Learning to overcome

Dave Hildebrand

Like tens of thousands of other villages in the Philippines, Digayap can't be reached by car. You have to walk. Accompanied by two leaders of the Integrated Mennonite Church, I went to Digayap to visit one of the few Mennonite communities in the Philippine islands, a tiny village high in the Cordillera Mountains. Our three-hour hike took us through rice farms and across spring-fed streams that are the lifeblood of agricultural communities. The clean air was a welcome relief from the polluted air that the 10 million people in Manila must suffer.

We reached Digayap, a scattered community of huts, at sundown and proceeded to the home of Norma and Edwin Lorenzo, the pastor couple of the Digayap Mennonite church. The Lorenzo residence was typical: rough boards cut from surrounding trees for the floor and walls, and sheets of corrugated tin for the roof. I was mystified as to how the tin had gotten to a place so far from the road. When I asked, Edwin replied, "On our backs," and gave me a look meaning, "How do you think the tin got here?"

For residents of Digayap, commuting up and down the mountain trail is a fact of life. When they realized our driver had stayed in the valley below without rice for supper, a member of the community was immediately sent to take the driver a pot of cooked rice. He returned six hours later.

While I have visited many poor families in Manila and other places, there was something different about this Mennonite community. During my two days in Digayap, I saw this was not a "people-living-in-grinding-poverty" story. Small plots of vegetables and fruit trees surrounded each house. The children looked healthy, without the vacant look in their eyes that indicates insufficient food.

At the same time, a North American would probably feel the residents were living in poverty. The houses were "empty". Upon entering, you might think they were deserted, but upon closer inspection, you would find a collection of simple possessions--a grass mat, blankets, pillows, two or three changes of clothing per family member, two cooking pots, a frying pan, a set of plates, drinking glasses and four or five kitchen utensils. An entire family's possessions would fit into an average-sized wheelbarrow.

As we sat outside in the light of a homemade oil lamp after a simple supper of rice and sardines, I asked the Lorenzos whether they felt happy with their lives. They replied that except for the long distance to schools and hospitals, they had everything they needed to be content.

I began to reflect on the vast differences between the lives of the Digayap Mennonites and North American Mennonites. How much is enough? In a world where ecosystems are already gravely overstretched by human consumption and waste, what level of consumption would make it possible for people everywhere on the planet to have enough? Is it fair for me to drive a car while my sisters and brothers in Digayap walk? Should I live in a seven-room house while they make do with one room?

We used to think we could bake more pies to overcome poverty in the world. Now we have to confront the fact that the only solution to poverty may be in how the one pie we have is sliced. Learning to live with less may seem like bad news. However, as we free ourselves from the race to accumulate more for our basements, closets and garages, we may find we have more time to commune with life, with our families and communities and with our Creator.

Dale Hildebrand of Toronto served with MCC in the Philippines 1988-1991 and 1995-1996.

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