Shopping and Slums

After a "hit the ground running" start to our ministry here, Monday was our first day to really get organized for schools. After our morning Bible study, we all headed to the mall for a mega shopping trip. We had a shopping list for food and also for supplies at schools. I was in charge of buying supplies for the schools. Shopping list: dodge balls, jump ropes, frisbees, rackets and balls, basketballs, volleyballs, notebooks, pencils, etc. We were buying a lot, having maybe 15 baskets full of supplies. Because we are used to the productivity and quickness of American store culture, waiting for the the Filipino checker to scan every single item (even though we had 12-15 of everything) was a bit trying. We pulled up the pencils... over 300 of them and I asked, "can we count how many pencils and you type in your computer how many we have?" They were very weary of this, but ended up doing just that, thankfully.

After lunch, we headed on a new adventure, the Tagbilarin slums. Our driver, Leo, said it was a safe place to go, but the people that live there are the same that stand outside the malls half-dressed, begging for food and money. The little kids carry naked babies and point to them saying they need food. We had bought candy, over 100 travel toothbrushes and toothpastes, and were planning to pass those out along with the Jesus Film DVDs translated in their local Cebuano language. We walked into the center of their area, located on the garbage ridden "beach." Half the shacks were on stilts, with shaky bamboo walking paths connecting their shacks. As soon as we started passing out our goodies, we were swarmed by not only the little kids, but the desperate adults as well. I made my way out of the chaos and handed out a few DVDs to some adults standing on the sidelines. We stayed around a bit, chatting with them. One woman, Madison, came up to me asking if I had more DVDs. She said there were more than one thousand people living in that area. Most children had severely decaying teeth and an obvious infection of some sort. It was Monday and all the children were there, running around, and not in school. There was such a physical desperation when we were passing out goodies, but once we were done, and things calmed down, we could chat with some of them. That physical desperation turned into a passive hopelessness. Would they ever get out of this situation? Do they want to get out of this situation? Was this a matter of environment, lifestyle or mindset? Or all three? These are the forgotten ones that we talk about, but "not one of them is forgotten by God" as it says in Luke 12:6. They are reaching and searching for something... their physical needs are not even close to being met, but what about Jesus? Do they know who Jesus is?

As we were leaving the area, an older man, maybe above 80 years old, scurried after us using his cane to move along. I'm sure he hadn't moved that fast in quite a long time. He was carrying a card that we had passed out that said, "Jesus loves you" in Cebuano. He handed it to me and showed me something written on the back. We showed our driver Leo and he said the man was asking for medicine. He ear was bleeding and he was so frail. What are we to do? In him I'm sure there was desperation for life. How scared a person must be to die, if they don't know Jesus!

What a moving experience... what are we to do now that we've seen the poorest of the poor? Many students were moved to tears. We drove home and had a time of reflection, worship and dialogue. Where do we go from here?