Tuesday, October 7, 2008
I am a believer that Jesus lives in the dumps. This is my second time to visit a community that calls the city dump home. And each time I have to believe that I have seen more Jesus in people than I do in most anywhere else. Let me share with you a brief story from my most recent visit.
We have setup two teams to work and serve with the Philippine Christian Foundation while here in Manila, Philippines. I had the privilege of visiting the dumps in which some 5,000 people call home. It challenges my senses and stretches my very sense of conscience when I see how people can have so little and literally have so much.
On the day I visited I was being toured around with two local Philippino musicians and their staff. They live in the greater Manila area and were being introduced to the dumps and the conditions therein for the first time. I tagged along trying to understand the conversations that were mostly in the local tongue of Tagala.
As we were walking around one young woman, from the artists’ staff, asked why I was there and what the World Race teams would be doing there. I replied with the typical, “We are here to serve, build, create relationships, evangelize, and...” When all of a sudden she stopped me mid-sentence. “Jake,” she interjected, “I believe in Jesus and God. But how do you evangelize and talk about Jesus in a place like this? The Jesus and God I know is a God that wants his people to be prosperous, fruitful, and he wants people to have a fulfilling life. Look around. How do you share that in a place like this?
Immediately, I felt like I knew where she
was coming from with her question. I
have grown up in a community and
church that painted Jesus and God in just
that manner. It’s not entirely wrong, by
any means, but it is an attitude that puts
God in such a small box. There is so
much more.
I responded, “It’s actually so much easier to share the Gospel in a place like this than it is even just across the street to someone who has so much more.” I continued, “This is a place where Jesus would come to bring hope to the hopeless and tell each man, woman, and child that they are loved. That while the world around them is continuously telling them that they are the lowest of the low. We have the opportunity to visit, and tell them that they are special, we like God love them, and that Jesus would have died for them too if they were the only person on the world.” They are THAT special in the eyes of Jesus. We have been given the opportunity to say that we have come literally from the other side of the world just to visit them and spend time with them. They are again, that special.
I had this young kid, named Jessica in hand. She had no shoes, a cute dirt stained orange outfit on, one tooth, and the biggest smile of all the little kids around as we walked and talked. I looked up at this young woman, with whom I was sharing, and noticed she had tears welling in her eyes and soon tear tracks running down her cheek.
She said thanks, as she admitted that she had been ministered to with such simple words. “You’re right, Jake,” she commented from behind her tears. Jesus is bigger than she had initially thought, and I believe He had just busted out of the box in her own life. I was touched at how Jesus once again had made himself known from within the midst of one of the dirtiest places on earth I have ever visited.
I pray that this story touches your heart just as much as it did mine. Let’s remember that our Lord loved us first!
