Creating Life

Right now, the rain is falling steadily and heavily at times, and yet the surrounding local community diligently plugs away at constructing a new basketball hoop to be installed for the kids in the community and a new concrete foundation for a shower to be built. It’s humid and wet, and yet nothing seems to discourage or slow these awesome guys from using their hands and minds to create.

 

This past week many of us have worked together and with the locals to turn a small garbage dump the kids and surrounding community frequently use into a clean walking path. It’s been fun practicing engineering and thinking skills while consulting with the surrounding neighbors, estimating water flows, desiging drainage pathways, and laying concrete. The locals here love to help out, jumping at the chance to serve one another in the community. I’ve been told that during floods, everyone works hard to serve each other to restore each others homes with what little they have. It’s been a challenge to communicate and learn from these people while encouraging them to think ahead and design structures that last. They’re very good at working hard until a job is complete, and some of the people I’ve met are exceptionally skilled at repairing electronics. While studying electrical engineering, I’ve had amazing labs and test equipment to learn how to design elecrical circuits and systems. And yet one of the guys I helped configure a new network last night simply pulled out his magnifying glass to analyze and repair a computer circuit board. His lab simply consists of a small room with some basic handtools. In all of my years working with computers, we usually would just send the defective part back to the manufacturer for replacement or throw the part into the trash and buy a new one if out of warranty. These people here though don’t have warranties or backup plans. They have no one to fall back on if their business fails. If they can’t find a job, they don’t eat. Many of these people survive on some rice, vegetables, and maybe some chicken or eggs. Alot of the people in my community make between 200-300 pesos per day – that’s about 4-6 dollars!  These people choose to create life from almost nothing. They choose to work hard and reflect the image of God, albeit imperfect, given what they have. They are beautiful!

 

A small window into one of the many squatter villages in Manila

As I wonder how to respond to what I see here, and as Manila is almost beginning to feel a little like home already, I’m not implying that the wealth that God has blessed us with in America is wrong at all! But I’m learning to appreciate all that God has given us. I think our generations have been numbed by the comforts earned by our parents and given to us graciously by our God. We are bored, and we so often choose to take, complain, and use each other rather than appreciate all that we’re blessed with. Our nation has so much, and yet we give so little! Can you imagine if our nation were to give itself in relationship to our God and choose to use all that He has given us to serve one another and the rest of the world with incredible creativity, effort, and love! We have such an awesome privilege and opportunity!