Thursday, January 27, 2005

Manila 02

The Dump "Arenda"
So we stayed in Antipolo but the church we built was in Arenda which is an area where the government said, "lets take this garbage or basura (its the same as in spanish) and cover it with some dirt and then sell 9x7 properties to the poor squatters to try to get them off of the water ways and into more organized living. This is a good thing because they now have to option of electricity and the area has a few fresh water wells that the people can use. But it is still a "dump" and the roads have yet to be paved and we were the first "light skinned" large group to come into this area to build or work. Actually the area is just over 2 years old and the closest church is in Tay Tay which is about 25 minutes away and Arenda has grown in the past 2 years so much that the Tay Tay church has not been able to start enough home groups to keep up...they have their work set for them for a while. Sorry about the rambling...there is just so much to say. Back to being the first "light" people to come as a large group, since this was so we were asked to go and meet the governor this meant walking through the area like a parade and it really did feel like we were on parade...all of the Filipinos we saw waved and smiled and seemed very happy to see us there. (the chucrch is a good thing for Arenda) So we met the Mayor or Governor and he told us through a translator that there would be police forces under cover at all times keeping watch over us, which was good but scary all at the same time. So that is how we began our first week and after the meeting we began the cement bucket brigade to fill the footers...lucky for me i got on the empty bucket brigade....later in the week i did carry some full buckets but the filipino workers only filled my buckets half full...thank goodness. To answer Tim's question the philippines is a very interesting land of either Rich or Poor there really isnt a middle class. We did get to see some of the rich side mostly because the missionary didnt want us to have a one sided view of the philippines...i will share more on the rich side later.

2 comments:

thebensonator said...

I like how you're telling this piece by piece, keep going! I want to hear more!

OutOfTheSilent said...

isn't it interesting how our suroundings can make us hungry for The Word.