If any of y’all know me at all, I love to do some pretty serious trash talkin’ when it comes to MY teams aka the Hogs, Duke Blue Devils, Lakers, etc…
I don’t care if I KNOW my team is about to lose to yours, I’ll still give you a run for your money when it comes to trash talk.
Day one, month 2 of ministry took trash talkin’ to another level.
Our teams split up in the community of Bagot once we entered. (There’s one way in and one way out.) I was in a group with about 5 others as we started to conquer one section of the community. With my garbage in hand, and an extremely poor attitude I started bending over to pick up trash that clearly wasn’t my own. I wish I had a picture to show you all how COVERED this community is with trash. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, cousins…they were all sitting around outside watching us pick up THEIR trash. After a good fifteen minutes I was getting extremely frustrated. One of my teammates picked up used baby diapers, literally a few inches from the trashcan.
I confessed to one of my teammates how frustrated I was becoming. She looked at me and said, “Caitlin, if this is what Jesus wants us to be doing right now then this is what we’re going to do.”
OUCH. Talk about getting put in my place.
So, I kept truckin’ along..still not happy about what I was doing, but keeping my mouth shut.
As we were walking along we came upon two little girls, ages 5 and 6. We asked them if they wanted to go play with us. They agreed, but before I could even ask them their names, they looked at me and asked, “Why are you picking up our rubbish?”
Million dollar question.
The only answer that I was able to give was “because Jesus wants me to”.
Because Jesus wants me to.
Wow…did those words just come out of my mouth?! I was called to Australia. To the Aboriginal people. To the Bagot Community. To pick up trash. For His glory.
My prayer for this year has been for Jesus to make me look more like Him, whatever that means, however uncomfortable that might make me…so here I was picking up trash because that was what HE wanted me to do in that moment.
Lord make me a servant, make me like You..for you are a servant, make me one too.
Serving Him who served us all,
Caitlin
Disclaimer: I am not making excuses for these people, but when it comes to picking up their trash they honestly do not know any better. That is hard for me to take, but this is normal living to them because it has happened generation after generation.
