. It has been fun getting to know Henry. Turns out he’s a very interesting guy – a Pilipino Martial Arts teacher, a treasure hunter, a taxi driver, and a spiritual leader to the locals here (filling the shoes of his late father who had a following of people). I’ll explain more on that when I return from the mountain. On Saturday, I am scheduled to go to Henry’s home in the mountains, where I will meet his mother and some of the people that he leads spiritually.
A quick note to my UFC fans out there…How about St. Pierre? Henry and I watched the fight on the web (St. Pierre v. Penn). The only problem was it kept freezing up so we missed a lot of it. On some fights we didn’t get to see the results. But, I did see enough of the main event to know that Pierre dominated! This was Henry’s first introduction to UFC and he loved it. Oh…and we watched it on my laptop at a Starbucks! I know…diehardJ!
Ok…now back to my training and the real reason that I’m here. During one of our discussions, Henry asked me some questions about Revelation. One question lead to another, so it was time to go to "Revelation School" in God’s Word. God has a way of taking over sometimes and boy am I glad when He does. That night, as I was looking for answers to Henry’s questions, I found a 31 lesson study on Revelation by Keith Krell. After studying a few of the articles in search of answers, I asked Henry if he would like to join me in the study. He said yes, so we moved our workout sessions to my room. To date, we have made it through the first 12 lessons. Though Henry said that he was a Christian, his reasoning was that his father told him he was born a Christian. So yesterday I took him through the plan of salvation and invited him to ask Jesus to be his Lord and Savior. I explained that, if nothing else, this would be a rededication of his life to the Lord. Victory! Now, there is no doubt that Henry is a born again Christian! It’s amazing that God cares so much about each one of His children that He doesn’t want to leave one behind. I truly feel like God brought me all the way here just for Henry and I know that He has a plan to use Henry to lead the people who followed his father into the Kingdom of Heaven. I am excited just thinking about it! And as for me, God is training me in His Word in Revelation like never before.
It’s now 3:40am and I am expecting Henry to arrive soon for week 2 day 1 of our training. We will begin with the 13th lesson in Revelation, "All Heaven Breaks Loose" (what a great titleJ). I am giving you the website below and I want to encourage (or entice) you with this verse:
Revelation 1:3 - Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Maybe you are like me and at a point where you welcome blessings but, more than anything, you want to understand more so you can be a blessing to others. If so…join me and Henry as we go to "Revelation School."
God’s Love and Peace,

Al Garza
P.S. To join me in this GREAT study go to www.bible.org/series.php?series_id=195. You’re going to LOVE it! To read past updates from my travels go to algarza.blogspot.com.