Last Saturday (10/20/2018), we went to one of the poorest areas in the Philippines. There is a community there that lives, sleeps, and has built their life upon piles of trash. Literally. Although inactive now, that’s where the city used to dump all the garbage. And now the people there are paid to sift through the trash to find plastic and anything recyclable. That search is also usually how they obtain their meals.
So that day, we walked into their community and to the church. Everyone we passed wanted to wave and say good morning. Every kid ran up to get high fives, and to show respect by putting our hand on their forehead. And many of these kids, even up to 5 years old didn’t own any clothes.
We were there to do a feeding. Two women from a church in the surrounding area woke up very early that morning to cook and bag 150 meals for us to hand out. So we walked down the streets yelling “Feeding, po!” and the kids lined up with the anticipation of a hot meal.
But first, a bible story. We shared a story, said a prayer, thanked Jesus for the food, and then began to pass it out. And as you’ve probably guessed by the title, we didn’t nearly have enough. We came with 150 meals to pass out, and we were able to give a serving to maybe 1/3rd of the kids that had lined up. And then we had to say we had no more.
I think that I speak for everyone in my group when I say that in that moment, I just felt bad.Collectively we have the funds, the access to food, and a kitchen. We could have made more, brought more, given more. The fact that we came with not enough seemed almost harder to us than it did to the kids.
But then God reminded me of what we did have. We had a story that taught the truth about how Jesus is always with us. We had the ability to look at those little kids and choose to see them, play with them, and love them. We showed them that they were important not only to us but to God.
And we saw them receiving God’s love for them. We saw some recognize the bible story. We saw them all close their eyes, bow their heads, and pray . We heard them tell Jesus they loved Him. We heard them shout “THANK YOU JESUS” at the top of their lungs before the few received their food.
It was not about what we can give to them of this world or about fulfilling their earthly needs but their heavenly ones. Not to say that giving food isn’t good. It’s so so important and an amazing opportunity to love communities well. But if all you have to offer is Jesus, then you have all you need.
Because Jesus is the source of all spiritual fulfillment.
And with Him, you have all you could ever need.
Prayer Request: There is a Typhoon headed towards the Philippines now. All of our teams are safe, but some of the communities are about to be hit pretty hard. And many still haven’t been able to recover from the Typhoon that happened in August.
