Destined for Destruction

The house we live in is destined for destruction.
We plan to tear it down within a year or so and replace it with a building for Bob Jones Memorial Bible College.
It is, in fact, condemned already.

Don't feel sorry for me.  This is a good thing, actually.  With 5 wildly active boys ten years old and under, we are thankful not to have to worry about every new ding.
But this does affect what we do with the house.

For instance, repairs are carefully weighed.  Window screens with holes get replaced because Tim and I have both had Dengue Fever and, let me assure you, I would be grateful if it were a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
But some repairs will not be going on here at our residence.

For instance:
--Our plumbing is humorous.  
It involves a completely incomprehensible maze of blue plastic pipes above ground (which have been punctured and turned into geysers by overzealous shovel wielders and bike riders).  We don't know which pipe goes where and as long as I have water flowing in all the normal places, I honestly don't care. 
Inside the house, our plumbing includes random knobs and nozzles which, as far as we know, aren't actually connected to any water flow.  
We don't fix these plumbing quirks.  Why spend money on something that is already destined for destruction?

--Our flooring also has issues.  
Wood floors are gouged, water pocked, and warped.  A few tiles have been broken or gone missing.
We don't plan to refinish the floors.  We did the kitchen floor a while back after flooding ruined the vinyl tile.  It was a week of unending dust and banging and mess to lay the new tile.  Never again.  
Why spend time on something that is destined for destruction?

--Our roofing is holey.  
We will have to compensate by using buckets during the rainy season.  If it gets really bad, we will fix a sheet or two of metal.  Not the whole thing.  
Why spend effort on something that is destined for destruction?

This morning I walked the crowded streets near our church in Metro Manila.  As a foreigner, I am an object of blatant curiosity.  "Good morning, ma'am," people call to me.  They stand waiting for a cut of fresh meat hanging in a meat-seller's stall.  Waiting for a jeepney ride.  Waiting for destruction.
Condemned already.

Houses and souls have nothing in common.  What we won't spend on a ramshackle house, we will--we must--spend on these people.  Time, money, effort, our very lives. . . None of it wasted.  

This is our mission.

John 3:17-18
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

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