“You are beautiful and I love you”. This is what 7-year-old Alexa tells me as I give her a big hug. Dang, what powerful words from a seven year old. I love you too Alexa.
Just in our community alone, in a town outside of Manila, there are thousands of children living in less then desirable conditions and hundreds of them are living on the streets, many broken families, and homes. Houses made out of sheet metal and cardboard and not enough money for food. We are only here for 6 weeks and then we move on, honestly what could I even do here?
In reality the answer is not much. Not much, if I am looking at thousands of children and trying to figure out all I can do to save them. I can’t build a thousand new homes. Feed a thousand families or rescue a thousand children. It’s probably not even realistic to think that I could alone even build one house or make it possible for one family to never run out of food and always have enough.
Ok that sucks. So basically I’m here to do missions in the Philippines and probably not even going to leave a dent in the city. ….I promise this is an easy mindset to stay at. This challenges me all the time.
This is something that crosses my mind on occasion but more and more I am starting to realize the truth in it all. First off, is it about what I can do alone anyway? I think it has way more to do with coming along side people. I have seen more and more over these past four months how people serve their own people in their own communities so well, but they need help, and most off they need encouragement. It was crazy to me at first but more then once we have had people say that having new people around to help them encourages ministries and people to go on and do more work with a new sense of energy.
More then any of this though is what really should be the focus in all this. How much am I going to be able to do? If this answer is probably not much then where do we go from there? But instead of this how about who can I love and build a relationship with? While I am here who can I encourage to impact people and places more then I can? And now this has answers that are much more attainable and feasible.
What I know for sure is that I cannot go into any new country or community and do anything good if I am not first willing to love the people there. Loving people is what motivates and is the catalyst to change. We have to be willing to love before we can contribute to any change or serve.
I was at first going into this month wanting to do as much as possible and not focusing on the importance of building relationships and investing in people.
Honestly just think about it for a second, if people are shown love and that they are worth something wouldn’t that first motivate them to start loving others. And wouldn’t loving other people motivate more and more people to create change and assist their brothers in sisters in times of need. And doesn’t this all lead to people respecting other people more. It might be elementary thinking and it’s definitely not fool proof but when people are shown love it affects them way more then being feed one meal would.
When Alexa told me I was beautiful she made me feel worthy and when she told me she loved me she made me feel connected and special. She didn’t give me anything or do something big and grand for me. Even if she did though I know that what she said will and would have stayed with me longer then any gift.
What it comes down to in most areas is investing in people and building relationships. This is what underlines any type of service or act that you could do for them. People need education, food, shelter, relationships and more all done in love. This makes me excited because it means I can do something, something big! It’s hard at times I know but we can all show love and give people time, it’s possible. You can do something really life changing for people every day!
