...for i was hungry, and you fed me.

What can I say about the last couple days? Let alone the last couple weeks... There's a few things that I've come across, from day to day, that don't phase me in the moment. Its when I look back and think of what I saw that I'm hit with the reality.

For example, walking back from a mall one night, we stopped on the sidewalk to wait for a jeepney to pick us up. Just feet away, under a bench, three people were sleeping. One woman, the one I could see most clearly, was laying face down, covered by a thin scarf, spread out over her body. There were more people sleeping under a tarp, just under the bridge to our left. I'm at a loss when I try and think of anything to say about it. Just like Elie Wiesel, describing his experiences before, during, and after Auschwitz. In the book Night, he tells of what happened, not so much how he feels about it. The little that I've seen so far in Manila is hard to compare to a Holocaust, I realise that. They are too different to contrast. But I think right now, it's easier for me to describe what I see, rather than how I feel about what I see. My focus right now needs to be on my responsibility. What is my responsibility today, what can I do right now, from where I am in the world, to bring God's kingdom down to earth? I can feed a child rice. But he's still going to die eventually, from starvation or disease, or from old age when he's 80 years old. Either way, he's going to die, just like me. So if I feed him rice one saturday, and fill his belly, but never share with him the love of God, what favor have I done him? The rice will pass through his system and he'll be hungry again in a few hours. If, however, I offer him the bread of life, salvation and victory in Jesus, he will never need to be hungry again. Yes, it is GOOD to feed the children! Very good, in fact, it's commanded. (Matthew 25:35-40) But if I leave it at rice then I'm doing little for them. Anyway, thats what I've been realising lately. As Nathan always says, it's all about Jesus.

But that's a whole other post haha. Right now I have a hankering to go for a walk along these broken sidewalks and go see a lovely woman who sells me orange pop :) There's something special about a person who sells you a cold pop in this heat! Almost as much as a coffee in the middle of Edmonton's January.

Mall of Asia tomorrow afternoon, and the burned down mosque. Remember to pray for us and for God's work to be done, love to be shown, and miracles to be the cherry on top.