Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
~ Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila
Sebastian and I are currently in Manila, Philippines, tomorrow morning on our way to Bacolod City, Negros Occidental. We are on a weekend mission trip with International Care Ministries. The goal is for a team of us to build one or two homes in a severely poverty stricken, slum area. (You may recall that earlier this year Tess & I sponsored a pre-school in this area.) Let’s back up a bit…
This morning before I left for work and the triplets for school, they were very whingy. Not sure what caused that but perhaps it was the late birthday party last night. Finally I said, “I know what you can do… I have a project.” We have months and months of accumulated sweeties from birthday parties. We’ve been encouraged to bring wrapped sweeties on the mission trip. The project was to divide up the sweetie pile into Give Away (wrapped) and Keep (not that well wrapped.)
“Why are we giving away our sweeties?” asked Carys.
“The children that Sebastian and I will see this weekend hardly ever get to have sweeties,” I explained.
“Why?” Carys continued to inquire. “Well, they don't have a lot of money," I replied, "and probably don't get party bags when people have birthdays. They might not even get to have birthday parties.”
“Okay!” Carys exclaimed and quickly went to work sorting sweeties. Jasper helped and in no time the project completed. Then Carys and Jasper agreed they wanted to bless the sweeties. Their prayer went something like this:
Dear Jesus, please bless these sweeties, may they help people to find You and may they be received with joy, Amen.
Sebastian and I have prayed sweeties in tow, along with a host of other goodies such as used clothes, toys and books. Sebastian is already a little shaken up. As we drove to the hotel in Manila several children approached the van at a stoplight, knocking on the window asking for food and money. Sebastian didn't cry, but he was distressed. Our host, Harry, expertly explained the situation. That was about the only time the kids were quiet between Hong Kong and Manila. (There are five kids Seb's age joining us this weekend.)
"Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things pass away: God never changes." St. Teresa of Avila
