Silver & gold have I none, but such as I have...

I followed closely behind the young Filipina missionary, stepping carefully around and over things I'd rather not remember let alone describe, following a path alongside open sewers, trying not to gag from the indescribable stench. Closing in on either side were rows of squatter shacks built from cardboard, tin, and miscellaneous wood scraps. No electricity here, and the only water was carried in from a truck a quarter mile away in 5 gallon gasoline cans. We were preceded by a crowd of barefoot children, laughing and shouting and seemingly oblivious to their squalid surroundings. Through the holes that passed for doors in the shacks I could see dingy, filthy interiors that were little different from the exteriors. From the shadows inside we were being carefully watched by many pairs of sullen, suspicious eyes. We were in Barrio Magdaragat, a "village" of roughly 20,000 people that lived beneath the shadow of Smoky Mountain, Manila's (then) 10-story-tall garbage dump. Everyone here, including the children, made their living by scavenging through the daily garbage for anything that could be recycled and sold.

My guide stopped and called out a greeting in front of a shack that even from the outside was different; there were curtains on the windows, and flowers in a jar on the bare plywood dining table. We stepped inside and my mouth dropped open: It was spotlessly clean and bright, sunlight pouring through the window. Inside, I was introduced in Tagalog to a beaming young woman, then my guide turned to me and explained that this young mother was part of our mission's ministry in Magdaragat, and part of a small church that had been planted there in the middle of the garbage dump. The difference between this home and all the others I had passed was astonishing. Here was a brilliantly shining testimony of the real and tangible difference God can make in a person's life.

Last Sunday, continuing our "Are we really going to talk about... " series of sermons, pastor Gregg's subject was poverty. Since his trip to India, the poverty he saw there is what defines the worst of the worst for him. For me it is Manila's garbage dump. Yvonne and I spent three years with a mission that had several ministries there (and elsewhere), and since I was the mission photographer, I got to see abject poverty more often than I cared for.

What will always stand out to me, though, was not the feeding programs for children, nor the training programs for mothers, or the vocational training programs, the homes for lost and abandoned children. What stands out to me is the difference between the people who had Christ in their hearts and those who didn't, though each lived in identical circumstances.

By all means, let us do what we can for the poor. But let us never forget that real power for transforming lives is not found in poverty relief programs - as good and necessary as they are;
the truly transforming power is Jesus.

(personal note: when we left the Philippines we were planning to return but our plans changed. I left behind thousands of slides and negatives that I would love to have, but don't. I'm very grateful for photo-sharing sites like Flickr; the photos there picture it exactly as I remember - except for the smell.)

Um... Say, Al?

Snow in Newberg, on March 27.


(And yes, I know all about the ice shelf in Antarctica)

Winter mornings...

The late organ virtuoso, Virgil Fox, used to say that Shakespeare and Bach had "felt everything." The same could be said of the Psalmists: Every emotion experienced by humankind is expressed somewhere in the Psalms. Like countless others, the Psalms have been a tremendous help and comfort in every circumstance life has thrown at me.

But today I'm having a some trouble finding what I need. Can someone point me to a Psalm that talks about getting up on the wrong side of the bed?

"His heart is steadfast..."

When you have a close loved one (your wife, for example) who has what constitutes a major disease (such as cancer), bad news eventually becomes routine. Not that you get used to it, you just get used to the idea that it's going to keep happening. Kind of like getting beat up by the neighborhood bully; you never get used to it, but over time you come to expect it, and resign yourself to it.

So when Yvonne called late this afternoon to tell me she was in the emergency room with severe chest pains, my first response was to steel myself for the blow; it looked like the bully had caught us with our collective guard down again. Fortunately it wasn't any of the very serious things it might have been, but a case of Costochondritis - an inflammation of the cartilage that connects the ribs to the sternum. (Similar to Costcochondritis, the inflammation in my brain when I go to costco.) One Aleve and one hour (and several hundred dollars) later and she was feeling fine.

Maybe getting resigned to bad news is better than what my response used to be - instant panic - but it's not what I want it to be, either. In spite of the fear, pain, weariness, and anxiety that have marked this battle with cancer, God has proved his faithfulness and trustworthiness in ways that we would never have seen otherwise. So, after experiencing God's provision, grace, and comfort first hand over the last few years, you'd think that when bad news jumps out at me now that my first response would be to remember God's faithfulness, remind myself that He is still in control, and trust Him.

Right. Uh-huh.

Not yet, maybe, but this I aspire to:

"He (the righteous man) will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord." Psalm 112:7

Environmentally overwhelmed, part 2

Just when you think help is on the way:

Low Energy Bulbs Worsen Rashes

Doubts cast on Hybrid Efficiency

Environmentally overwhelmed

In church yesterday, pastor Gregg - quite bravely - spoke about the environment. And, quite rightly, he focused our attention on the responsibility we Christians bear to be good stewards of God's gift to us. He concluded by suggesting ways we can reduce our harmful impact on the environment and pointing us to some web sites where we could learn more.

Somewhere towards the middle (as often happens but it's not Gregg's fault!) my thoughts started wandering and I found myself mentally back in Manila. I remembered the thousands upon thousands of buses and jeepneys in this city of (then) 11 million people, billowing impossibly enormous black clouds of diesel exhaust. On a normal day visibility might extend for a few blocks; other days it was a stretch to see across the road. But the air pollution was just the tip of the iceberg. The raw sewage, garbage and industrial waste pouring into the rivers and into Manila Bay made the Exxon Valdez look like a kool-aid spill in kindergarten. Sadly, Manila is not unusual; the same could be said of pretty much any city in the third world. In comparison to how massive the problem is outside our borders, it would seem that our most diligent efforts here in America could - at best - have little more than a negligible impact on the global problem.

Obviously, something needs to be done. But when daily life is a desperate struggle to put food in front of your family, the environment doesn't even show up on your radar. How, then, does the global community put pressure on the third world to address pollution without wiping out what little means of livelihood they have?

Then my thoughts wandered to the article titled "High-Tech trash" in January's National Geographic, about the West's electronic trash being exported around the world. Then I started thinking about everything I use each day: my car, paper, shampoo, razors, clothes, shoes, computers, cell phones, CD's, DVD's, TV's & stereos, musical instruments, electric & gas heating - it's not just the discards that damage the environment, it's the manufacturing process of all the trappings of modern life. I find it overwhelming, because the problem is far too big to be resolved by simply conserving and recycling: It's now a matter of changing our way of life, but we are hopelessly addicted to our technology, our comforts, our entertainments, our conveniences.

My fear is that no significant change will be made until the environment collapses and the change is forced upon us.

Blessed

Yvonne & I have never been much for the Christmas newsletter thing, where people write about all the wonderful things they did the past year and all the wonderful things their wonderful offspring accomplished that year – not that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand. We’re just lazy. While looking today at this photo, though, I thought that if I were to write one it would be very short and would go something like:

It’s been a hard year, but a good year. Life has been full of difficult things, but also full of wonderful things. In the end it all comes down to this: I have a beautiful wife & three beautiful daughters who all say – without any coercion on my part – that they love me. I have a wonderful son-in-law that I thoroughly enjoy and who makes me very proud, even if I can’t take any credit for the quality of his character.

And now we have this wonderful little man in our lives who we hope will soon officially be our first grandchild.

I figure this makes me the luckiest man in the world.