Today was our first day of ministry. My team is located right outside of Rubbish Mountain. We are working with Tree of Life Ministry. We are working in the slums. Go outside, each one of you reading this, stop, and go outside. What do you see? What do you smell? Here, in the slums, you see a never ending amount of trash which is what most people use to make their living. You smell a combination of fesses, garbage, food, and filth. There are no stars or clear moon, no there is smog and a breeze of trash being blown down. The heat in Asia is beyond a “normal” thought in the states, and even more so in the slums. There is no clean water and no real refuge from the sun. Most of the people in this village “work” in rubbish mountain. They go through the rubbish, or trash, and collect things such as glass, plastic, rubber and then they sale it. They make between $1 to $2 a day. This is how they make their living. We were told today the government is closing rubbish mountain and the people who live in the village who do not own land or a home will have to move to another area they are creating. I do not have much details about this though. Today I was able to play with children, to pray over a land that honestly, most people would do anything to avoid walking in to, and I met a woman. I have decided not to use her name, so I’ll call her Joy, because I believe God is filling her with His joy. Joy is an older woman who just found out she is HIV positive. From what I understand, her husband is as well, or she thinks he is. She is currently going through the stage of HIV where there is extreme weight loss and sores beginning to develop on her body. Joy did not know the Lord. Our pastor asked us to share with her the gospel. I felt Tonya, our leader, was the one who was suppose to speak to Joy. I was very glad she decided to and very glad others felt she was the one to speak as well. Tonya spoke to her and was blessed with the opportunity to lead her in the salvation prayer. Joy received Jesus Christ into her life today. We will definately be going back to her house for visits while we are here. We all prayed for Joy and for her health. As we prayed, I was so consumed with the sadness, the hopelessness, and the fear that Joy was feeling. I prayed for God’s healing power in her life and in her body, but more I prayed for God to bring true love and hope joy into her life. I realized that there are somethings I will never truly understand and this moment which will be engraved in my mind forever, is one of those. What must it be like to be an older woman, recently married to a man who I have been with for 20 years, so poor I can’t afford food, living in the slums, making my living selling fruit at a bus stop on occassion, having lost a child in my past, and now finding out I’m HIV positive? What must that feel like? And how in the midst of that does a person see the light and love of Jesus Christ? When I try to go there, to that place of understanding, my heart breaks and I can’t move, literally, I can’t function. I can’t breathe, I can’t walk, I can’t talk, I just weep. My heart breaks for Joy and yet at the same time, my soul rejoices because today, today in the midst of her dispair, when I, a missionary girl, was having trouble seeing Jesus in the smog, SHE saw Jesus and she grabbed on to His hand and she received Him in her life, and tonight, tonight He is living inside of her, tonight He is filling her with peace and joy, tonight she is no longer the woman I met today.
The last couple of months have truly tugged at my heart and today was the biggest cord. Who am I to argue about foolish things? Who am I to focus on which room has air conditioning and which doesn’t? Who am I and is this who I am meant to be?
The last couple of months have truly tugged at my heart and today was the biggest cord. Who am I to argue about foolish things? Who am I to focus on which room has air conditioning and which doesn’t? Who am I and is this who I am meant to be?
I ask each one of you to truly look at yourselves today. What are you foolishly complaining about? What are you foolishly being prideful about? What keeps you from walking into the “Rubbish Mountain”where you live?
