prepare ye the way

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In those days John the Baptist
came preaching in the wilderness of Judea,

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.” 

For this is he who was spoken of
by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

“The voice of one crying in the
wilderness; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'”

– Matthew 3:1-3 (ESV)

Read
Lindsay Heston’s blogs on “The Tunnel” for background on the community and
ministry project.

This
morning, Dunamis partnered with Karis in laboring on the project (Joy and Angi
provided the meryenda – Tagalog for “snack” and water and ice and
encouragement). We shoveled and dug into
the beaten path. We raked the path,
leveling it as best we could. With
machetes in hand, we cleared shoots and bushes. We broke up the hard and rocky parts of the dirt. We dug through the dirt and collected the
trash to be incinerated, clearing the path. We played with the children who were curious enough to watch us – some
even pitched in the work!

The goal
is to pour concrete and literally pave the way that runs through the community
to a Christian school. For most of the
morning, I played the garbage woman. To
say that this path was “littered with trash” would be an understatement. I would sift through the dirt for trash and
sometimes I would dig in to look for more, but Carly had to warn me that there
is no end to the layers of garbage.

Just the
mere thought of places in Nicaragua and Egypt that are infamous for cities that
are simply too many people who make their home in and living off of garbage dumps
made me tired. What kept me going this
morning was the fact that Jesus dug through all the dirt in me to rid me of the
trash that got buried in me. He got a
lot sweatier, smellier and more tired doing it and it eventually cost Him not
only His life but His intimacy with His Father.

So I kept
picking away. As I kimchi squatted along
that path throwing out trash, the phrase “prepare ye the way” came to mind and
heard the chorus of the song by the same name by Caedmon’s Call play in my
head. In the same way John the Baptist
cleared the way for Jesus, we are making the way to the One who is the Way, the
Truth and the Life to the community in this corner of the outskirts of Manila.