Team Tikvah arrived in the Philippines May, 3. We are stationed in the capital, Manila. It has been great hereso far. The one thing I am most amazed by (and heartbroken by) is the
extreme social and economic differences just minutes apart. We are
staying and working with a VBS in a well-off
church in the mornings and observing a Sunday School program for kids who live in a squatter village in the afternoons, literally a few blocks away. We are
in a gated community where everyone has maids and drivers and the
squatter village is full of people living in falling down shacks
surrounded by heaps of garbage and trash and sewage! We have way more food than we need and many of the squatter children could use some more. We may only have a few outfits in our packs, but they are not torn or ripped as many of the outfits these kids wear are. How can these two opposites exist in such proximity? I don’t understand. I just pray that God continues to send
people to help provide physical needs as well as spiritual to all
these people, both the rich and the poor. May I remind you that even the rich are in need of people to share the gospel with them…for “it is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:24). Join me in prayer for the Philippines!
