A few days ago, I jumped on my motorbike and spent the morning and early afternoon taking care of some errands in town. I finally finished at about 2:00, and with my mind no longer focused on things that I needed to g
et done,
my stomach reminded me that I had not eaten anything yet that day.
Pleased at what I had accomplished and
relieved to get some of the little things out of the way for the next few weeks, I decided I would reward myself with a stop over at Burger King, my favorite fast food destination in the Philippines. Once inside, I ordered a steakhouse burger meal. The steakhouse burger is top notch. Large imported Angus beef patty, surrounded by all the works and topped off with some crispy onions and steak sauce. Most fast food in the Philippines would stand out like a sore thumb when compared to fast food in the USA, whether it be from the smaller portions or the almost visual evidence of lower quality. This sandwich is the exc
eption and the premium meal at our Manila BK. You would easily pay $7 or $8 for this exact meal in the states with large fries and a large drink,
but here it runs about 200 pesos ($4.35). Not bad when compared to the US price, but if you think about the fact that the average daily wage in this a
rea of the Philippines is about 275 pesos ($6) a DAY, it gives a little bit of perspective. The kind of meal that an American would spend over 2/3 of his daily income on, would not come in a wax paper wrapper and served over a counter. For most, we are talking a night out on the town at a pretty fancy place.
About midway through my sandwich, I noticed that they had not put any crispy onions on it. Nothing major, so I went ahead and finished my meal. As I left, the manager asked me if everything was ok with my visit. I told her what had happened and she offered to give me another sandwich free of charge. I told her it was not necessary, but she insisted and I thought how marvelous it would be to have a whole extra sandwich to eat as a snack or for the next day's lunch. She wrapped it up and threw it in a to-go bag and I hopped on my bike, headed home.
As I was driving home, I saw a homeless man walking down the street. Wearing what could best be described as rags for clothing and no shoes, he carried a small piece of cardboard that he would use to sleep on when the night came. I drove right by him, my sandwich bag hanging from the handle of my bike. Maybe 1 kilometer down the road, I realized what I had done. For a moment, I tried to convince myself that I had gone too far, and that I should keep the sandwich because I would never find the guy again. I knew that God was leading me to turn back and find this man. So I turned my motorbike around and headed the wrong way down a major highway looking for an opportunity to share this food, and maybe an opportunity to share the Gospel. I finally caught up to the man, I pulled my bike in front of him and handed him the bag with the sandwich, the sandwich was still hot and you could feel it through the plastic. The man looked at me and took the bag. He didn't really show much emotion and as I tried to say a word or two to him, he just walked away. I had hoped for an opportunity to talk to this man about his spiritual hunger, but was happy with the opportunity to "give a cup of water in the name of Jesus."
As I sat there on my bike watching the man walk away, I was curious to see how he would react to the contents of the bag. He probably had no idea what a Classic Steakhouse Burger even was, not to mention the glorious experience it was to eat one. I was hoping he would open it right there and just dive into it. I then saw something I will never forget. I watched in horror as the man walked right to a trash can, opened the lid, and dropped the bag, with all of it's contents into the trash. I sat there for a minute and contemplated how I could go about recovering the lost burger, but decided to just leave it, not having any idea how many germs it would have picked up in the few seconds it had sat there. I then headed home quite discouraged at the events that had unfolded.
As I drove, I immediately thought about the old saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Well, just the same, you can give a homeless man an awesome sandwich, but you can't make him eat it. This man had to be starving for food, but he failed to understand that the sandwich would have filled the hunger in his stomach and chose to throw it away. It reminded me about the challenges of sharing the Bread of Life, with a world who is so hungry for Christ, but fail to understand that Jesus will not only fill that emptiness now, but will continue to fill it for the rest of eternity. As missionaries on the foreign field or at home, all of us should be continually offering the Bread of Life to those in need and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. We can't allow ourselves to be discouraged when the needy take the gift and drop it in the nearest trash can.