This month was not a month without. God blessed us abundantly, yet again, with plenty of food, nice beds and bathrooms, indoor plumbing with hot showers, and delicious cake at lunch and dinner nearly every day.
On top of that, we were only 15 minutes from Starbucks, 10 minutes from Pizza Hut, 45 minutes from a huge mall chock full of American and European stores and restaurants, and a 7 minute tricycle ride to the nearest 24 hour convenience store (which coincidentally sold delicious ice cream for only 15 pesos-about 30 cents).
With all of these, it was easy to fall back into old habits-habits of frequenting Starbucks, shopping and buying luxuries-not necessities, and eating far more than necessary. Rationalizing these expenditures with “well, next month we will probably be in the middle of nowhere” was a comfort at the time, but now I look back and don’t know what to feel.
I don’t think having these luxuries cheapened our ministry in any way, but it does make me think. One of my teammates took some of the girls she worked with this month out on Sunday. Some of these girls had never even left this neighborhood-I have been here a month and have left almost every day. They marveled at the running water in the bathroom, the skyscrapers they had only seen from a distant, and the massiveness of downtown Manila.
Who am I to have been so blessed? To easily be able to afford the 50 cents roundtrip journey to the mall, and while there drink a Starbucks, enjoy a pastry, and relax in the aircon with my computer while people a few hundred yards away live in cloth, cardboard and corrugated tin homes, struggling to be able to buy rice for their family, let alone milk.
I can only come to the conclusion that I have been blessed to be a blessing. That I have been filled up to overflowing with God’s goodness and grace and love and joy to pour that out into others. This month, I confess I got a little distracted with all the American comforts so readily accessible, especially after the “difficulty” of last month. But I know God used me in spite of myself, and will continue to do so. Praise God.
“I know I’m filled to be emptied again, the seed I’ve received I will sow.” -Desert Song
