Friday 25 July – Credit crunch?

After a very warm week, we joined the students at Bayang Resort near May-it for a student centre outing. It was one of the annual outings and about 30 of us went to this resort. Let me just explain a little bit more. This place didn’t offer lodgings, but it certainly provided entertainment. As you can see from the photos, the resort sits in a small valley with 2 swimming pools and several huts, some of which are fitted with karaoke duke boxes (they are very popular in the Philippines!). This was, to some of the students, one of their highlights of the year. A few of the gifted and hard working ones (they woke up at 5am to start the cooking) also prepared a very delicious lunch and merienda for all. Not to mention that we ate the Filipino way – Kamayan, i.e. using our hands and from banana leaves, which certainly added extra flavour to the food.

It was an excellent opportunity to share the joy with the students, especially those who face family and financial burdens. The night before we went, one of the students from the boarding house said he couldn’t go because he couldn’t afford the 40 peso (that is ~45p) entrance fee to this resort. To western terms, this is nothing, you can’t even get onto a bus with 45p. It was, and still is very puzzling as to why some of the Filipinos are so poor. That same student asked me a question tonight, he said “kuya Jonathan, why are Filipinos so poor? We work hard, but we still have no money.” After discussing with John, I was still unable to answer that question.

Many of the students live on little more than 300 pesos a week. Being an OMF SAW worker, we are given a budget of about 500 pesos a day – that is about what a well paid nurse or teacher gets in the Philippines. Whenever we talk about university or life in general in the UK, it is inevitable that the question – “how much does it cost?” will come up. And each time we go through the trouble of explaining that the costs could not be compared. Yet, every time after the discussion, I ask myself the same question – will they understand?

About a third of the Filipino society are able to live in some comfort - they might not own a car but can hire taxis freely, go to the mall, live in a decent house or could even send their children abroad for education and so forth, even if they are helped by funds from the 15 million Pinoys who work abroad. Another third struggle, but get by. And the rest live lives that either hovers above the red line or sometimes below it depending on work availability or whether the fields are producing enough for them to sell the excess.

Many pastors in the Philippines live on 2000 pesos a month. Ate Anne, our Youth worker here in Lucban is engaged to Pablo, a 35 year old who pastors a church about 50 miles away. He sold his saucepan to come to see her today - 4 hours each way to see her for two. Ate Anne keeps putting off their wedding day as she thinks that with no savings and no rich relatives (they both come from poor pastors' families) they cannot get married but Pablo is desperate to - at 35 he is old to be single here, and many better church jobs seem to be given to married men. Pastors make big sacrifices here, and the paltry sums (to western Christians) that would change their conditions are just impossible to raise here.

Seeing and experiencing the situations that our brothers and sisters are going through in Lucban (and also in Manila), I really thank God for graciously providing for us but at the same time, it is also a wake up call. How is our offering weighing up to God’s generous provision? Are we diligently using our time (and wealth) for the good works that God has prepared for us to do?

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