What is of value to you?
We have been spending our days walking around the different areas Pastor Glenn and Manuel focus most of their outreach. We have walked around the barrios visiting families of the church, encouraging those who come occasionally, and inviting new families.
One of our first walks took us to the dumps where men go to search for copper and alluminum to sell. I can’t imagine how much searching it would require to find enough scraps of wire to make a pound of copper. And that pound of copper is worth almost nothing to us, but for them it is something.
There are more families living at the dump, across the ravine, that search for anything they can use. Scraps of fabric, plastic, maybe even scraps of food.
On one side of the ravine is what appeared to be a stone wall. There was a man picking away at it and collecting blocks to sell. At first glance, it appeared as those he was tearing apart old brickwork to resell. But when we asked about it, Manuel explained a more surprising reality. The whole ravine was made of bedrock. The man was actually chipping away at solid rock with and iron rod, chiseling our bricks of solid stone. What I thought was rooms, was actually the deep, deep holes left from years of chiseling blocks out of the solid bedrock. It looked like a stone wall because of the perfect layers that had been chiseled away over the years.
I can not even comprehend the ammount of physical effort, and desperation it takes to earn a living that way. I wish I could have gotten a picture to show you, but the smoke from the burning trash made it hard to see, much less get a clear picture.
My team will not be staying here in Jinotepe, but one of the groups will. Please be in prayer for them to discern how they can help these people; how they can improve their circumstances. Ask that God will give them wisdom, and compassion for the people of the barrios and the dump.
Our team will be leaving tomorrow morning to head on to Costa Rica where we will spend the next three weeks. Please pray that God will grant us safe travel, and open doors for the ministry we will do there. Also pray that we will have discernment on how God is workining in Costa Rica, and what our role will be in that.
God bless you all, and thank you for keeping me in your prayers.
