Yesterday at dusk, a group of teenage girls, our contact Tess, and I sat ourselves down on top of an old cement foundation. I didn’t even know this was happening, as Tess had only told me just to follow her. So we walked through the slum yelling for girls to come out and join us. When we finally had our group, we had no place to meet. So we walked over to a piece of property that will, someday, Lord willing, become a drugstore, salon, and cell phone repair shop (all funded by donations). Currently, there is a foundation with a few layers of cement block wall (enough for a seat last night). The rest of the scrap wood and aluminum roofing lies on top of this floor.
Once we were seated Tess called on me to share my testimony with the girls. I am now learning to be prepared, and as a result, I’m beginning to feel more and more like a boyscout. So, I began sharing my life’s story, and realized that the events of my last birthday had a profound effect on my life. Through the experience of stopping a suicide attempt, I can visibly see God’s hand at work in my life. I feel a greater sense of purpose, that my life is not my own, that the decisions I make (to be obedient or disobedient to God’s calling) don’t just effect me. Another man’s life was literally saved because I listened to God’s call on my life. And so I finished sharing by telling the girls to dream and to listen to God, because an adventure awaits them (God is not boring!).
After I finished sharing, Tess began to tell the girls about her dreams. That’s when I glanced over my shoulder and saw a little pantless boy playing with a white plastic trash bag. He was tossing it up in the air and catching it before it hit the ground. And he was giggling all the while. As Tess talked in Tigalo, my brain started to wander. Just watching how happy this little 3 year old boy was, alone, half naked, made me start to wonder how odd this would look to an American.
Sitting there, watching this scene, I realized that this boy could be a World Vision poster child. But I was only feet away from him, and he was happy, not sad or downtrodden like the commercials would like to make you think. I have seen this more than once this year, and I have begun to feel a sense of normalcy with kids playing with trash, wearing next to nothing, and running to the strange white people and following them around the slum.
This is normal. But to an American reading this, it must seem a bit neglectful. After all, why wouldn’t a child that old be in shorts at least, and why is he playing unsupervised, because plastic bags can cause suffication. And why in the world is a little kid running down the center of the street, chasing strangers, and holding their hands. Any American in their right mind would be calling DSS on that neglecting parent. But not in the slum.
The slums understand community. Every child is watched over by the community. Every one knows their neighbor (and their relatives live within the same block). When there is a birthday to be celebrated, there is a block party, complete with video karaoke and beers. And when the strange white people are in town for a week, they get invited to sing karaoke. And Scott has a new talent… singing karaoke with drunk Filipinos.
Again, in America, we hide behind our fences, our gated communities, our cubicles, our tinted SUV windows. We may look better off than those in the slums, but are we? Is this a normal life?
How come the Filipinos in the slums in scorching 90 degree heat (and in danger of being carried away by typoon and flood) can be so happy, and so friendly? How come they’re relationships are fulfilling, and they care about the welfare of their neighbors (a lady down the street asked to do our laundry for us)? How come the slum organized a community committee in order to have a voice for the people living there (and to maintain order and justice)?
Which brings me back to what’s really important in life. What’s my purpose? To gain things, or gain relationships. The two greatest commands in the Bible are to love God and love eachother. So as I seek to love God, I have a greater love for the people I come in contact with. However, the culture that Americans have given to the Filipinos is a culture of materialism. Every other governing body in the Phillipines have given a sense of camraderie, a love for people and relationships, an increased ability to communicate. But all we’ve offered the Phillipines is greediness and covetessness (remember the 10th commandment?).
Although we did help the Phillippines get out from under the tyrannous rule of the Japanese in WWII, we did little to foster the culture that had already existed. We taught them to love money. This exists in the slums, somewhat, as stealing is prevalent (because there’s little education to get good jobs in the slums, the teenage boys have taken to stealing copper pipe to make money), but the community will not let stealing go unpunished. Their love for one another has stood the test of time, although materialism is now, unfortunately, an undercurrent. (I can’t say the same for non-slum-occupants in the Phillippines, as the malls here are just as big as the ones in Bangkok, the 51st state.)
Matthew 5:1 says, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God”. Well, the Kingdom is here, and we’ve all been given our inheritance already… each other. Somehow, the slum inhabitants understand this, as they surely give themselves away every day for one another (but to them it just looks like life). In the slums of the Phillippines I’m experiencing church; now they just need Jesus.
Scott and I went to a local “modern” church (with AC) yesterday morning, and as people greeted us, they asked us where we were living. When we told them Sandwana (the name of our slum), they proceeded to give us a shocked look and tell us it was dangerous. If it’s dangerous, then God is shielding us from danger, because, what I’m really experiencing is love. And I didn’t sign up to be safe, I signed up for the World Race to experience God (and He’s not safe.)
