Manila, Philippines.
Movies and TV illuminate the industry of prostution. Taken depicts the realities of the sex slave industry. Slumdog Millionaire showed us the horrors of living as a street kid.
We’re exposed to all these things while snuggling beside our comfy pups on the couch, in the security of our homes. We speak of how wrong these things are, we talk of how we wish we could do something, we get angry at the villains on TV and wish we could intervene.
But what do you do when you’re finally given the opportunity to?
This is not a blog of answers, this is a blog of distress.
As our team walks home from dinner, we pass the Excellence Nightclub. Just a couple blocks from home, there stands six or seven beautiful daughters of the Most High, and they don’t even know it. Dressed scantily, standing in a line beneath a dim red light, waiting for someone off the street to purchase them for the evening.
What do you do?
As we round the corner, and head into the lobby of our hostel, an older white man in his mid-60’s is leaning up against the garden boxes outside, a seemingly quiet young Filipino women is leaning beside him. Not by choice. He brings her upstairs and they sit in silence as they both eat a mystery dish from the hostel kitchen. I watch from the neighboring table without a single clear thought in my head. They leave for the night, and he returns a couple hours later, alone.
What do you do?
As a soldier for the Kingdom, as a giver of God’s grace, as a sharer of His love; I imagined the homeless, the broken, the hurting, I imagined these situations and felt compelled to bring hope. That’s part of why I’m here.
However, my words are truly being tested out here on the streets. When push comes to shove; when you pass by that young man who lives his life crippled, sitting there helpless on a piece of cardboard, are you going to reach out a hand and pray for him. When that twelve year old runs up to you with a baby on her hip and grabs your arm tightly, begging for a handout, how do you respond, how do you spread the Kingdom?
These are things I always imagined I had the faith to handle, but now that I’m here in the heat of it, I’m forced to push my faith to its greatest limits. I’m forced to question how far I’m willing to go, and how much I’m willing to abide.
However as I continue to pursue the answers to those questions, I am growing endlessly in my reliance and relationship with my God. My ceilings are now becoming my floors and I’m forced to press into my discomfort.
I still have no idea what my role is, or how to respond in many of these situations. But I believe this is a month for the Lord to show us what it really looks like to spread His Kingdom, and what it really means to walk boldly in His authority.
