One week down in Peru! Life here is so different than in the jungle of Ecuador. Instead of living with the pastor's family in the safe, friendly, (wet) community of Huaticocha, we are living on the IncaLink compound in what is essentially a desert where it is too dangerous for us to be outside the compound walls after dark. This just goes to show how each month is going to a whole new experience to adjust to. But God is just as present here in Trujillo as he was in Huaticocha. I am so happy to be here and to be a small part of God's big plans.
I absolutely fell in love with our ministry from this past week. I had no idea what I would be walking into when I was told we would be working at "the dump". (For some reason it seems wrong every time I refer to it as the dump, but that seems to be the appropriate name for this community…) Anyway, all we were told was that it was going to be a LOT of trash and to be sure to wear shoes and bring an extra T-shirt to shield your face from the smells. Call me crazy, but I was so excited!!
Every day looked a little different while working at the dump. One day we shoveled through a heaping mound of trash to make a pathway for a man in a wheelchair to get from the street into the community. Another day we helped out Kristen (an IncaLInk intern) with art ministry she is getting off the ground – she has a passion for allowing children to express themselves through art and create beauty the way God created them! For a few days we spend most of the morning leveling ground to create a space for a soccer field. It was awesome to know that what we were doing would be a part of the community indefinitely. Throughout my time in South America I have realized that soccer is a great ministry tool. Kids flock to the field and it is an incredible opportunity to share the love of God through just loving and hanging out with the kids in the community. I feel so lucky to have been a part of the dump ministry this past week.
For every moment I loved being at the dump, there was another moment when I took a moment and looked around me and felt absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of trash. We live an incredibly sheltered life in that the trash we create goes out to the end of our driveway every Sunday night and magically disappears. We don't ask where it goes and frankly, I don't think we care. Just as long as it is out of our sight.
There are men, women, and children whose entire lives are surround with our garbage. They work all day long sorting through heaping piles of trash. They live amidst the lingering stench of burning plastic. Many children don't attend school and so they will most likely grow up to also live and work in the dump.
We don't see it, and we would rather assume it doesn't exist.
As Chrisitans, we are called to be stewards of the earth. God created the earth, the animals, the plants, the water, everything! We are called to care for his creation just as we would care for the people he has created. I am making a personal commitment to lesson the amount of waste I am producing. Seeing a trash dump first hand really brought into the light what I had always thought, but never really known – that our trash doesn't just disapper! It sounds silly to not realize this, but seeing it and seeing the beautiful children who live in a community filled with trash opened my eyes in a whole new way.
God is doing some incredible work in the dump. The ministry that IncaLink has there is a testament to the fact that God loves every one of us as his beloved children. The people in the dump could be considered the lowest of the low by the world's standards, but in God's eyes they are precious and worth fighting for. I feel really honored to have spent the week playing, hugging, praying, painting, and just loving the beautiful people who live in the dump.
This next week we will be sandboarding with the local kids…no idea what that will look like yet, but stay tuned!
Much love from Trujillo!
(P.S. I am having trouble uploading pictures, but please visit my facebook page to see some pictures from this past week!)
