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Our Partners:
ABCCOP
Center for Sharing
Co-Serve International
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By Ruth Ortega
Lian came home from school one afternoon. He is the son of our school
director Kuya Pong, one among the 5 children living inside the
community. At this time when parents at CSLP have not received more than
a month of their salaries, he brought an unwrapped gift that his mom
fished out from his schoolbag - a letter of prayer he wrote during
recess. “I pray Jesus that you would always protect me and that I will
always be kind. I pray that my wishes would come true. Also that we will
have a little more money because as of now there is nothing for the
budget and I pray that I will not get sick often. Love, Lian.”
When I
read his letter, it transported me back to my childhood days. When my
own parents left their promising careers to pursue missions in the
barrio where I was raised, it left me wondering why. I saw my cousins
living in the city, having access to what seemed to me to be the cool
and comfortable life. As I grew in faith, I gradually understood the
richness of this privilege of being a missionary kid. But I never really
figured out how I could pass that understanding to my children. Now a
mom, with two missionary kid daughters of my own, I admit that I tend to
become overprotective of the security of my children in terms of a
comfortable life. I think, “These poor little children should not need
to bear the physical suffering of parents who chose to work in a
community with fewer financial advantages.”
Lian’s letter of prayer
taught me that it is okay and in fact important for our children to
learn what it is to have and to have not. I realized that when I
excluded my daughters from this reality, I robbed them of the
opportunity to discover what we are trying to teach and live out. They
lost the opportunity to understand that wealth and money are not the
same thing. And, they lost the opportunity to learn total dependence on
God. At CSLP we teach and learn with our students many things about true
community and I am in danger of keeping my children out of it. Through
Lian’s prayer, we parents discover that community matters are not for
adults only. A child’s faith and trust in God was written on a piece of
paper, and those of us who read it understood what Jesus meant when he
said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never
enter the Kingdom” (Matt. 18:5). Lian demonstrated obedience to God’s
command, to carry one another’s burdens, by praying about his daddy
Pong’s concerns over the community’s needs.
According to Jean Vanier,
one of the greatest losses for parents who want to follow Jesus and live
in community is to accept a lower income than they might have had
elsewhere… He says, “When we follow Jesus, we are called to accept the
consequences of our choices. Children of such families may not have the
same financial opportunities as others, but they will discover
community, and that is an immense gift.”
Realizing this, I consider it
an immense gift from Lian to have opened my eyes. Perhaps, Lian
understood community more than me. We always acknowledge God’s presence
in our community. This time, I found Him in Lian. After all, God comes
in small packages too.
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Lian.
The Ortega family.
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