The Recyclables --- Some Stories (Hopefully) Never
End
Sunday nights at
our house are a much anticipated event.
Our son Ben (19) is serving a mission in the Philippines Philippines
An excerpt from
Ben’s email on Sunday, March 16 read as follows:
Sad story, so Joseph is an 11 year old boy,
super cool. His mom is paralyzed, his dad is dead, and he has a younger sister
and an older sister who is severely disabled. So guess who makes the money for
this family? and guess what he does? Joseph goes to the garbage dump every
evening and picks through things he can maybe recycle or scrap wood he can
sell. What a nasty, sad job. One day I went over to his house and he was
trying to fix his table that they cook on. He started yelling at his mom because
he was frustrated trying to fix this table, and his mom starts yelling back
(this is when I showed up). I said, “hey whats wrong?” and
mom goes off on a tangent but I pick up enough to understand her telling
me that Joseph is behind the house. So i go back there and he is under a
blanket crying his eyes out. I put my arm around him, calmed him down a bit and
asked what was wrong. Well he went off on some fast Tagalog but I picked up he
was frustrated of course, He said things like “I'm only 11 and I support this
whole family, my mom cant move, we don’t have any food, I can’t go to church
because we spend our money on food when we have money, what does God expect? I want my mom fixed. I want my dad back." like sheesh
by this time I was crying too. But what a nice experience to just be there with
him and just comfort him. I told him God knew his
situation and understands and things like that but what 11 year old boy is that
awesome? then he just got back up, and we fixed the table in 20 minutes and all
was good.
The story was heartbreaking. We have no idea of the hardships
the Filipino people face each day while we go about our mundane tasks with
every comfort and convenience imaginable.
Ben is not permitted to give money to the people he meets – he is there to help and serve the people but for
obvious reasons ‘hand-outs’ are not part of the solution to the poverty he
sees. I wondered what we could possibly
do from our end for this young boy and his family. There had to be something. And then something happened. Something unexpected and something that
helped in a way the world may not define as ''helping''.
Two days after
receiving Ben’s letter I was visiting with a good friend from a neighboring town.
I forward Ben’s weekly letters to friends who
like to follow his
adventures. As we chatted she said to me, ‘’ I love reading Ben’s
letters – the one he wrote last Sunday about the young boy looking for recyclables
reminded me of a boy I met at school yesterday...’’
She went on to
tell me that she noticed a young boy – 11 or 12 – picking up recyclables on his
way home. She saw a juice
box and picked it up and walked over to him.
She asked him if he was saving for something special. He said, ‘’Yes, my dad’s birthday is coming
up and I want to buy him a gift’’. She
was impressed with his motivation and told him she had two big bags of
recyclables on her deck that he was welcome to have. His face lit up. He was so excited! He said he would drop by that Friday after
school to pick them up. Interestingly enough, just that
morning, I was grumbling because I had to AGAIN take my bag of recyclables out
of the back of my vehicle and put them BACK in the garage because I needed to
put the seats up to transport kids on a school field trip. The bottles had been
in my vehicle for over a week. They landed
in my friend's van that night! Yay! I
now knew there was a reason that my bottles had not made it to the depot.
I went home that night and thought to myself, ‘’I’ll
bet I have friends with bottles that they would be willing to donate to this
young boy. Wouldn't it be fun if there
were more than just a few bottles when he comes on Friday for the two promised
bags? So I posted the story on facebook
and asked if anyone wanted to participate in this little mini project. The response was immediate and amazing! The following day was a cold, snowy,
blizzardy Thursday yet there was a steady stream of traffic plowing down our
otherwise very quiet street. The drop
offs just went on and on. I tried to go
out and thank each generous person but had to leave for a few hours. When I returned our garage was filled to
overflowing. By Friday at noon I had
THREE truckloads of bottles.
Suddenly I sensed a potential problem. What would this boy’s family think? We knew nothing about him or his family
situation. We assumed they might be
struggling financially but this was not necessarily so. The family might be totally offended at this
pile of ‘’help’’ that they did not need or ask for. The parents might wonder where their son had
gone to find all these recyclables and if there was some sort of luring or
danger involved. So I called my friend
and told her she really should go talk to the mom and explain what had happened
before the boy showed up the next day for his TWO bags of bottles.
My friend went to the boy’s home and asked the mom if
she was aware that she had offered her son some recyclables. The mom said yes and thanked my friend for
being so generous. My friend told her
that there were actually a few more than two bags (but did not tell her how
many as she herself had not seen my loads yet).
The mom said that was great and that she would come with her son and
bring her van. The family lived in a
tiny home and it was almost a relief to hear the reply when my friend mentioned the band concert
that night at the school. She asked the
boy if his parents would be attending to watch him play and he replied, ‘’No
the tickets are way too expensive’’. The
family was not destitute, not starving or homeless but there was likely a small need.
The story exploded on line. The local newspaper somehow got wind of it
and called me wanting to do a story on it.
I declined. It was a heart-warming
story but enough hearts had been warmed and we certainly wanted the family’s
privacy respected. Friends told friends
and the bottles were adding up. Envelopes with cash were handed to me. Someone
even left a $20 bill tied to the top of their garbage bag full of bottles! It was just amazing to me. No one asked for details about the family –
no one cared if they were poor money managers, lazy or wealthy or needy or anything
else. It was all about the boy who
wanted to buy his dad a gift. People
just wanted to help.
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The next day I dropped off the 2nd load and
filled my friend’s deck with bag after bag of bottles. The truck was loaded to the brim – the front seats and crew cab stuffed to the roof as well.
My friend texted me and a few
hours later I was able to post this to my facebook page:
“”My friend called this evening so thrilled to be able
to share with me the boy’s reaction when he came by for his TWO BAGS of bottles
this afternoon. She said she wished she could have videoed and shared the look on his
face when she showed him the humungous pile. "All of that? For me?? From
who? How? All for me? All this?" The boy was near tears as she explained
how just a few friends wanted to help him with that special birthday gift for
his dad. She asked what he planned to buy. He said, "A tool... but
now...!" My friend could see the
wheels turning in his mind as he surveyed the mounds of bottles. He
immediately started talking about ways he could share his good fortune with his
family and even mentioned that an elderly neighbour was having a birthday soon
and he could buy HER a gift too! What a great kid. My friend reminded him that
Mother's Day was coming soon too. His mind was just racing. His mom was with
him and she could not believe what she was seeing. She was soooo grateful and said
they would be sharing this amazing and unexpected gift. I have since had
further drop offs this evening and will take them to the boy tomorrow. Thank
you all for supporting this little cause in such a big, big way. This family
will never forget this day and neither will we. We all win! Good night and
happy spring everyone!””
Over 300 people responded to my post. I found it so interesting to click on the 300
responders to see their names and how I knew them. And that is when I felt ‘’connection’’ like I
never have before. It was a wonderful
feeling.
Of the 300+ people, I only knew personally, about 150 of
them. There were about 100 whose names i did not recognize but beside their name (if you are familiar with
facebook) tells how many mutual friends you have with that person. Of those 100 people I had between 1 and 20 mutual
friends with each of them. I did not
know them personally but we had at least one friend in common. The other 50 people I did not know at all and
had no connection or mutual friend – they had just seen the post and responded
because of their goodness with no knowledge of me or any of my friends. This was so inspiring to me.
The following Sunday I was able to email Ben the story
of what had happened all because of a little Filipino boy. My friend would have never thought to tell me
about the boy in her town if she had not read Ben’s letter. But because of this little boy half way
across the world, another young boy the same age, doing kind of the same thing
(looking for recyclables to help his family) was blessed. I told our son he had to somehow try to relay
the story to the Filipino boy and assure him of his worth and what a great
thing he was part of. Not only had the
boy here benefited but 300+ other people were inspired and uplifted by the
story. Ben said he didn’t know how he
would be able to explain that to him – his Tagalog (Filipino language) is still rusty and the boy knows no English. We are currently
trying to think of a way to help the young Filipino boy without simply sending
money. Ben tells us money is just
‘’hard’’. It does not solve the problem and sometimes exasperates it. Perhaps we can send a package of some sort and a translator can read the letter we send with it. Ben says he will think of something to help the story make sense to the
boy.
I know as much about this young boy as any of you who are reading this do. Very little. But I do know that we are all connected
in ways we can’t even comprehend and it is a pretty cool thing.
Just today (April 4, 2014) my friend tells me that the
boy was aware that the widow neighbour was saving for a particular item – he also knew her birthday was in April. So he surprised her with the juicer she had
been wanting for several months. The mom and boy could not keep the story
hidden from dad. Dad’s birthday present
came a little earlier than May this year in the form of a brand new ratchet
set. The boy also gave his younger
sister $40. I would love to meet this
young boy someday – he has discovered the joy of giving at a very young
age.
The boy was hoping to collect enough bottles for a small gift for dad. He ended up with over $500 and his first thought was to think who he could share his good fortune with.
I would love to follow this story till the end of
time…what will the widow think and what will it motivate her to do? And then the next person who she feels
inspired to help? The ripple effect goes
on forever – I’ve always known that but never felt it like I did last
weekend.
The day Ben met Joseph in the Philippines was a hard
day for him. He wondered if it was really worth spending 2 years trying to help so many seemingly hopeless situations. But the small moment of doubt ended with an inspiring story of the worth of one soul
and how anyone can make a difference. Anyone.
