On the 21st of April, we went to a part of the Philippines called Tando. The lady who took us to Tando was originally from there. She was born there and grew up there. When she was a teenager, she figured out her parents were going to sell her to foreigners in exchange for money. She ran away, and by the grace of God, managed to escape that fate.
Before we left, she warned us that going there and seeing their lives would be shocking and horrific. She told us that the kids that we were going to see that day lived in this reality, and don’t need people coming in, shocked and heartbroken in front of them. She asked us to only smile and allow the kids to crawl all over us and let them feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually loved.
It was about an hour and a half car, train, and jeepney ride from our home. Tando has 4 (I think it’s 4… it might be 5 but) subsections within it. We visited 2 of them, Aroma and Trash Mountain. Tando is famous in the Philippines for 2 things: being outrageously impoverished and being built on a trash dump site.
The ground they live and walk on is covered with trash, dead dogs, dead cats, dead rats, maggots, decaying food, everything you could think of. The people who live in Tando sort through trash as a living and means of survival. This is how they live every single day.?For food, they dig through the bags or garbage and find scraps. Any McDonalds or other fast food leftovers they find, they take out and boil together in water or broth. That is what they eat every single day. The smell was so pungent, I couldn’t stand still for more than a few seconds, it was too overwhelming. How could a smell that made me sick for the entire day be just a reality of life for all those people?
I have seen poverty. I have seen people live under a piece of sheet metal, I have seen homeless people that are the same color of the side walk because they are too sick and frail to have moved in days, I have seen old women laying naked, dying on their “porch” because it’s too hot inside their “house”, I could go on and on. But, Tando was by far, surpassed anything I had seen. I still cannot process and accept the fact that people spend days there, let alone, are born, live their entire lives, and die in Tando. My spectrum of poverty just keeps getting wider and wider, and my heart just keeps breaking.
Hope does exist. To my eye, it’s hard to see good in this. To the logical side of me, it’s hard to understand. But the faith I have in God triumphs all. This is how God showed me hope in Tando:
Our leader Lucie reminded us on the drive to Tando that Jesus came for the poor, He came for the people who have been treated and who live unjustly. That the people we were about to visit were the poorest of the poor- God’s most valued people in His entire Kingdom. We were about to have the privilege to spend a day with God’s most valued people. How humbling.
A bible story of a rich and a poor man that my other leader reminded me of a few weeks ago. Luke 16:19-23
19 “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
Lazarus lived his life impoverished and sick. On his death bed- the ground- dogs were licking his open sores. Yet, when his body died, Lazarus was in heaven with God. He inherited the kingdom of God. God is just, He will never forsake His sons and daughters. This is something I whole heartedly believe. He will bring justice.
PRAY FOR TANDO.
