The smell made me forget it was lunchtime. Probably the only thing I would be forgetting that day.
We had just arrived at one of the city dumps of Tegucigalpa. My optic nerve processed the scene much faster than my heart. The softness of the ground proved that I did not walk on dirt but rather layers of decomposing rubbish.
Hundreds of birds hovered above the decaying mountain. Several more joined the cattle rummaging through the piles for sustenance. I watched as the birds pulled apart the carcass of a dog.
Hundreds of Honduran hands sorted through the grime for anything they could sell to recycling companies—plastic cans, glass bottles, cardboard boxes. That was their job. For many of them, that was their home.
We passed out almuerzo gratis—free lunch. All ages lined up, pressing against each other, before the bus had even stopped. A bus of North Americans tends to stand out in this crowd.
Along with lunch, we mingled with the workers. Some of us got to hold the six-month old baby living in the dump. We talked in broken Spanish with the people, and we prayed.
No one should be living in those conditions. Yet I have seen that it is true. I have no power to fix this, but I live for a God who does. Do something. Please.
“Trust Me.”
Top: Birds, the black specks in the sky, hover above the piles of trash.
Bottom: People sort through the garbage in the dump looking for recyclable material to sell.
The waste of the dump brought on a thought. Cleanliness is not possible without dirtying something else. Cleanliness cannot be created; rather, the dirtiness is transferred. When one washes a car, the dirt is transferred to the water. When we throw moldy leftovers away, the fridge is clean, but the trash ends up somewhere else.
We are tainted, soiled people. We are imperfect. We are dirty. Our messiness cannot be accepted into a pure environment such as that of Jesus without spreading the dirt.
Instead of locking us out of His clean home, He made a way for us to be pure by taking on our dirty. Jesus took on our mess-ups when He died a death on the cross that He did not deserve.
“Trust Me, Rachel.”
It takes me some time to realize what I am trusting Him to do. I am trusting Him to fix what I have seen, while knowing that my timing is not His timing. I am trusting that the dump is not the life He wants for His people. I am trusting that He does not view them as poor people living among garbage, but rather as princes and princesses of the King of Kings. I choose to view them as He sees them.
I am trusting that He is the final sacrifice so we may be clean.
Left Honduras on August 1 for Guatemala. Month one has gone fast! Heading to Los Gozosos (Joy-filled Home) orphanage today.
Given the opportunity to eat a bagel with butter and jelly this morning in Antigua, Guatemala. Good life decision.
