One of the most common themes in my teammates’ blogs these
past few weeks as we’ve been working in the dumps here in the Philippines is
to notice the joy in the faces of the children who have so little in the way of
material possessions. Every time we
enter their situation, we first notice the surroundings. Our eyes focus on the unenclosed tin shacks
piled one on top of the other; most of the owned clothes are strung about on a
line to dry from the hand washing in a bucket of the previous day. The wheels of our jeepney creep through
inches of muddy sludge – a mixture of dirt, sewage, rain and garbage. And finally, we have simply tried to block
the smell out of our minds (and noses), for the powerful stench of this place
reduces all pictures and videos to obscurity. You will never know anything about this place until you are here.
Yet day
after day after day, we are greeted with warm smiles of innocent children. Do they not know their circumstances?! Maybe they do to some degree, but as children
they certainly do not understand fully yet. Regardless of their self-knowledge or lack thereof, they seem happy in
many ways. We are special visitors and
they want to make a good impression. They constantly try to communicate with whatever English they know,
though most of their vocabularies are limited to, “What’s your name?” Picking them up or swinging them around in the
air brings pure elation. And if you
could only see these kids worship on Sunday morning with all they have and feel
God’s presence in the room, your heart may burst.
However
there is a major problem. It is far too
convenient to say they have so much joy with so little and we have so much to
learn from them. These same children
that we have come to love and even learn from will one day grow up to be adults
– God-willing, but certainly not guaranteed. When they do, they will still be in a country whose 4th
highest source of income is prostitution. They are likely candidates for drug or alcohol abuse. One teacher told me that the students already
demonstrate a high degree of violence, even in this Christian school where we
see them so happy to us. Naturally, they
will still need to address the lifelong sanitary and health implications of
living in a dump on the outskirts of an already heavily-polluted city.
This brings
me to the hardest reality of this trip. We
are nothing. True change comes from
a complete dedication to a place and a mission, while we only have a chance to
assist for a short time in each place before moving to the next. Now do not get me wrong. Our squad already has done and will continue
to do amazing things this year. I hope
to give you a squad progress report of the Philippines before we head into
that big “Red Country” for November, leaving our laptops and all communication with
the outside world behind. But I am
learning more and more that a man is created by God to insert himself into
something and CREATE LIFE. This
seems incredibly hard to do when only given 3-4 weeks at a time and I can
already sense my own frustration in wanting to be a bigger part of the body of
Christ than we were called to be for this year.
The follow-up
to this blog will introduce you to a few people we have been working with here
at the Philippine Christian Foundation (www.pcf.ph). These people are why there is such hope for
this place, why it will continue to get better and improve lives, and examples
of what it looks like to dedicate your life to something bigger than yourself. For now, I ask that you pray that we will
bring as much life to every situation as we can, in whatever small or big
ways. I encourage you to create life
where you are; many of you in America
are in excellent position to begin or continue to do so already. And finally, I simply remind you all of my
deep love for you. I rejoice on this
great adventure to which God has called me, but I also carry you in my
heart. I pray that you may know God’s
love as I do, and deeper; that I may somehow lift you up, and then that you
would pass it on. We are the Church.
~LOVE~
