The Philippines have been so amazing this far.
This month I have poured into the feedings that our ministry (KIM Ministries) does.Every morning and every afternoon we take two big plastic tubs filled with a rice/vegetable porridge mix. We go to communities ranging from right outside our building to up to an hour a way.
All in extreme poverty. All with their own stories.
We visit around 8 different communities a week, 1 or 2 being visited twice.
We drive the van up, open the back and start feeding the kids.
Some start feeding the kids already lining up, and the others,
go announce the feeding to the community.
We find little kids, some too small to go themselves and with no one able to take them, so we find a cup and walk them or carry them over and get them food.
(Both photos credited to Erin Wright)
It’s hard thinking that for many of these kids, it will be their only meal, or their only nutritional meal of the day. It feels like putting a Band-Aid on a massive wound.
“Here is a cup of food—until next week..good luck…”
We always run out of food too. There are always the kids standing there with their empty cups looking at the empty tub of food and then back up at you.
–Sorry buddy, we’re all out.
Hunger can be helped but not cured. Every kid is dirty, many their font teeth are rotting, they have unmet rashes and wounds. So many needs to be met.
So what can you do?
The food will run out, and new hunger will reside in their bellies.
Medicine will run out and new medical problems will arise.
Clothes are outgrown and worn out.
Houses built and supplies given will get damaged and broken.
What can we do?
“Christ has no body on earth but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet but yours,
Yours are the eye though which
Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out;
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;
And yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now”.
-Saint Teresa of Avila
You love.
You throw the little kids in the air, and swing them around and around until you’re too dizzy to keep spinning.
You tickle their little bellies untill your fingers fall off, because by the way they react to it—you know they have rarely been tickled – if not at all before
You play the hokey pokey.
You hold the kids and hug them tightly and tell them they are loved and not forgotten.
You tell her that she is a princess.
You tell him that he is smart and can do anything he sets his mind too.
You cannot meet every need. But you can mirror the One that can meet them all.
So you chase all the kids around with "The Claw" and start what sounds like a little kid massacre.
You cuddle with them, even though you just saw bugs running through their hair.
And you let yourself turn into a human jungle gym, even though they have boggery snot running down their nose and through their fingers.
Your kiss their cheeks, because through the caked on dirt and God only knows what – there is a Child of God – thirsting for love, attention and waiting to be pursued.
So yes…the food does only last so long…
But LOVE is everlasting. HIS love is everlasting.
And it is proven in the eyes of the kids who eagerly await our return at these feedings. They yearn for the unconditional love that Jesus pours through us that allows us to pursue these children with an audacious, fearless love.
They may not remember who gave them their cup of food.
The faces of those who tickled them and threw them into the air will start to fade.
But the Love they felt will remain, it will be remembered.
So we love audaciously.
Because – Love sustains. Love remains.
