As
a child, I read a book called “Mandy” about a curious young girl in
an orphanage. Mandy wonders what is
outside her walls, and one day decides to climb over the wall and see for
herself. What she discovered was beyond
her wildest dreams – a perfect little cottage in the middle of the woods that
seemed to be placed there just for her to retreat to.
Since reading that book, I’ve often
fantasized about what’s over walls.
Through our last three months in Asia, I’ve had plenty of walls to
wonder about. Whether made for keeping
things out or keeping things in or protection or just to look nice, walls still
block one on the outside from fully experiencing what’s on the inside. Though walls are very common here, it’s not
all that common that we get to see what is actually on the other side.
Today my eyes were opened. Today we saw the “other side” of
one of the most common walls in our daily lives here – the wall that lines our
driveway from the street down to the hotel.
We drive or walk on our side of the wall probably about 5-10 times a
day, but I hadn’t really thought about what was on the other side of that
wall. Today, in order to visit the
pastor we were scheduled to see, we walked…up our driveway, to the right
about 20 feet, and then back down toward the water on a little rocky foot
path. In less than 2 minutes from
leaving the front door of our hotel we were in a completely different world.
Pastor Emilio graciously welcomed us
in to the building that functions as his church and his home (he and his wife
live in a tiny, stuffy loft over part of the building). Unlike our nice hotel, this building was made
of cinder-block, ply-wood, and tin. He
talked about the challenges they face living there – how the building they’re
renting may soon be sold, how their
families have basically shunned them because they are born-again Christians,
how there are parties on the weekends that keep them up until all hours of the
morning, how they’re never really sure where their next meal is coming from or
where they’ll get the money for their next rent payment or moto payment, and
how it’s unsafe to sleep in the bottom part of the building at night and how
they spend most nights with rats all around them. All I could think about while he was talking
was “this is just over my wall, and I never even knew it was
here.” We had an amazing time of
fellowship with him and prayed with him for his church and the people around,
and were about ready to leave when it started pouring.
Instead of walking back and getting
soaked, we decided to stay there, and I took the opportunity to look outside
the window. I could see the ocean, same
as the view out our hotel window…but this was different. Instead of a clear, unobstructed view, I saw
huts and mud and dirt paths and little faces peering out the window frames to
see the foreigners who dared enter their little community. I could barely even see the gorgeous water
that I knew was there.
There is a spark of light in this
little community. Pastor Emilio and his
wife are faithful to the Lord’s leading and continue to be faithful through the
hard times, and God is blessing them through that. He is reaching out to his community, and God
is blessing him. Families are starting
to come to his church, some are volunteering their musical skills, others are
becoming open to the Bible studies that he is leading in this area. Though it is a very loud area on weekends,
their Sunday morning service has never been disrupted.
The rain stopped. We said goodbye, and talked about how if we meet
on the street we’ll say hi to each other, now that we know he’s right
there. We walked back up the rocky, now
slippery, pathway, across in front of the stores, and back down the paved
driveway to our hotel doors. That tall
bamboo wall is between us again. We’re
separated by more than just a wall, though – it’s a whole different world.
They sleep surrounded by
rats, we sleep with the occasional mouse or gecko.
They get wet inside when
it rains, we stay completely dry.
They sweat in their
stuffy loft, we turn the air-con down to 18 celsius every time we walk back in
so it will cool
down
faster.
They don’t know where
their next meal or bill payment is going to come from, we don’t know which
restaurant
we’re
going to eat supper at tonight.
They
feel unsafe in part of their house at night, we have an armed guard inside the
hotel gate.
They’re kept up by
parties and loud music, we’re kept up by movies or girl chats.
They are alienated from
their families because of their faith, I am brought close to my family because
of that
same
faith.
We’re
separated by a wall, but united by the faith we have in Christ Jesus. We share a trust in the Lord to provide for
us (though I could learn quite a few lessons from listening to him talk!). We share a love for music and a passion for
praising God though both hymns and praise songs. We share a heart for the lost. We just have different backgrounds, different
circumstances, different ways of life.
But God unites us. What’s over
the wall isn’t so different, after all.
