Humility
Humility, the elusive virtue and yet the one that determines your standing with God. I wanted to share with whoever a story of humility not one from a grocery store book of inspirations but one that has in so many ways shown me Jesus and will forever bare a scar on my heart.
This past Saturday Katy and I took the day and spent it with our new Philippino friends and partners here in ministry. We made our way to Payates where Pastor Julius has been faithfully serving for some time. Payates is metro Manila’s garbage dump site. The sites and smells of which can make even the strongest stomach quiver with nauseau. And yet if one is seeking the manifest presence of Jesus it is to be found in a place such as this.
Around 11ish we made our way to one of the many preschools in Payates that Pastor Julius’ church sponsors as they provide food for the children in the community. This act of compassion and kindness takes place 4 days a week. The occasion is beautiful as one would expect. Not only to see the people of God, who themselves have little to nothing giving so generously but to be in the company of smiling little faces as they sing songs of Jesus and listen to one another recite passages of scripture that the older kids have memorized. We spent a few minutes there when Pastor Julius turned to me and asked if I would like to see there communal pharmacy. The communal pharmacy is an effort to provide people in the neighborhood with much needed medications that they cannot afford from a local pharmacy. The pharmacy is a 3 shelved cabinet filled with antibiotics, acetaminophen and various cold medicines in the home of one of the members of Pastor Julius’ church. As we were making our way to the pharmacy we were skipping and hopping over large patches of mud and water because of the foul weather that came thru recently. Pastor Julius sprung here and there like a pro while I clumsily followed behind him. I followed him that is until I sunk my right foot into 3 inches of mud. My shoes and pants were caked in mud such that all could be seen was the form of a shoe under all the grime. Embarrassed, I tried to hide my new found fashion sense until Pastor Julius noticed and exclaimed how filthy my shoe was…not to be insulting or embarrassing but to say, “we need to take care of this right now.” We walked over to a woman’s house where Pastor Julius entered and stepped forward with a pitcher of water and a scrubbing sponge. I reached forward to take them from his hand so as to begin cleaning my shoe when he knelt in front of me and gently guided my foot onto a tree stump. My mind was racing…”What’s happening? He is not going to clean my shoe! He’s the pastor here, no no, I can take care of this.” He dipped the sponge into the water and began scrubbing the mud off my filthy shoe. This was no formal, hygienic foot washing service in a church with all the comforts, this was real….outside, hot, muddy, flies perching on your face and mosquitoes enjoying another meal at your expense with mud and filth lathered on my shoe, my pants and leg, and there knelt before me was a man more like Jesus than I have ever known cleaning and scrubbing until it was all gone. I fought back tears through the whole experience. Even now as I recount the details I am overwhelmed. Efforts to share what I am feeling and thinking do not do it justice and to be quite honest the whole experience has still not completely sunk in….and perhaps that is God’s gift to me so that I don’t arrive at a tidy conclusion but rather spend these next few months or better yet the lifetime that remains for me reflecting on and emulating the choice Pastor Julius made to serve and love me.
This past Saturday Katy and I took the day and spent it with our new Philippino friends and partners here in ministry. We made our way to Payates where Pastor Julius has been faithfully serving for some time. Payates is metro Manila’s garbage dump site. The sites and smells of which can make even the strongest stomach quiver with nauseau. And yet if one is seeking the manifest presence of Jesus it is to be found in a place such as this.
Around 11ish we made our way to one of the many preschools in Payates that Pastor Julius’ church sponsors as they provide food for the children in the community. This act of compassion and kindness takes place 4 days a week. The occasion is beautiful as one would expect. Not only to see the people of God, who themselves have little to nothing giving so generously but to be in the company of smiling little faces as they sing songs of Jesus and listen to one another recite passages of scripture that the older kids have memorized. We spent a few minutes there when Pastor Julius turned to me and asked if I would like to see there communal pharmacy. The communal pharmacy is an effort to provide people in the neighborhood with much needed medications that they cannot afford from a local pharmacy. The pharmacy is a 3 shelved cabinet filled with antibiotics, acetaminophen and various cold medicines in the home of one of the members of Pastor Julius’ church. As we were making our way to the pharmacy we were skipping and hopping over large patches of mud and water because of the foul weather that came thru recently. Pastor Julius sprung here and there like a pro while I clumsily followed behind him. I followed him that is until I sunk my right foot into 3 inches of mud. My shoes and pants were caked in mud such that all could be seen was the form of a shoe under all the grime. Embarrassed, I tried to hide my new found fashion sense until Pastor Julius noticed and exclaimed how filthy my shoe was…not to be insulting or embarrassing but to say, “we need to take care of this right now.” We walked over to a woman’s house where Pastor Julius entered and stepped forward with a pitcher of water and a scrubbing sponge. I reached forward to take them from his hand so as to begin cleaning my shoe when he knelt in front of me and gently guided my foot onto a tree stump. My mind was racing…”What’s happening? He is not going to clean my shoe! He’s the pastor here, no no, I can take care of this.” He dipped the sponge into the water and began scrubbing the mud off my filthy shoe. This was no formal, hygienic foot washing service in a church with all the comforts, this was real….outside, hot, muddy, flies perching on your face and mosquitoes enjoying another meal at your expense with mud and filth lathered on my shoe, my pants and leg, and there knelt before me was a man more like Jesus than I have ever known cleaning and scrubbing until it was all gone. I fought back tears through the whole experience. Even now as I recount the details I am overwhelmed. Efforts to share what I am feeling and thinking do not do it justice and to be quite honest the whole experience has still not completely sunk in….and perhaps that is God’s gift to me so that I don’t arrive at a tidy conclusion but rather spend these next few months or better yet the lifetime that remains for me reflecting on and emulating the choice Pastor Julius made to serve and love me.
posted by brian sanders at 10:48 PM
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