My neighborhood in Cainta, Rizal.
Already it feels like the Philippines has been my home for much longer than one week. The first few days were spent exploring the different activities of the ministry: feedings, building relationships and helping out at either of the houses for local kids who have been orphaned, abused, or neglected, helping out at the school, tutoring, and manual labor.
I was not expecting manual labor to be a normal activity for missionaries. Rather I expected to be constantly sharing my faith. However, even though we might not always be directly sharing about God we can still be doing His work. By painting the school classrooms, the team is helping enable others to break the cycle of poverty within the local community.
The neighborhood, my new home, is an interesting place. Cock fights take place across the street from where we stay, and shacks can be seen in every direction. But even more interesting, a short walk away these shacks suddenly transition to gated, middle-class abodes with new cars; such immense poverty and obvious malnutrition bordered by the haves and their fences.
It is so easy for me to ignore the poor and homeless back in Portland; I walk past them every time I visit downtown. My natural response is to put up both literal and figurative gates to create distance between us. However, in the Philippines these people are my friends and neighbors who I am serving. How can my actions be so incredibly different between these two locations? This question makes me feel like a hypocrite. My new surroundings connected with a book I am reading, “Simple Spirituality.” The author, Christopher Heuertz, wrote a few things that spoke to me in his chapter on community:
· It is all too easy to forget that Jesus’ ministry was directed to the poor and those on the margins. He didn’t avoid them. He sought them out.
· Mother Theresa said, “If the poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough.”
· People mistake wealth for personal blessing when instead those possessions might be intended to advance God’s kingdom.
These thoughts are intensely convicting. At times I feel entitled or even superior back home. But just as I am God’s treasure, unable to lose or earn His favor and love, isn’t this the same for those less fortunate? As a result, these feelings of entitlement and superiority are impossible to justify. I hope to remember this upon reentry to the states. The Philippines is in need of God’s love, but the same must be said about my hometown.
