It was around 5 pm on Wednesday, December 13, 2006.
That's when it clicked.
I started to get it!
I was visiting the home of the Lombe family.
(Two member of the Lombe family with Edgar a worker with an aid organization)
(Daughter of the Lombe family)
Their father was an abusive drug addict, so (in a move considerably more difficult in the Philippines than the Western world) they left him. Mom then developed cataracts and has lost nearly all of her vision. The mom spends the day just staying at someone's property so no one claims it as their own. She gets paid 20 pesos. About 40 cents (US). Only two of the kids were there when I went to visit them, the other two were off searching for scraps of junk that they could sell. They might make about $2 USD from that.
I was thinking about how this family tries to scratch out a living every day when it started to hit me. A lesson that God has been teaching me for many years and will hopefully constantly be teaching me:
WHY DO I THINK ABOUT MYSELF SO MUCH?!?!?
Pretty much every spare moment in my mind has been occupied with thoughts of plans for next year, whether I'll go to grad school, take the GRE and lots of really important things like that.
The Lombe family thinks about if they'll have food. If they do, it's often bananas they pick from their property. Maybe rice.
It was right at this time that I realized the implications of a lesson I learned in Sunday school when I was about eight years old. I learned that true joy came from:
Jesus
Others
You
Now, all of a sudden, this was real.
I want to think about myself less. I want to think about Jesus Christ more. I want to think about others more. And that's really hard to do! I'm pretty selfish and conceited.
There are lots of "Others" out there (actually about 6.5 billion), but who can use our love and compassion more than the poor and the oppressed?
It has finally started to click: I want to have a love for the poor and people suffering from oppressed relations. I don't know that I'll spend my whole life working with the poor, but in whatever I do, I want to love the poor... and think less about myself.
I share this with you not to make you feel guilty for living on more than 40 cents a day (guilt helps no one... I'd prefer that we appreciate what we do have rather than feeling guilty for having it). I want this to remind me (and you) of how other people live in the world. It's my fear that I'll forget this lesson; please feel free to remind me. Whatever I'm doing, I want to live for others. I want to live with true JOY.
3 comments:
this post really moved me Noel. and it is a good reminder for each of us. thanks for sharing this story! and the reminder of what TRUE J-O-Y is all about.
merry christmas!
if only it "clicked" for more of us more often. thanks Noel. merry christmas.
i had a similar experience earlier this fall after i listened to a great message series by rob bell (pastor of mars hill bible church in grand rapids, mi) called "the new exodus". it's great to see that our generation is really beginning to see and feel the cry of the oppressed in ways that we never expected.
glad you're home for christmas! hope that things go well with your trip to africa.
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