Day 4 - Church & home visit #1

As we begin the next part of the trip, we start by looking at our Tearfund Experience Travel Journal where we are asked to consider the book of James Chapter 2, verses 1-17, specifically verse 5 which says:

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

When reading through the verses I feel how relevant they are even though they were written so long ago. It mentions how the rich exploit the poor, which leads me to thing about who is and isn’t rich (if you think about this in wider view than just NZ, this is challenging). Anyhow, considering even from a NZ perspective where we might consider ourselves ‘normal’ kiwis’ not rich, not poor, just middle class. We can think of plenty of ways we are had done by buy those from our perspective who are rich - Then if you do take the wider more global view and consider it that way this can really hit home. How does what we might be doing from day to day affect those around us, especially those who are not as well off as us.

Our morning started off with another walk - We went the opposite direction this time, and ended up at starbucks for those who wanted to get coffee to do so. I don’t really drink coffee, and as I was unsure what breakfast was gonna look like I decided to get some banana bread, as this is a reasonably safe choice.

We sat for a few mins, then headed back to the hotel we were staying at. On the way back we stopped off at a random church and took a quick look around and then continued on towards the hotel. We came across a steam of liquid that was filled with rubbish, and saw several shacks.

Around 7.30 we arrived back at the Hotel and had breakfast. I took a look at what was on offer, and was pleased to see there was Bread & Jam which suited me just fine 😄

After breakfast we went up stairs to discuss the journal I mentioned at the beginning of this post. After the reflections on the Bible verse as above there were some additional questions to consider:

1. What communities did you encounter yesterday? - For me, I had been at the mall for the afternoon where there were plenty of people having what to me is a stereo typical day, having lunch or coffee, or doing some shopping at the mall. Then in the afternoon, as you might have read on my previous post we went for a walk which included walking through some areas where there were slums and people struggling to make ends meet. These were some stark contrasts.
2. What were their most beautiful and most challenging characteristics? - The challenge for me around this is how we can walk less than a KM from where we are staying in a nice hotel and be in an area where there is such visible hardship. How it feels like this shouldn’t be possible to allow this to happen, and again makes me wonder how I might be contributing to this. The most beautiful thing in this was how happy everyone was to see us even in the circumstance they were living in, kids were friendly, adults were smiling.

After reading and discussing our thoughts/feeling/opinions etc we had a few mins to go back to our room to collect our stuff then we headed out to the church that we were visiting that day. I was pretty nervous, not really sure how it was gonna go, even though we had been told how everyone would be happy to see us etc.

We arrived at the church which wasn’t that far away and were welcomed by people there - we were each given a necklace that the kids had made.

We then headed up stairs, and sat in our designated area. After a brief intro from the people at the church we were up on stage introducing ourselves, and then back to our seats. The kids had prepared some items for us, there was a few different types of dance, as well as some singing from different ages. We also sang some well known worship songs. A couple of people also shared how the work that tearfund does made a difference to them personally. All of this took about an hour (I think?) and then we moved into some free time where we could mingle with kids, their parents, and church staff.

This was extremely hectic - we had kids rushing up to us to ask if we could make photos of them, they were keen to see how the photos looked on our phones. Some parents/kids had phones and were asking us for selfies etc. They were all very excited to be able to interact with us which was humbling. Some kids wanted to touch my head, which I assume was because I was bald, and perhaps that isn’t common around here? They were also very excited about Basket Ball, my Apple Watch and my phone!

After this we were able to server the kids their lunch. It was a bit of a mad rush initially, and at one point we ran out of juice, but not long afterwards we got some more so that none of the kids missed out. I liked that we got the opportunity to literally “Serve“ the kids (even though we didn’t help prepare the food), again humbling to be able to do this.

When the kids got their lunch they then headed downstairs to the classrooms, and once we were done serving we also headed down to see where they were taught. It was extremely hot down there but it was nice to see how the teaching was done, and how the kids once again seemed very interested in what they were being taught.

Next we headed back upstairs for our our lunch which was a lovely variety of foods. We were sitting at two different tables, mixed up between people from our group and those from the church. I enjoyed chatting with a few of the ladies who were looking after the kids, and to find out a bit about how they live, and how they do their work through the church, supported by Compassion/Tearfund. Some of these ladies had previously been sponsored kids themselves. Later on I found out that each person is supporting 50-70 kids.

Next up we went toward where we were going to see one of the houses that may represent a typical house in the area. We walked a small way then caught a Jeepney to get us closer to where we were going. I don’t have a good image of one yet, so stole the one below from Wikipedia.

Once we arrived where we were going we split into two groups to two different houses. The house that the group was was with was a small single roomed shack. The mother was living there with her 4 children, one of which is a teenager. The rooms was so small, and had a small electric fan on the roof. We were not able to stand up straight in that area. The mother explained some of her situation. Above them there was another small shack or two I believe which is where the grandparents were as well as either her brother or any or sister. The mother has recently found employment, and has completed her first month of training. She has to do one more month - during training she does not get paid other than a small allowance so that she can travel to where she is doing the training… However once the training is done she is guaranteed a job there. The pay isn’t very much, maybe the equivalent of $25 NZD per day. We had the opportunity to ask questions, and once we were done we were able to pray for anything they wanted prayer for. After this we took a different route out of the area, and once again caught a Jeepney back to the church. At the church we cooled down a bit (hooray for aircon), and then had some time to chat with the team at the church again, and to pray for them and the work they are doing.

After this we headed back to the hotel, spent a couple hours at the mall, and then had dinner.