As we approached the dump, the mountain we were driving up turned from dirt to garbage. Our guide told us to roll up our windows, I am still unsure why. I peered through the window crack as we passed by mounds beyond mounds of trash and piles of burning tires. We stopped in the center of the dump and got out – the first thing I saw in front of me was a mangy dog with patches of hair falling out and bloody sores on its body.
I began to walk up a hill probably composed mostly of trash and greeted people making their living there. Immediately I felt a strange feeling of welcoming I hadnt felt in a long time. Every greeting I gave was followed by the sweetest smile and reply back. From the top of the hill I overlooked the vastness of the scene and focused on a particular area bustling with people and animals.
I squeezed my way through crowds of dogs and cows digging through the piles of garbage, mud, and feces. Men, women, and children were collecting different recyclables amongst them and carrying them in bags on their backs three times their size. But I wasn’t overcome by an intense sadness or feeling of despair. I simply observed the scene for what it was.
A man called out to me pointing to his bag on the floor about the size of pluto.
“Necessitas ayuda?”
“Si.”
I helped him lug it onto his back and he thanked me as he went off in the other direction. It was a small gesture, but it made me want to start helping everyone with their bags.
Suddenly it began to rain. Then it began to pour. The first thought that came to my head was – Oh no.. Guess we gotta go, lest we get soaked in the cold rain –
Almost instantly another thought entered my head. – All these people here don’t have a bus to retreat to. They wont have dry clothes to change into. This is their life. –
Suddenly I no longer felt entitled to being dry. As people began loading the bus, I stood there, soaking in the rain, and looking at the people around me. I started talking to a boy named Dennis who was 12 years old. He, his parents, and his four siblings live there by the dump making their living off it. As they shouted for the last of us to load up, I called out goodbye to him.
On our way back, I thought about how these people have nothing. No warm bed to sleep in. No roof to escape the rain. No guaranteed food at the end of the day. Not even a simple hat to protect them from the merciless Honduran sun while they work.
But they all had one thing too expensive to buy. They had joy.
I prayed that they would never lose their joy. That their joy would one day come from their satisfaction in Jesus.
I will never forget how warm their smiles and greetings were.
As Christians, we should be saturated with and overflow with the joy that only comes from the Lord. We are citizens not of this world, but of the next. It is because we continue to focus on where we are, what we don’t have, what we have to do – in this world – that we let our joy be stolen.
“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
Colossians 3:2
