I have been to a feeding in a dumpsite before but nothing would compare to what I experienced in Tondo.
Our team arrived to find a line of hungry children waiting to eat. Most of them were under the age of 10 and were caring for their younger siblings, many infants.
The actual feeding wouldn’t be for another 2 hours so our team decided to sing and dance with them. In the U.S. I would find it hard to entertain a room of 15 kids for 20 minutes, but in Tondo a simple camera could entertain 200 kids for hours. They love having their pictures taken and seeing themselves on your camera. Many of them never get to see what they look like–a camera to them is such a luxury.
Since the kitchen is so small, we could only allow 20 kids to eat at a time. I felt as if I was a prison guard, trying to hold hungry kids back. They were pushing and screaming-trying to get around us to get to the food, many of them hadn’t eaten in many days. A young boy patiently waited in the back with his little sister-I couldn’t stop imagining them at the back of the line, praying they got to eat.
Shannon and I began serving the rice—many of the kids came back up begging for more and wanted plastic bags of food to bring home to their sick brothers and sisters—PLASTIC! PLASTIC! They begged. We had to say no because so many of the kids in line still had not gotten to eat—How HEARTBREAKING it was to tell a hungry child no to the food they desperately needed.
How thankful I am that God is good even in the most heartbreaking circumstances-these are HIS children who He loves. His heart breaks even more over these circumstances than ours does.
