How much can be accomplished with “little”?
We used to think that a lot can be done with bigger resources (yes, I’m referring to money), larger network or innovative ideas. What we tend to forget is that sometimes, smaller ideas could make a bigger impact and you would just have to dream, act and persevere to make this idea evolve into greater results.
The Tale of Two Sticks
Last month, I was reading one of the text in Our Daily Bread and it was about turning little into much. One of the story was about Moses and how his rod (stick) was used to perform miracles (Exodus 4) and how it lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. The other was about the less-popular story of Shamgar (Judges 3:31) and how he defeated the 600 Philistines single-handedly with nothing more than his oxgoad (a stick sharpened on one end to drive slow-moving animals).
FAN-ta-STICK
As I was reading the story of the sticks of Moses and Shamgar, I can’t help it but to relate the story of Angat Kabataan and their reliable stick. The fan-ta-stick, the ever-popular stick which is used by the volunteers of the Save Maningning Creek Project to remove the foreign materials found in the Maningning Creek. This innovation, which is made only of bamboo poles and covers of old electric fans, has been the major reason why lesser and lesser debris are found in the creek.
Similar to the story of Moses and Shamgar, this simple stick has became one of the main reasons why the creek rehabilitation program has been successful this far. Through it, not only we were able to clean the creek, but also, we were able to send the message that the group has been trying to convey to the people even before the start of the creek rehabilitation project.
Many Doubted Moses, and so does AK
Three years ago, during the early days of the campaign, a lot of skeptical people have been doubting our cause of reviving the creek. “Wala na yang pag-asa.” (There is no chance that you could revive the creek) and “Sa una lang yan.” (You could never sustain your project) are just some of the words thrown to us by the people who think that the project will never be successful. But we prove them wrong, just like how Moses proved his fellow people wrong.
Many of Moses’ people have doubted him that he needed to perform numbers of miracles just to show that he is the person that God has chosen to save the Israelites. Many who have said that it is impossible to bring the creek back to life. Many have doubted the positive outcome of the Save Maningning Creek Project. It took numbers of clean up drives, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of bokashi balls to prove that impossible is temporary.
Small Step, Giant Outcome
When we were planning to revive the creek, we had no idea that we would be successful. And never that it came into our minds that the simple act of rehabilitating the creek would make the group be cited as one of the Ten Accomplished Youth Organization not only in the country but in the ASEAN region as well.
The simple step of removing the dirt away from the creek would raise the awareness of the residents beside it to the importance of having a healthy water ways in their area. The smallest act of throwing the bokashi balls into the water would lead to financial and other logistical support from different agencies for the continuity, replication and innovation of the program. Never that it came into our mind that the simple dive towards the creek would bring us to different places just to discuss and share the outcome of our cause.
Sticks = Talents/Gifts/Interests
The three sticks are the representation of how you could make a difference with your simple act, talent, interest or gifts. It just a matter of how you could use your God-given talent, abilities and resources to make your own way of contributing to the betterment of the world.
If you are into social media, you could launch a campaign on protecting the environment. If you are a singer, you could use it it convey the message of mitigating the effect of global warming. If you are a writer, write about sensible stuff. These are just simple things that you could do, it is just a matter of, first, identifying what you have or what are your gifts, and second, identifying how you could use it to make our world a little more better.
Moses’ stick, Shamgar’s oxgoad and AK’s fan-ta-stick are basic things that turned into powerful tools which made changes in the world. This was possible because of the help of our God and the idea of changing the world through one, simple step.
Angat Kabataan 