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New Ministry, New Power THE REALITY OF GOD IN THE SLUMS Reference: Grigg, V. (2004). Companion to the Poor. GA, USA: Authentic Media in partnership with World Vision.
The time had come. We had reflected on and analyzed the causes and issues of squatter poverty. We had developed a theological basis for mission to the poor. The Lord had given us a strategy. But where in Manila, among all of the slums and squatter settlements, should we start?
Choosing a
community One day, I rode down the narrow paved road between the old higgledy-piggledy houses of Santa Ana. Down the kalyes I could see acre upon acre of galvanized iron and plywood shacks, with one leaning against another. The children here were silent. No “Hi Joe’s” as in other places. Spiritual darkness like the darkened color of the old houses filled the streets. An iconed chapel on the corner avenue loomed over the community. Every house seemed full of images of saints. Other chapels surrounded the community. In the middle of the squalor, a magnificent religious school stood complacently. Symbols of a superficial folk religion dominated the narrow streets and tiny homes. The sense of the demonic was everywhere. Finally, as I stopped by some older men, I heard the traditional greeting. “Hey Joe, where have you come from?” “I’m lost,” I replied. “I see you’re having a fiesta soon.” I pointed to their decorations across the small main street. They described in detail the celebration to their saint and the Virgin. Santa Ana—a demonic squatter community. This was not the place to begin the work of God. The next day, I wandered along a dirt road by a river. Many squatters live on the rivers, where older “barrios” (small villages) existed as a nucleus for poor people to congregate. The rich do not use properties that flood. The community was surrounded by mile upon mile of heavy industry. Children laughed at me as I passed. Their “Hi Joe” was one of hatred and derision, not the wide-eyed, smiling banter of usual Filipino hospitality. The men’s faces were sullen and nasty. I could hear the noise of families fighting as I walked through the slum. I quickly turned back from one street after glimpsing the flash of knives drawn between two men.
A fit harvest Part of the reason for hope was the excellent upgrading program in this community. I have noticed that where economic progress is being made, people are more responsive to the gospel. Positive changes in one area of people’s lives give them a desire for further positive changes. I spent some time wandering around the streets. A local leader in one area was loading scrap metal into his jeep. “It’s hard work that counts,” he said. “Tiyaga, sipa!” (Patience, industriousness!) In one area of Tatalon, the upgrading program of the National Housing Authority was well advanced. People worked together to build houses of concrete blocks. The sounds of hammer and saw and the bustle of an active people were evident. The leader told me of a Catholic priest who had formerly lived there. I walked through the scrambled labyrinth of walls, picking my way across the mud and dirty water trickling along the lane, asking people directions to the home where the priest had lived. The family with whom he had lived was courteous. This priest had truly lived simply—he was a man given to prayer. But the military had come and deported him. He had been involved in “activism” against the government, fighting against the housing program and offending the barangay leaders appointed by the Marcos government to lead Tatalon. He had built a small chapel in which to say mass, but the National Housing Authority had pushed it down because it was illegal. He had become angry. I visited another priest—a friend and co-worker of the priest who had worked in Tatalon. He was a big, bearded, soft-spoken American. He told me the background of their work in the slum more fully. Their objective had been to build a basic Christian community. They tried to do it by fighting for justice in the area of housing and then by developing an education program. Both attempts failed. I sensed his frustration as he described the time when the barrio captain had stood by and watched as the Priest was taken to prison for his work as community organizer. “Do you know of any righteous people, any godly contacts in Tatalon?” I asked. He said he did not, and advised me to live in another section of the community instead of the section where they had struggled. Perhaps there would be more success in another area of the slum. I let people know I was interested in Tatalon. Georgina, one of 13 social workers in a National Housing Authority Bible study group, volunteered to take me into the community. She introduced me to the community leaders. We told them of my desire for a home from which to minister spiritually to the people. Three weeks later, I was busy cooking in Aling Nena’s upper room.
At home
at last If I was to be the incarnate body of Christ in Tatalon, I must not only dwell there, but also let the character of Christ reveal itself in me. I must love. I must give of myself. However, I alone could not incarnate God. I am but a part of his body. In Filipino culture, a high premium is placed on companionship. For many months, I had been asking and praying for someone to join me in this work. Those I asked were all gracious in their refusals. Some had family obligations, some were too busy grappling with their own struggles or their own inadequacies, some were making money, and others were earning degrees. Many had not yet fully considered the word of God about the poor. Again, the Lord spoke again from Luke 14: But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a field and I must go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.” And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them; I pray you have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. (Luke 14:18-20) He was telling me to press on regardless of companionship. He would bring some of the poor to provide this: Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor, maimed, blind, and lame. For I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet (Luke 14:21, 24).
And my friends did not desert me. That evening two of my former team members came to help me clean my house. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder roared. We draped plastic over some of the holes in the walls to keep out the tropical rain that pummeled furiously on the roof. I had rescued the cardboard that had come with a friend’s fridge, and we used this to line another wall. The average kill per day was ten cockroaches in this house. (A neighbor killed 98 one day—her children counted them! She used up a whole bottle of my insect spray!) I hung sacks around the inside of the windows to keep the rain out between the cracks. We were careful not to disturb the lizards that lived there. They fed on mosquitoes and other insects. They are friends. That evening, sitting in my window, I thanked God for providing a center and a home for reaching Manila’s poor. My evening prayer was, “Lord, I need a comfort room (toilet) so I don’t have to share with twelve others. Otherwise I will get sick.” The next morning, I was scrubbing on my knees with a bucket of water; I heard a shout, “Viv! Viv!” from down the three-step ladder (each step being eighteen inches high) that served as a staircase to my “mansion.” Lisa, the little seven-year-old from below, came up the stairs to my room. “Si Aling Aging” (It’s Mrs Aging), she said, smiling shyly at me. I poked my head out the hole above these steps. It was the beaming face of Aling Aging, the barrio councilor. I climbed down into the mid-morning sunshine. “Would you like to use our extra comfort room?” she inquired, after greeting me with her normal bouncing laugh. (Her husband was a seaman, which is the top economic bracket among squatters. They earn dollars!) “Is there a spare one?” I asked. “Yes,” she answered. “We have one we don’t use. We dug our own at the house.” “I was praying for this very thing last night,” I told her happily. “Come over and get the key from Boy.” she said, moving on to visit other houses in the cluster. “We want you to feel at home. We can’t afford for you to get sick.” I nodded again, trying to catch the poetry of the Tagalog words. As I finished cleaning cleaning, I thought, “It’s really quite logical to walk in the steps of the laboring Carpenter.” A song kept running through my mind: “Love was when God become man/Left his timeless place/Dwelt in time and space.” God’s incarnation is wrapped in compassion. He saw the unmet needs in the midst of his people and so came. Reminded of carpenters, I walked across the dusty area outside our house, across the road; past the fourteen toilets all in a row into a carpentry shop that made cheap furniture for squatters... I met the owner and bought some plywood and nails. Two children helped carry it back, and I began to put a ceiling under the smoke blackened and unbearably hot iron roof of my new home.
Fit for a king Nerio came up the stairs to help me finish the roof. He was an expert carpenter and lived downstairs in another quarter of the house with his second wife. After working on the roof, we sat down and had a soda together. He told me about himself—a man skilled yet impoverished by broken family relationships. As we talked, my mind was constantly concentrating on the Tagalog words. Once, I had been sitting downstairs in Nerio’s home and saw a rat running around the room where they slept. I threw a hammer and hit it mid-ribs. It leapt five or six times straight up in the air about two feet and then struggled into a hole. The people didn’t comment. Later I discovered that it is wise not to attack rats because they come back and attack you. Rats kept me awake in my own room the first night, so I bought a rattrap... We caught three of them the next day. But rats also provided entertainment. One night in the kitchen where I had put up the ceiling, I heard the rats start at the top and then zoom all the way down to the bottom of the sloping ceiling. They chuckled and chattered to themselves, climbing back to the top to zoom down again. I put garbage outside in a little can that was hung from the house in a place where the rats couldn’t get it. Old papers were given to Aling Nena. She used it in her little store to wrap her customers’ purchases. The kitchen timbers were old and blackened with the smoke of charcoal fires over the years. The bench was made of a basin and bits of old wood. I used a two-burner gas stove running from a liquid petroleum gas tank. It was much more efficient than the charcoal or kerosene that most squatters use. Because of the cracks in the walls, I could look out to see what was happening at all times from my kitchen. The squatter area has electricity—most squatters tap the electricity off the power lines. Each night we usually went to the pump to fetch a couple of buckets of water. Our next-door-neighbor washed my clothes for a few pesos each week. I asked Nerio to make a decent table for the kitchen. He did it in a half day. This was where I would leave my typewriter. Coring, a woman who lived next door, came to type for me two or three days a week. I was able to find her a job typing for another missionary for the other two or three days per week. She had just graduated from a two-year typing course. The kitchen also became a little office. Windows were vacant holes in the wall that I covered with a piece of wood when it rains. This makeshift “shutter” swung on its hinges like a window at other times. I put the desk borrowed from a missionary friend in the six-by-ten foot bedroom. Like the others, I slept with one sheet on a mat under a mosquito net, rolling up the mosquito net each morning. It is a strange thing becoming poor among the poor. First, you seek to live at their level—to do exactly what they are doing—and then, as you do that, you recognize and identify those physical or emotional needs you can’t live without even though they do. You make small adjustments. This is acceptable to the people. Identification is not imitation. For example, I needed a good cassette tape recorder for language study. Most folk only had a radio. I also needed a bookcase. Houses built for an incoming family would be about six-by-ten feet and made of plywood with iron roofing. Older people in the community had put up larger houses, which were equivalent to four of these small houses: two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. Four families could live in such a house. The corner house in our cluster of houses, a man who had become quite successful in engineering had constructed a very attractive house. The lower story had a concrete floor! Often squatters live beside the railway tracks where there is some vacant land. Roofs are covered with old tires to hold the metal sheet on. The best homes are raised off the ground, keeping them from the water and giving a little bit of privacy. Soon the bottom of the house is built and new squatters move into that. Often they have relatives. Trees disappear quickly for firewood. Any vacant land nearby is very quickly cultivated to provide vegetables, since many of the squatters are from the province and still have agricultural skills. Perhaps one home in ten has a television set. Such families may have someone working in an office job who could afford a television. Everybody else watches the television through the windows. It is an appliance that has to be shared. Possessions are shared among the squatters, but one never enters another’s home for a meal or during mealtime. One talks outside, lest the family be embarrassed and forced into buying extra food, which they cannot afford for the guest. Where do the wood and the timber come for building the homes? Sometimes it is from plywood packing cases. Sometimes it is bought. For example, one day Aling Nena came back excited. She’d been out visiting a friend and had seen an old, broken down truck. She had bought the roof off the truck! This would make a good roof for the new sari-sari store she wanted to put up. Life in the slum is a daily pattern. Early in the morning, teenage girls use their straw brooms to sweep the dust off the bare earth between houses. Mothers sit on their haunches washing in their basins, or washing and soaping their hair. Others, dressed beautifully, head off to work, walking between the plywood homes under the washing, dodging the puddles, laughing and talking with friends. Radios blare to waken the neighbors who have managed to sleep through the cacophony of shouting mothers and children. The middle of the day is a time to stay out of the sun. Usually there is a siesta. Around three o’clock is the time for gambling. Women have little to do at this time, and it becomes a good time for women’s activities. Then, while the women cook the rice, everyone sits outside their houses to talk over the day’s events as the sun sets. This is the time for friendship and evangelism.
God-sent overcoat I wanted to know that power of God. In the hunger and search for him, I had scavenged in an infinite number of the cracks and crevices of life. Now at the place of his call, my inner being, so much a desert, still hungered for that inner knowledge of God. I knew that in obedience comes such knowledge: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him (John 14:21). In the Scriptures, it was clear that in powerlessness he would display his power, in poverty he would reveal his riches, in the cross he showed his resurrection, in brokenness he displays his healing power. The Spirit of power is first a Spirit of fire, burning the chaff from our lives, burning out the dross of sin. As I chose to direct myself in this way of poverty—of brokenness, of powerlessness—God was not slow to respond in revealing himself in his sovereign way. He began to sensitize my spirit to his with a deep time of intense loneliness. During those early days, loneliness not only walked with me: it hung like an oversized great coat. It had always been a friend, but now became my ever-present companion. Friends among the professionals did not visit—some too busy, some afraid to enter the community, but most preferring to avoid the criticism of others who disagreed with any move into the slums. Some of the gossip was quite painful and eventually did much harm but, since it would have taken days of discussion to track down and deal with its source, I watched it multiply like a cancer and left it up to God’s mercy. Along with the feeling of aloneness, I felt Satan attack wave after wave. Fever lasted several days; I experienced an unpleasant rash; doubt and discouragement sought to overwhelm. The constant failure that is a normal part of any ministry and of culture shock continued. During those first days in Tatalon, my thoughts could well have echoed Kagawa’s simple words:
I came to bring Like Kagawa, I would have turned back but for the call of the One who loved me and who commanded: No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). My righteous one shall live by faith and, if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him (Hebrews 10:38). Such verses were often the final motivation I needed to press on into the darkness, the danger, the hatred. I wrote: No friends, no companion, no ease or comfort, no position or power have I sought, none of these wanted. Yet, the poor are still far from me and so too is my distant God. I must yet go deeper into that cross. Somewhere in the fullness of his suffering, he will meet me.
And God did! As the light fills and illuminates, so his light began to fill and to flood my life in the midst of darkness. Day by day, I would spend hours in the word of God and in prayer. Surrounded by drunkenness, oppression and immorality, God’s love filled and cleansed me in a way I had never before experienced. Renewal and a fullness of the power of God began to radiate out to the destitute around. People I prayed for during that time were the ones who were later converted. God began to reveal his power.
As a child, I had experienced the overwhelming presence of the love of God as it flowed over and over me day after day. Before I lived in Tatalon, there were times when I had seen his anointing on his word as I preached. Throughout my life, I had seen God’s spirit descend on people. But in Tatalon, he began to break forth with a new power and joy. I had experienced times when the spiritual gifts that he gave at conversion had been evident, but now there was a deeper sensitivity to him, a freer flow. A cleansing of old sin and traditions unleashed these gifts. As a youth, I had seen a pattern from reading hundreds of the biographies of the great saints. Somewhere, ten to fifteen years into their ministries, they often entered into a deeper life, a new empowering of the Spirit of God. They used various terms, and came from various doctrinal persuasions. Some spoke of “Christ in me.” Corrie Ten Boom told of “entering his rest.” Others talked of the “immersion of the Spirit,” “release in the Spirit,” or “the baptism of the Spirit.” Others described a continued series of fillings of the Spirit; some spoke of the anointing of God. A diversity of doctrine on this issue is good, for “the wind blows where it wills and we hear the sound of it, but we do not know whence it comes or whither it goes, so it is with the Spirit.” God is not an abstract doctrine. He is alive and sovereign. He had met me and now began to move in new ways beyond my prayers and work. For so long, my ministry had been such a struggle, so dependent on me. Now I had difficulty keeping up with him! But I could see that Satan was not weak in the counter-attack. In counselling others on the secret of life in the Spirit, I have found no set formula. All I can do is point to the cross—to its suffering, to the obedience it demands, to the discipline it imposes, to the power of its proclamation, to its absolute authority. Many Christians want power, few want holiness. Many want the resurrected life; few want the cross.2
The Spirit world One of the first evidences of a new power was in confrontations with demons.
In the slums, one comes more and more into direct demonic confrontation. The Lord began to train me in this area, too.
One day I was doing some business in Makati, the rich city in Metro-Manila, when the Spirit of God began to speak to me very strongly. I needed to go home. When that happens, one acts quickly! I hurried home. As I arrived, a leader in the ministry also arrived.
“Your engineer friend, Raul, is calling for you. He is attacked by a demon.” We ran quickly to the house.
Some days earlier, Raul heard an evangelist who told him to “listen to the Spirit.” He began to listen and initially what he heard was in line with the scriptures. But as he kept listening, another spirit began to speak, saying, “God is light. The sun is light. Worship the sun.”
Raul had thrown away his shoes, his wallet, and his shirt under the instructions of this spirit before the police picked him up.
The family was angry at Raul for having read the Bible and getting involved with a spirit. Finally, because the spirit gave him no sleep, Raul told them, “Bring me over to the ministry center.” There, they read the Scriptures and prayed. Raul joined in the prayers, but repeatedly, as the spirit troubled him, he would stop praying.
When I arrived, I didn’t know what to do, so I asked questions to find out what had happened. Then I prayed, commanding the spirit to leave. Raul would begin to rest, and then once again the spirit would return—talking, talking, and talking to him. We prayed again.
I asked Naty, his wife, to begin to read the Scriptures. Whenever she did, the evil spirit would depart again. She prayed to become a Christian. We told Raul how to use the name of Christ against the spirit. After more prayer, it left without much of a fight.
His father arrived with a jeep load of people. Among them was a man with sharp, piercing eyes who kept saying, “You know there is somebody higher than Jesus Christ.” I recognized him as a medium. They had brought him to cast the demon from Raul. We explained that prayer, the Scriptures, and the name of Christ had already freed him.
We discussed the event for a long time. Finally, his father was satisfied with our suggestion that in two days’ time Raul should return to the province where we would gather the neighbors and explain how he became freed. This would save the family honor.
Two days later, we all boarded a jeep back to the province. Neighbors gathered. Relatives gathered. People stood all around the windows looking in.
Raul gave his testimony. Milleth sang and Pastor Jun preached. We talked until midnight. Many believed that day and the Lord wrought a great victory indeed, turning the tables on Satan.
My brother, the
professor God used my relationship with another close friend to give me a deeper understanding of how to grapple with the spirit world.
A few months before moving into Tatalon, I received a request from a friend to take over the follow-up of a professor and of a politician, he was helping. Both were doing PhDs at the University of the Philippines. I sensed that God was evident in this request.
The professor was the father of eleven children and professor of graduate studies at Isabella State University. He was a big man, a leader, a man of high standing among the Ibanag (Ee-ba-nag) people. His relatives were mayors and city officials. He was also a gifted orator.
About 336,000 Ibanag people live in and around the Cagayan Valley in Northern Luzon. They are a dignified and proud people, with a strong sense of identity and culture. Until now, no significant breakthrough for the gospel has taken place among the Ibanags since the initial thrust of evangelical Methodism in the early 1900s.
After the professor’s conversion, God gave him boldness to invite first one, then three to a Bible study group. The principal of the high school came to Christ. Others came.
The professor saw a little sick boy, put his hand on his head and prayed. He was healed. This happened several times. He came back to visit us in Manila. I sat with him and the soft-spoken research assistant who had led him in Bible studies. He shared his experiences and then asked, “Do you think this is from God? Do you think God will take it away?”
We encouraged him, and a month later took a team up to Isabella to run a three-day “Dynamics of Christian Growth” seminar.
When he invited me to preach at his Bible study, seventy people attended. What a work of the Spirit of God! After the seminar, four high-school-aged attendees went back and led one hundred others to Christ—almost their entire school.
But much of the professor’s early life had been marred by cruelty. In his relationship to his own family, he had to learn to apply the Scriptures. My role was to be one of friendship and encouragement to build balance, character and depth in the word.
Late one night, we sat up with him as he poured out the terrible cruelty and pain and asked the Lord to heal each memory. He began to show love to his children, and God began to fully restore his relationship with his wife and family.
Despite many obstacles, the gospel moved so rapidly that within six months over a thousand Ibanag people had turned to Christ.
As a leader in the community, the professor was frequently invited by his relatives (often the mayors of neighboring towns) to preach in their barrios or in the neighboring chapels. (At this point, the parish priest was positive towards the movement since he himself had translated much of the Scriptures into Ibanag.) When he would preach, it would often last two or three hours. People loved to hear the oratory in their own dialect.
The director of a tobacco research unit invited us to address his thirty workers during office hours. As time passed and the cross was preached, the men began to weep. After the message, the professor said, “Now would all those who have not believed stand up.” They all remained seated. Later, the decision would be personalized, but in Ibanag culture, decisions are made in a group context.
Couples were reunited, drunkards released, people healed. In one weekend there were four encounters where demons were cast out.
The army officers of the province asked him to come and speak. He interpreted for them a biblical approach to development in their province, beginning with the gospel and with spiritual and cultural liberation.
Why should God use a two-year-old Christian in such a dynamic way? The history of church growth illustrates that when God wants to break open a tribe held long in animism, he will often choose one of the tribal leaders within the movement. Then he will empower such a person to confront the spirit powers of the tribe.3 Missionaries have often failed to exploit such opportunities. Discipling movements must quickly follow behind such a response of people turning to Christ. Fortunately, the leaders within REACH were sensitive to the Lord. We were able to dispatch one of the key ministry leaders to assist the professor in consolidating and building a core team of people who could disciple new believers. We encouraged him to remain within the Catholic framework. To move out would create a socio-cultural barrier and prevent the full consummation of the movement. But eventually, the public burning of idols created a wide rift, and he came into direct conflict with the Catholic Church in his preaching against idols and worship of saints. Wisely, his gospel message focused around the difference between the biblical worldview of spirits and the Ibanag worldview. In the Ibanag worldview, good and bad spirits coexist. Good spirits assist people to do good and to heal. Life is spent in appeasing both bad and good spirits. Despite the people becoming Catholic in name, this was still their worldview. The Catholic saints and the Virgin Mary were added to the pantheon of spirits that needed appeasing. The real break with Catholicism is the break with animism. Moreover, this occurs when the idols—the “saints”—are destroyed. That is conversion!
Guerrilla warfare One situation that had bothered me as I was recruiting the team to come and assist in the slums was the demonic attacks on the family of Manuel.
I had a long talk with his father. He had been a guerrilla fighter during the Second World War and was now head of a technical university. Their family was one of the leading families of the province—a good. God-loving and important family.
He sat back in his chair and, as is the custom of older Filipino men when entertaining, began to tell us a number of stories. These were about his dealings with the spirits.
First, he told how as an officer in the Engineers during the war, as they were making a road through the mountain province, they came to a row of five trees. The first four trees required only a stick of dynamite to move them. But the fifth, after a single charge, did not move. They used a whole box of dynamite on it next. It still did not move. Finally, they placed three boxes at the foot of the tree. To their amazement, the tree lifted up and flew horizontally to the ground several meters away, taking the boxes along with it.
Later, two men assigned to dig under the tree struck the grave of a mountain king. Within six hours they died. Manuel’s father also began to get a deep fever. He called his men to find the local witch doctor. The medium came, prayed for him, and he survived.
At another time in the mountain province, he slept in a hollow, also a burial place of the mountain kings. The people warned them that nobody had ever been able to sleep there. He and his companion could not sleep. A dream returned to him time and again of some men trying to scoop them up in a net. In the morning, he discovered that his companions had had the same dream.
His father was a good man, a devout Catholic leader. He read the Scriptures faithfully. Yet true to the Ibanag worldview, he believed that many of these spirits were good and helpful and could enable him to gain control over evil spirits, and even to heal the sick. I learned that Manuel’s aunt was a medium. Catholicism, after four centuries, had been powerless to confront the basic core of animistic beliefs of these people.
I took the professor over one night and the two men swapped stories about their dealings with the spirits. The professor explained the difference between the biblical
Worldview and the Ibanag worldview (spirits are good, but mischievous and need to be appeased).
Manuel’s father told us about the time his whole family had been together. A spirit had taken over one of the brothers, and spoken to them of the sins of the family.
We prayed with him, but there was no apparent revelation given to him. Then we went up to Manuel’s room and commanded the spirit to leave. Goose pimples ran up my spine. Our hair stood on end. The spirit appeared to have gone at the time, but a year later, the family was still being troubled.
This family will finally be free when, as a family, they completely renounce their dealings with the spirit world.
Warfare of rest This continuing experience of “Christ being my life,” of it being “no longer I, but Christ in me,” resulted in more than power in proclamation and in dealing with demons. There has come an ever-growing knowledge of “the rest of Christ.” By knowing that the risen Christ is working, we can quietly relax and watch him work—though at the same time we may be all action, too. His rest is a quiet confidence that not only is he working, but that he will bring everything to successful completion.
People ask, “In the midst of so much poverty and suffering, how can you cope with all the needs?”
The answer is: I don’t have to. That is God’s task!
At times, I used to be so afraid of being in the slum that I would take the jeepney past the squatter community, traveling on for several minutes until I had been able to review some of the passages of the scripture that gave me promises of God’s protection. Psalm 121:7-8 told me:
Finally, I would get off the jeepney, take another jeepney back, and walk through the squatter community to my home. The people always seemed to be reaching out to be talked to, to be ministered to, to be loved. I didn’t have the finances that they needed, and sometimes I would retreat within the poverty of myself. But when I walked in with the promises of God fresh in my mind, he would direct me to which needs to meet. A quiet confidence that God was at work filled me. He was sufficient for the needs that he wanted me to meet. I glimpsed the reason behind Calvin’s emphasis on election. We do not have to meet the world’s needs. The Holy Spirit will choose people’s needs for us to meet. Fear would be replaced with quiet confidence and trust in the all-loving and almighty Father. In this is rest. And God did protect. Only one person ever got angry with me in the community. One day I was talking with a mechanic friend who had constructed a three-wheeled motorcycle. He offered me a ride. As we rode by, a drunken bystander on the footpath apparently called out and asked me to take him with me. I did not hear him. Later, when I returned, he came over and began to talk with me. He was angry, but since I couldn’t follow his Tagalog, I didn’t realize just how angry he was. Kid, my friend, stepped in and quieted him down. Later that afternoon the drunken man took the motorcycle and smashed it. He knocked his head badly, and his concussion took two months to heal. The people in the barrio said that his accident was a direct result of God protecting me. I was his servant, and fear came on the community! I didn’t try to change their conviction that God had protected me. I knew that he had. That morning he specifically spoke to me of his protection from Psalm 91:14: Because he cleaves to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.
Some time later, we prayed for the full recovery of the man who had smashed the motorcycle. In incidents like this, I discovered the literal truth of the Apostle Paul’s words: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places,” so that “the weapons of our warfare are not physical weapons of flesh and blood” such as the weapons of the businessman, the politician or the Church dignitary, “but mighty before God for the overthrowing of strongholds.” Although opposition may come from people like this man, we know that our battle is against another. NOTES
1.
Toyohiko Kagawa, Songs from the Slums, SCM and Cokesbury
Press, 1935.
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© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation, for The Encarnacao Training Commission. Last modified: July 2010 |
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