Thursday, January 8, 2009

Poverty

Every day we are confronted with extremes here in this country. Being in the city, we see a lot of financial extremes. There are the very, very rich people, and of course, there are the very poor. I have never in my life seen poverty like is here in Manila. I thought I saw poverty in PNG, but it was very different. Yes, the people had no money, but it seemed they could always survive off the land. Here, the land seems to swallow it's people.


I was driving downtown yesterday and saw a mother and three children. Because I have been processing this poverty a bit more than usual, I really watched them. The mother was probably late 20's. She had three kids with her, guessing ages 4, 2, and under 6 months. They were seeking shelter under the overpass. I was stopped at a stoplight preparing to turn left. The place they were seeking refuge was between the lane I would be driving on to merge into the street I was turning onto. They were resting on a cement divider that was in the shape of a triangle with the wide part of the triangle up against the cement pole supporting the overpass. The triangle of cement stretched out like a bed for them to rest on. The mother was fussing over the three. The eldest seemed to be fighting taking a nap. She had the other two lying very systematically next to him. Arranged from eldest (next to the post) out to youngest, at the edge of the cement. She was watching over them as they took their afternoon nap. I just looked at her and wondered what or where she dreamed she would be at this stage of her life. She was dutifully caring for her kids, even though in the States she would have been turned in for neglect. I couldn't understand why she had chosen that place to rest, but as I thought about it, I realized that it was raining. There they had a dry place to rest their heads.

I have recently been introduced (not in person) to a painter from the Philippines, Joey Velasco. He has painted a picture called "Jesus and the Street Children." It is a picture of Jesus and what appears to be the "Last Supper," but instead of the 12 apostles, it is 12 street children. I have given you a link http://www.metacafe.com/w/yt-bzYgSJCPEtYwhere you can see the picture and watch a video about the painting and how it came to be.


I hope you have a few minutes to go watch this video. It is broken into 13 segments...quick ones. These are the children that come knocking on my window when I am stopped at an intersection, asking me for food. These are the children who have grown up and come to my gate asking me for money. These are the kids that come into my back yard on Sunday afternoon for church. These are the little girls that come to my gate every Monday morning collecting plastic containers for recycling.


If you can't watch the entire video, it's OK.


My prayer is that God will just give me a heart like his and that I will always look at every possible encounter with another soul as a divine appointment, made by Jesus himself.