Ezekiel: The Power of Prayer

My wife and I love kids.


I remember our old times, when we would gamely talk about how many children we would like to raise, highlighting the pros and cons that goes with each number, until reaching our solemn number 3.


Year 1999 and as mutually agreed, our first year of marriage was spent in knowing each other more and enthusiastically involving ourselves with the activities of the CFC ministry. Financially, we were starting also to make some savings for our future baby. During our second year, I grabbed a work opportunity abroad so we have to be separated for a few months. But we have earnestly planned to have our baby that year so my wife resigned from her job to be with me. Unfortunately, my stressful work required frequent traveling which means we were still often away from each other. Stress and space, simply put, has hindered us to achieve our goal that year. Throughout, we have the usual supportive advices and prayer intentions from family members and friends but we did not bother to dwell on it too much.


The following year, things were meant to be more awry. Our Swiss employer has negated to pay our 5-month backwages and over-time arrears. A few months later, the company filed for bankruptcy without a single-cent collected by us. Anxiety crept. We have land mortgages to fulfill and our savings are dwindling. Nevertheless, our longing for our first baby was stronger than ever and we continue to pray for His guidance. Our decision to stay in that foreign land despite the absence of a veritable source of income turned out to be the proverbial blessing-in-disguise. One of our former German client who grew fondness with the Filipino work attitude and efficiency has offered me a job in his firm. Less basics and benefits but nonetheless timely, my wife and I deduced. Less-traveling also gave us more time to concentrate on having our first baby. But it was not meant to be not this year again.


With a growing concern, we decided to seek medical help. A specialist in Hongkong found some curable polyps as the likely cause so my wife underwent 6 months of medication to fully-recover. Notwithstanding the medical expenses, we were in high-spirits waiting for the medication to be over. Hope and excitement abounds.


By the start of 2002, with all medical check-ups finally clearing both of us of any physical infirmity and with my job stable as ever, we expected nothing less than a Santos baby this year. But days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months and there was no baby conception to announce to our families and friends. We kept our faith and hope, with the back-thoughts that, maybe, we were meant to be without a child of our own after all. We comfort ourselves with the thought that adoption is another option.


We had another vacation to the Philippines before the year ended. That time my wife?s cousin doctor introduced us to his ob-gyne friend, Dra. Perez who is far different from all the doctors we have met. After her check-ups resulted in re-confirming that we were both fit and healthy now, she did prescribe neither further tests nor health enhancement medications. Her plain advice was to pray. “We have been doing that”, I silently re-affirmed to myself. What she added, however, struck us. “The prayer”, she calmly stressed, “is not just for any given time of the day but specifically before sharing the intimate moments with each other, believing in your hearts that God will bless your union with His child”.


On May 2003, my wife tearfully told me the news and I almost hit the ceiling jumping with joy. She was 2 months into motherhood. We knelt and expressed our deepest gratitude to our Lord above for He has answered our prayers.


On January 24, 2004, Matt Ezekiel was born.
Matt is the short name for Matthew, one of the four gospels of the New Testament.
Ezekiel was an Old Testament prophet called to foretell God’s faithfulness in the midst of trials, as well as in the fulfilment of His promises.


Only this time, our Zek, is the fulfillment of God’s promise to us.