Once again, here are loads of reactions to Funfare’s recent publication of Rio’s testimony last Aug. l7 (Rio’s birthday) at the l9th anniversary celebration of the Christ Commission Fellowship (CCF), to which Rio belongs, at the ULTRA.
Here are some of the letters from which Funfare readers can, I’m sure, draw their own inspiration:
• From Yoli Alonte (of California):
I’m amazed how Rio Diaz has struggled through her cancer. She’s indeed a living miracle. I really appreciate her way of sharing her experience with us, the readers.
My sister Lynn succumbed to breast cancer a year and a half ago. She was diagnosed as Stage 4 right away and on Dec. 1, 2001, she passed away. What made it terribly sad was that she was only 35. She had a full life ahead of her but, alas, it was cut short. However, she was as courageous as Rio during her battle with the Big C. She didn’t let it rule her life up to the end.
I would like to thank you for letting us share this inspirational letter with your readers. I hope it will serve as encouragement to people both sick and healthy.
Today, Aug. 22, is my 35th birthday. I have an hour before I pick up my son John from his special pre-school. Reading Rio’s testimony is one of the best birthday presents I could ever receive. I am printing it so I can read it everytime I wonder and worry about what my soon-to-be-5-year-old boy’s future would be. My son has been diagnosed with epileptic aphasia on that fateful day (Sept. 11, 2001), a condition that has delayed his over-all development and has caused him severe speech impairment. He has yet to speak.
I just finished writing to my friend whose one-year-old daughter just had surgery (for harelip procedure). I wrote to her what my husband constantly reminds me of: God is in control. What a blessing to read the same thing from Rio Diaz.
It is through her testimony that people everywhere are being made much more aware that, yes, God is indeed in control. My resolve to leave everything to God becomes firmer each time I hear a story like Rio’s; each time my husband Richard would say that my son John is God’s son first before he is ours and that the love we have for John is so small compared to how much God loves him; each time John hugs and kisses us; each time his older brother Richie says he has the cutest little brother.
Please say thank you to Rio for continually sharing her inspiring story. I hope that one day my son will be blessed with the gift of speech and he’ll be able to tell anyone who cares to listen how God has always known what to give him. Maybe his condition is a sanctification, to use my husband's words, not for him but for me. For God has my full attention now more than ever.
Thank you for printing the testimony of Ms. Rio Diaz-Cojuangco. Like her, I was diagnosed with cancer (prostate) last year. Ninety percent of my glands have the Big C. The doctors cannot recommend surgery or other method of treatment except for radiation but they weren’t sure if it would work or not.
After four months of almost daily radiation therapy, the tumor had considerably shrunk. And I asked the doctor at that time, "Will I still see Christmas this year?" He said , "You bet you will!"
The day I learned I have cancer, I wrote in my journal, God always talked to me in His faint voice, and most of the time I couldn't hear or understand it...but, when He said it louder...OUCH, it hurts!
The cancer is in remission right now and I am very thankful to the Lord for the extension. I still cannot comprehend the mystery of His plans, but I know there is a GOOD ONE, or I would have been GONE!
It is not only the battle against cancer that I have been fighting. The most difficult is the fight against depression, whose poison arrow is to strike the mind and thus weaken the body. But, one night, while I was in front of the computer at work at Alaska Airlines, I started to pray, and I wrote the prayer/poem like this:
Holy God of the universe, creator of heaven and earth
Free me of this painful memory that haunts me like death
Take the yoke that sometimes is too heavy to carry
That made my day and night unbearably scary
Please repel the negative, depressing spirit within me
And change it with a positive, holy one from thee
And in my deepest, fervent prayers find solace
From your spirit and hopefully receive your grace.
Thanks for sharing Rio's narration about her numerous bouts with her cancer. It was so touching to read about her faith and deep trust in our Lord Jesus Christ. I, too, had to undergo the same trials as her husband Charlie – you know, having a wife who had to fight her breast cancer for five years and is at present on her fifth year of remission.
I simply dropped everything to be by her side as we (actually she) went from one form of treatment to another. I lost my business and our finances. (But I would do it again, meaning lose 10 more businesses rather than lose her).
Anyway, as I look back to those years of financial hardship, and as I look at the present, where I am now picking up the pieces and slowly but surely getting there again, financiallly and family-wise, with our two kids now done with college and two to go and the family still intact, all I can say is, "Thank you, Jesus, for carrying us all the way because what we all have to undergo doesn’t look too hard now."
Imagine that I can say that after losing my $500,000 home and a business that was doing six figures net in dollars! Anyway, tell Rio, from a husband’s perspective, I wounld not hesitate to do it all again for the love of my wife and for my children. Thank you, Jesus, for making me reallize what really is valuable in life (not money nor material things but rather the people you love and Jesus who is so kind to us).
I have read all of your articles about Rio’s fight with cancer. I envy her for having a strong faith in the Lord. I myself have cancer. But unlike hers, mine is not a disease.
I’m into drugs and living-in with a married guy. I cried when I read Rio’s testimony, especially that portion where she asked, "What kind of cancer do you have?"
Tears fell down my face as I read Rio’s testimony. I’ve been struggling with my cancer for so many years now and although I have all the chance to cure it, I never allowed myself to do so. But after reading Rio’s testimony, I cannot imagine myself letting the cancer continue to ruin me.
I would like to thank you for publishing her testimony. God indeed works in unexpected ways. Would you please tell Rio that starting today, I will pervently pray for her. I believe that a person like her should live longer. She is a living testimony for all of us who continue living with our own type of cancer.
Lastly, would you please kiss Rio for me. Her testimony changed me. God Bless her and her family too.
RIO D. COJUANGCO
R – esultang kagalingan ay Diyos na kalooban
I – ningatan, sinamahan at di pinabayaan
O – ncologist ay ginawaran ng katalinuhan
D – akilang Diyos sa karamdaman sinaklolohan.
C – ancer, maselan na sakit, ikaw ay dinapuan
O – ras sa mundo ay tinaningan ng pagamutan.
J – esus Christ, tagapagligtas nitong sangkatauhan
U – tang na mga kasalanan sa krus binayaran
A – nupa't di ininda ang bigat ng kahirapan
N – agtayo sa 'yo mula sa banig ng karamdaman
G – inawa ay milagro na hindi mababayaran.
C – hrist Jesus himalang kalooban, pasalamatan
O – sanah ! Osanah ! Diyos sa kataas-taasan.
(E-mail reactions at rickylo@philstar.net.ph)