Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to have dinner with friends – it wasn’t a normal dinner with friends though.
In the room were a number of people representing different countries. At the dinner table there were 5 from Aotearoa, 1 from the Congo, 1 from India, 1 from the UK and our 2 esteemed guests who the dinner was for from the Philippines.
The organisations represented at the table included TEAR Fund, CAP (Christians Against Poverty), a Methodist strongly involved in social action and TEAR Fund’s partner in the Philippines – CCT (Center for Community Transformation). It was a group of people who have dedicated their lives in some way to serving the marginalized. It was an honour.
The food was amazing. My friend and colleague, Drew, deserves a hat tip for his efforts in the kitchen. The laughs 
were plenty. The highlight of the evening for me was the spontaneous nature of the interaction of the rest of the night. Amongst the group their were musicians, so singing songs just happened. We had the opportunity to hear Angel and Maricar (from CCT) share about their lives and following that we spent time in prayer. None of it was planned but it happened, flowed and contributed to the night perfectly. By the end of the evening a bunch of new friendships had formed.
Angel deserves a special mention as his story of transformation left me humbled. Here was a man who had grown up in a slum in Manila, been involved in countless robberies and gun running, was addicted to an array of narcotics, had been involved in gangs, had taken the lives of two people and had abused women and he was sitting with us, a completely different person a number of years on, telling us his story of who he was, how he had changed and the work he is involved in now. No matter who is telling them, stories of redemption always hit a note in me.
Angel’s life had changed after getting on the wrong side of a group of people who one day 
drove past a house he was in at the time and sprayed it with bullets. There was a price on his head. The only thing Angel could do was run. He left the city and his journey led him to a Christian group. He thought the whole thing was cheesy, but every word spoken about Jesus in that meeting hit him and from there, Angel’s journey changed. His journey hasn’t been easy and even still, Angel can only visit the city for a few days at time for fear of the danger to his life if he was to bump into the wrong people.
Today he helps rehabilitate street dwellers from Manila that are brought to the center that CCT runs for them. He is intimately involved in helping to transform the lives of others. It’s a hard group of people to work with and the patience of the CCT workers that engage in that work is immense. They experience successes, but they also experience the frustrations of putting in the effort, only to see some return to the streets and the drugs.
I feel it an honour to now count Angel as a friend and to be working for an organisation like TEAR Fund. TEAR Fund helped establish CCT and continues to support the work that it does, though CCT has somewhat outgrown TEAR Fund. It is because of people like you that we are able to do such things. If you are a supporter of TEAR Fund, thank you.
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