Poverty, the Worlds Challenge…
SMOKEY MOUNTAIN – OLD AND NEW…
We took a couple of Aussies, Michael and Matthew into both the “new and the old” Smokey Mountain. The “old” is more or less closed down. A literal mountain of rubbish, that now has grass growing on it and is surrounded by 4 and 5 storey buildings, which house the residents that came off of the “old” Smokey Mountain. But as you walk through there you see that really all that has been done is the re-shaping of a slum. Before they lived and worked on the dumpsite, but the high rises are cesspits of activity. Some have power and water, some don’t, so they are simply high rise slums, cramming a lot of people into relatively small areas with not alot of natural ventilation (perfect breeding ground for T.B, scabbies and a whole range of contagious diseases), plus of course all of the increased possibilities for a variety of crime to grow, spread and become organised. There are of course positives about the buildings, they are structurally sound and won’t fall over in a typhoon, they shouldn’t leak a lot, so they do provide improved shelter…pro’s and con’s…
But unless you change the economics of people, relocating them can often make very little difference to their general living. Plus relocation does not address any areas of people hearts. Hearts hold values and beliefs, people do what they do, because they believe it to be right, or perhaps because they think that it is the only option that they have, so unless the heart of man is reached, touched and changed – he will be more or less the same, no matter where he is location wise. We are the sum of what we believe, christian or not.
Then we went for a walk through the “new” Smokey…bit of a head spin for westerners. People living in and on a really feral rubbish dump. Kids walking through it all with no clothes, no shoes, playing in it, toileting in it, bathing there, people washing clothes, cooking food, mothers birthing children in the trash that they call home, people living every aspect of life in conditions that we would find hard to imagine. Children who have lived their whole lives there, where this is their concept of normality…and it will be for their children as well.
Conditions such as this should never be allowed to become anyones “normality”, it can never be justified, should never be allowed. There are more places here in Manila that are like this, many more places in the world that are the same or worse. Countries hide them from the tourists, hide them from the officials that visit, but I want the world to see them, I want as many people as possible to come and see them, walk through them, smell them, get involved, get dirty…these places exist because we either do not know they are here, or we choose to ignore them once we do know they are there. Don’t ignore them, don’t think the issues and problems of places are too huge to fix, nothing is impossible for God, and you don’t need to be the solution for everyone in a place like this, but you can be the solution for ONE FAMILY or ONE CHILD, and you should be the solution for whatever you can manage. Jesus said “the poor you have with you always and whenever you want to you can help them…”, Mark 14:7, notice He said “whenever you want too…”, it might not even require that you pray about it (although I would never say NOT TO PRAY, as man always ought to pray), but just obey Jesus and do it whenever you want to.
The world needs to rise to the challenge of World Poverty, each person needs to do something, the world is made up of individuals, you are one of those individuals, we can fix this together, there is enough of everything for everyone. There are plenty of people who are doing stuff to help others, but there needs to be more, come on, let’s rise to the challenge to change our world.
As you look at some of these photo’s, you will naturally look at the horror of them, but look at the people and don’t ask yourself how can I change this picture, but how can I help that one person…you can help someone, you are able, you just need to be willing.
Bless you – Mark
Smile Train – some of the next children…
After Muhammads successful operation, here are some of the next children in line to get their faces fixed up…
Changing lives one person at a time, there is nothing hard or complicated about it. Have a go yourself, and you will find that it is not that hard, everyone can help somebody else in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ.
