i saw two people counting out their money today. the first one was an officemate who held herset of one-thousand bills.perhaps she had to make sure that she will not fall short of money for the eighteen- thousand monthly fee she pays for the apartment she lives in.
the other one was a vendor counting out his twenty-peso bills. you could right away tell how many he’s got- he held three of it in his hands- his income for the first hour of selling sweet corn, kakanin, and puto. ‘he gotta earn more, ‘ he might have thought. he tucked the bills in his decrepit wallet and thought about the nine people awaiting his return at home.
that moment i saw the fifty-year old man counting out the money he’s got, probably the only money he had for the day, i could not help but cry. i thought about the luxury of residing in an eighteen-thousand-a-month apartment complex (ours is just half of what my officemate is paying), on getting the food you want on fancy restaturants, on getting to go to places only (she can go to dubai, singapore,japan whenever she feels like to) wealthy people can go to, and on being so many times more fortunate than those people whom their sweat we see out of their hardwork, those people whose callouses we notice, those people whe endures lots of hardship in their work in a daily basis but whose salaries are not enough for their daily needs.
i thought about my officemate without any hint of envy to her status- i thought about the big difference of other’s people status to another group of people. at this point, a man might be happily driving his newly bought chevy and at the same time another man is sleeping under the bridge where the rich man is treading, sleeping his hunger away.
everytime i see someone begging alms on the street, or someone who’s obviously sickly but is unable to get medication due to poverty, i can’t help but cry. i’ve always thought about them with the hope that may someone help them surpass their day-to-day battle with hunger, social seclusion, and the other problems caused by poverty, and by thinking so, it also led me to ponder about the own comforts that i have which i oftentimes complain about.
i know that i cannot trade places with them- because that’s not the way it shall be. but at that time that i stood before the man who was earnest in giving his family a decent meal, i knew that in my little way, i could help. few minutes later, few minutes before the man had to carry his basket of goodies to sell to a nearby street, i saw the man’s genuine smile after i handed him the set of six twenty bills for the six sweet corns i bought from him. i smiled back, teary-eyed. i can never forget that smile.
i know that this sounds over-dramatic, but there are these little moments that may seem weird to some, but may mean a lot to you. these are those little moments which creates the heart of giving, the little moments which motivates someone to be good, the little moments which make someone aspire and help make the world a better place.
i support world vision
