Imagine if you had to wake up every morning, stretch your arms, stand up from the dirt floor you sleepon.You then walk outside your front door to the city dump that is your front, back, and side yard. You step outside and embark on your two-minute journey to work at the dump where you sift through trash (not just kitchen trash but sed toilet paper and everything in between) to find what you can bring back to your family for food and to sell to recycling to make a living.
Now imagine that you are 6, 8, or 15 years old.
On Saturday, I had the opportunity to visit a community of people that live in the dump. They walk out of their makeshift homes to garbage everywhere. Their days are consumed with garbage. Sifting through garbage. Eating garbage. Selling garbage. Burning garbage. They don’t have running water or electricity.
And far too often, kids that are born into this situation also end up working at the dump.
IncaLink has started a program at the dump to reach the community there. They had a children’s program the Saturday we were there and the kids face just lit up with joy. But the one thing that is engrained in my mind is the eyes of the kids. With smiles on their faces, their eyes showed the heaviness that is their lives. For the first time on the race, my heart was completely broken for a generation that doesn’t know anything but trash. They have been dumped by the world.
However, IncaLink is providing hope to these families.
They are loving these kids and teaching them the love of Jesus. They are teaching the moms to make jewelry to sell instead of garbage. They are building a children’s home to rescue orphans from the dump and to care for those kids whose parents can’t care for them. They are bringing the kingdom to these kids and on that Saturday, I got to help bring the kingdom to these kids as I loved on them for a few hours. Please pray for these families, for this community, and for IncaLink as they bring Jesus to those that have been dumped by the world.
