“People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.” Mark 10:13-26
Many of you all know about our ministry in the Philippines and all the things we were able to do. But not everyone knows my heart and my day to day struggles, loves, and cries to God. Let’s go back to day one, our host gave us a tour of the surrounding neighborhood and along the way I began to see the needs of the community and I began to see all of the things the God could potentially call me to do. During the tour kids were coming out of every hole, crack, and tree to come play with us hi five us and just see us. I began to dole out hi fives like I never have before!
But in the midst of this my joy and love I was consumed by my own worldly mind and I started to not notice the smiles and the laughs but instead notice the kids hands, how they felt. I started to imagine what was on those hands where they had been, and I suddenly didn’t want to go five or even low five. That’s when the Lord humbled me to the point of tears, I heard verse and voice that convicted Peter in Acts 10, and it was “do not tell me something is unclean that I have made clean.” Even now my heart breaks at how disgusted I was and how little I wanted to interact with these amazing kids based on just how they looked, how they smelled, how clean they were.
Jesus has never once cared about how dirty, messed up, and broken we are instead He sees our heart. Jesus looks with eyes from heaven and we all to often look with eyes of the world. This started a month long journey, that didn’t come full circle until my last and hardest day of ministry. Tondo. There are two places that Kids International Ministries serves that are like no other place I’ve ever seen. Not only have I never experienced such an impoverished place, but my heart has never been broken, torn, and set on fire like it was for those people that day.
Our first stop was call Happyland. Imagine what your neighborhood would look like if a city of over 10million people sent you their garbage. The muddy streets were covered in garbage, the trash was piled to either side at some points even taller than I am. The conditions were beyond comprehension, but so we’re the attitudes of everyone who lived there! Kids were running around filthy, half naked in ripped clothing, some of them playing in the garbage. When it came time for the feeding they all came running, laughing, and hopping in line. But only then when all the kids were together did I see just how bad the situation was.
Kids were sick, hungry, they were running around in trash and debris barefoot with open wounds. That feeding impacted me the most because that day, we didn’t just give them rice and band-aids… we loved them, we told them they were not forgotten, they mattered to Jesus. Although it seems overwhelming to us, nothing is overwhelming to God.
Our next stop was just as desperate, a main difference however was that this community was living on a literal trash mountain that was a decommissioned dump instead of in the middle of garbage. Despite that difference the same problems were evident, the children were dirty, barefoot, an hungry. We called out to the entire mountain for the feeding and kids came parading toward us. While Megan was preparing to serve and perform an academy award winning skit I was set to help all of the coming kids wash their hands before food. At first it was easy enough, the kids washed their own hands and I just helped here and there. Then more kids came, kids that were smaller, dirtier. I helped some wash their hands and couldn’t help notice my bucket was going from soapy clear to brown and black. After a fresh water refill God moved in a way that was all too familiar, two kids that were completely naked and covered in dirt and grime from head to toe came slowly to my bucket. Reaching their tiny crusty hands down I began to scrub, as I scrubbed and finished the first boys hands he turned and as he did I felt the holy spirit reminding me of what had happened before in Acts 10 and I knew Jesus wanted me to wash not only his hands but to give this boys bath…
I called him back and to his confusion I began to lather the soap and wash his face and then his back an stomach and legs and the best part was that another volunteer saw this, brought over fresh water and poured it over the boy. He was clean! Even if only for a moment, God used that experience to show me that he has made our hearts clean by sending his son down to die for us. Our earthly bodies are just that, earthly. Clean, dirty, smelly, sick, God’s love does not discriminate and neither should we. As a follower of Christ it is not our job to judge, hinder, or discriminate it is our job to share that same love that Jesus showed for us as He died on the cross. Don’t hinder children from getting to Jesus because of your worldly view instead like Jesus, take them in your arms and bless them.
-Ryan
