With Love, From Iloilo, part 2

Day one and two in Iloilo: The Faith Center is a church plant in the relocation site of San Isidro, a congregation of about 30 people, which began at the first of the year. They meet in what looks to be a lean-to building added to the side of one of the houses.

San Isidro inhabitants were placed at the site several years ago due to typhoon Frank in 2008 when they lost everything they had. Since then, little progress has been made by the government in moving the families out; instead more families have been added due to other natural disasters. Currently about 2,000 people live there with more to be added soon.

The Thursday afternoon prayer meeting drew about 10 people (including our missions team) and assorted children. Another missionary, who had been filling in as guitar player for the worship team while Natalie was in the States, led us in some songs. Natalie was greeted by many happy faces and hugs, especially from the children. She conversed with them fluently in Ilongo, although she kept apologizing that her accent was rusty from being in the States for two months. I was told many times while on my trip by those that she ministered to that Natalie was especially beloved because she spoke to them in their mother tongue.

Everyone at the prayer meeting made us feel welcome, but we were so tired, it was hard to focus. Pastora Rose spoke English fairly well, and we went to dinner with her afterward, but the heat combined with the jet lag was getting to me. I am sure I was incoherent in trying to talk to her, and I was thankful when Natalie said it was time to leave.

When we got home, Natalie told me that she heard disturbing news that one of the women she had been discipling in San Isidro was no longer coming to church. The unsaved husbands of these women often think the Center is a cult, so they persecute their wives, sometimes even beating them.

On Friday morning, I woke up knowing that we were going to go to one of the toughest destinations on our itinerary: Calajunan. I had heard the stories from my daughter and son who had been on previous trips about the people who live as squatters at the huge city dump in Iloilo, and how a visit there rocks your world.

I was not to be disappointed.

We traveled with Abegail, a Filipina, who works alongside her husband, Nate, a missionary from the U.S. They serve the people of Calajunan through a children’s ministry, a church and livelihood projects to show people alternative ways to make a living and provide food for their families.  Abigael was 7 months pregnant with her second child; they have been working at the dump site for several years.

You can see Calajunan a long way off – a huge mountain of trash, baking in the heat while also saturated by the recent rains. You can smell it almost as soon as you can see it. I never thought much about the smells of poverty before. The pictures I see in the World Vision magazine that arrive in my mailbox every month spare me the realities of the sickening stench that accompanies intense poverty.

Imagine the trash in your outdoor garbage can sitting in the hot sun for weeks on end, the flies multiplying and swarming around it, the rotting smell that makes you gag. Now multiply that about one thousand times. I tried to keep my face from screwing up in distaste as we went on the tour with Abegail. She explained how the people lived as we walked on the narrow path between the trash dump and the “homes” of the squatters along the perimeter. The people there who lived in ramshackle lean-to’s seemed oblivious to the smell as well as to the flies that swarmed around them everywhere, in their food, in their faces, buzzing relentlessly. They smiled politely at us and greeted us with friendliness. As for me, I was afraid to talk, thinking that if I opened my mouth I would swallow several flies.

We saw a number of children and adults sorting through the trash on various locations on the dump. Abegail explained that the garbage collectors already had sifted through and taken anything “valuable,” so what the squatters mined through was trash indeed. Once a human leg had been found in the dump; syringes also had been found. The children often do not wear shoes.

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand the sights and smells any longer, we came to an area where the recent heavy rains had caused a portion of the dividing wall to fall in, so that the trash was now strewn across the path and practically touching the homes located there. Here the flies appeared almost as a black blanket in front of us, thick and noisy. The stench was terrific. I wanted so badly for our “tour” to be over and return to the relative comfort of Natalie’s house.

I searched on the inside for some strength so I wouldn’t turn and start off in the other direction. I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Do you like being here?”

“No!” I shouted on the inside, almost before He could get the question out. “I want to leave!”

Without hesitating a second, Jesus said, “I love it here.” That shook me to the core. I knew it was because He loved the people here, people that He had died for. I wondered how I would respond if God asked me to serve these people every day, like he had asked of Nate and Abegail. Just then, we heard thunder and a hint of the smell of rain in the air. Natalie and Abegail both knew it was time to make our exit, or we could be caught in a deluge. I was thankful when we turned around and headed for the road.

I knew my heart had such a long way to go to be totally His.