When a missionary fails

Gigi with my teammate Breana

God never stops asking. This morning I awoke at 5:50am. For some reason, just before opening our bedroom door onto the porch, I peeked out the window onto the street, and there was Gigi. Gigi is a mentally challenged woman who comes to our gate everyday, usually more than once a day, to ask for bugas (dry rice). Still having sleep in my eyes and wearing pajamas, I decided it would be permissible to wait a few moments for her to give up and pass by our house. Surely Jesus wouldn’t mind if I took some time to prepare myself for the day and then served her whenever she returned later in the morning, right?

And so I hid out of view for 2 minutes, 3 minutes, justifying it with every reason I could think of. But Gigi didn’t move. Finally, feeling the guilt that comes whenever I try to deny my missionary calling in favor of my own selfishness, I relented. I put on some clothes and met her at the gate with a sleepy “Maayong buntag!”

“Hello!” she said. “Nga-i bugas?

“No, kan-on,” I corrected, and went to the pantry to get a bag of leftover cooked rice from the fridge. This is our usual practice with Gigi, giving her precooked rice (kan-on) rather than the dry bugas to ensure that it is actually eaten, but today the kan-on was all gummy, like mashed potatoes -- I had forgotten that I’d overcooked it the night before.

It will be fine, I thought to myself. It’s just Gigi; this is good enough.

But I had that sinking feeling in my heart as I handed her the bag, and something inside me wanted to shout “Wait! Let me take it back!” because I knew I was only giving her second-best. Thankfully, she provided the opportunity for me to redeem myself.

“Energen?” she asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes. I headed back to the pantry for a packet of her favorite powdered drink and then, not by chance, found in our box of ministry supplies a perfectly-proportioned bag of dry rice. Great! I smiled to myself. I’ll just swap her these bugas in exchange for the kan-on.

I proudly carried both the drink and the rice back to the gate, gave them to Gigi, and then moved to take back the old bag of overcooked rice out of her hands. But as I did so she just smiled, pulled both bags closer to herself, and walked off down the street.

Our breakfast guests one morning: Gigi, Mary Grace, Windal

I typically choose to blog about the picture perfect moments, the times when I say “yes” to Our Lord and do what I know He is asking of me. But today I wanted to share an honest example of failure in the real life of a missionary. After Gigi walked off, I sat down on our porch steps wanting to cry -- for myself and my lack of true generosity, as well as for this woman and the poverty she experiences on a daily basis, a reality which I will never fully understand.

Jesus tells us to give to everyone who asks and to give expecting nothing in return. What kind of missionary hides from the beggar literally waiting at her door? What kind of missionary keeps the best for herself and her household and gives away that which she was reluctant to serve at her own table? What kind of missionary views generosity as a transaction in which the poor are entitled to exactly one bag of rice, as if giving away two bags to a hungry woman would be excessive?

This missionary does. Because this missionary is still in need of a Savior. Because this missionary heart does not yet break for everything that breaks the heart of Jesus.

There are those who are easy to love -- the adorable children, the teens who seem to soak up your every word, the little old ladies who can be found praying their Rosary in church at any hour of the day. But Jesus did not send me to the other side of the world to love only them. 

We’ve all heard the stories of Mother Teresa seeing the face of Christ in the dying poor on the streets of Calcutta. Today I saw the face of Christ in Gigi, right here on Alvarez Street. And today I ask you to open your eyes, to see Christ in both friends and strangers, but most especially in those who are not so easy to love. 

Please pray for me, that I may never again keep Jesus waiting at the gate.