Dev-O: Hanging out with the “wrong” crowd

I was thinking about how most of the time, when we see people who are different from us- tattooed, pierced, multicolor-haired people, drug users, alcoholics, or even just people who have issues that are a little less socially accepted- our initial reaction would be to stay away from them. This is what we’re told to do, because they could be dangerous, and really, what good would it do us to be with people like that? They’re different. Their lives are probably a mess.

It is easier to do this, to stay away from people of that sort, and a lot safer too. Better to stay with our Christian friends, at least with them we’re sure nothing bad will happen to us.

But think about when Jesus was here. Who did he spend a lot of time with? He hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, and he didn’t stay away from lepers. He spent time with people who were looked down on by society. He didn’t look good for it, but he did it anyway.

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17

We weren’t put on this earth to be comfortable, or to be around people who already know God. I mean sure, that’s OK, and we should fellowship with each other, but we’re also here to share God with people who don’t know Him yet. We won’t find these people in church, we won’t find them among our Christian friends. We might find them in an uncomfortable situation, and conversations with them might not be easy. Being seen with them might give us a bad reputation.

Jesus didn’t have it easy either, and he didn’t look too good in the eyes of the well-to-do of those times. No one said it was going to be easy for us. And people might even look at us in a bad way for being with the wrong crowd. But it’s with this crowd that we can be useful.

God doesn’t need us to share our faith to people who’ve already heard it. He needs us to go to the ones who haven’t, to the ones who need it real bad.

**Check out the Wildfire site for other Dev-O entries by other awesome people.

Dark Knight Experience. Hahaha.

Last night, I watched Dark Knight with some Wildfire people after Super Saturday. I had fun! Really. XD Except for the part where my wallet got stolen.

I withdrew before the movie, and when I was about to pay for my food at McDonald’s, I realized my wallet was gone. But it’s okay, I didn’t have much in it. I mean. P500, my cashcard(didn’t have that much money in it anyway), and my Passion ticket(now I just hope whoever took it decides to watch. XD)

Thanks, Ate Ham, for paying for my food and movie ticket! I still owe you. *HUGS* And Kuya Mike for getting me another ticket! *HUGS*

So besides my losing my wallet, I had lots of fun. The movie was awesome! Wildfire is awesome. I love them. Haha, yun lang. Fun fun fun.

Picture-Taking Practice

My mom recently started letting me use her Canon 350D, and I got to make like photographer on a medical mission organized by our church.

A bunch of us from our youth group volunteered to go, and my mom, who documents most of the events of our church, told me to just take pictures. Which was no problem with me, really. I’m squeamish.

And yet I volunteer to go on a medical mission.

Haha, yeah. Anyway, I went, and took some pictures. And had an awesome time!

I had lots of fun going around and shooting away. I loved the kids. They followed me around and posed every chance they got.

I sort of ended up with more photos of what was going on everywhere except where the doctors were checking blood pressure and the dentists were pulling out teeth. (I think the fact that I couldn’t stand watching the dentists pulling out people’s teeth, much less capture those moments, had something to contribute to that, too. But I did get photos of dentists pulling teeth out and little kids crying because of the pain.)

I learned how tiring being photographer was, too. By the time we ended, my legs hurt from my moving around, my arm was sore from holding the camera up, and, I didn’t believe this was actually possible, but I couldn’t move my clicking finger at one point, probably from all my trigger-happiness.

But capturing all those moments, and just being there and helping out in general, was a lot of fun.  Or maybe “fun” isn’t the right word. But, I felt like I was able to serve God in a way, even though the photos I took weren’t used; I felt like He wanted me there, for whatever reason.  And that felt really good.

Some of my friends helped the doctors by weighing people, (I found it a bit funny how they decided to weigh the babies. The weighing scale was the kind you stepped on, and we didn’t have the one you make the baby lie down on, and what my friends decided to do was to weigh the mother carrying the baby, then weigh her without the baby, then subtract the weights. Hahaha.) and calling out for the next patients. And by just being there for whatever the doctors needed them for. Like crowd control.

My other friends helped out with the dentists, by cleaning their tools. Which, I learned just by watching them, is hard work. They had to clean out all those tongs and syringes, and other  shiny, sharp, and pointy things I don’t know what to call. Made me really glad all I had to do was take pictures.

All of us came home feeling tired, but I know we all came home real happy because of everything that happened that day, and because of all the people we met, and especially because of the God we all went there to serve.

You can look at some of the pictures I took here.