The Philippine Christian Foundation has a school located in the middle of the Manila dump. We are wearing boots in this very cool picture, thanks to Abby’s camera, because whenever it rains the school floods. Sewage water seeps up through the ground and covers the floors. The ground is always wet, but we only pull out the boots when it gets over an inch. One of the first days we were here, I went skidding across the sewage covered floor on my back. It was all because of the cockroach showdown. Here is what happened:
Our main job has been to turn a room into a functioning library. When we first started the room included dirty books on moldy shelves, as well as some boxes full of odds and ends stored there due to a lack of space. If I had my way, we would have thrown everything away, gutted the place, and started from scratch. Instead, we have been clearing everything out and trying to bring some kind of alphabetical order. The other thing about this place is there are crawling things everywhere, especially roaches. Now I know you may be picturing the roaches you see at home, but let me be clear, these are not those bugs. These roaches are about the size of a humming bird and they fly. Every time a box is pulled down from the shelf, we have a new onset of them.
On the day I slid through the sewage, we were surrounded on all sides and there was no escape. Roaches were flying through the air, and I was screaming trying to make it out the door to safety (because roaches are obviously very dangerous). A humming bird sized one with a mean look in his eye landed between us and the door and seemed to say, “Don’t even try. There is no escape.” Suddenly a great rush of courage came over me. I grabbed a moldy book, ran screaming towards the roach with a mean look in it’s eye, lept through the air, smashed the book on top of it with massive force, and sprinted for the door. Once out the door, my feet hit the sewage water, and I was on my back looking up at cobwebs in the rafters.
As I was lying in the sewage water I began thinking to myself, what are we doing here? I’m hot and dirty, roaches are trying to get me, and I’m lying in filth. But then I remembered some words I had read that said,
“Lie down so that He can trust you with everyone. Then when you get up there is revival – when whole nations come to Him, falling on their faces. He changes us with one glance of His eyes, so that we are not afraid to be completely abandoned in His arms. Many want lots of power and anointing, but when you just lie down and let Him kill you, it’s a good thing. He wants to love you to death.” (From Always Enough by Rolland and Heidi Baker).
So I turned my head to see the school children, that I have come to so adore, laughing at the crazy American lying on the floor – and then I smiled and stood up.
