Right before we left Mexico for Nicaragua our team was presented with several options for ministry. One was to work on an island with an orphange and the other was to work in an area doing ministry in the town dump. My initial reaction was that I would like to work at the established orphanage, because lately I’ve been feeling the Lord lead me to working in an orphange. But some of my team did not agree. They wanted to work in the town dump. As a team we decided to take some time and pray for where the Lord would have us go. On the way to our debrief the lord spoke to me as we were riding in the van. Your team is going to the dumps. There was no question left in me that we would be going elsewhere. After talking as a team, many had heard the Lord speak to them about that area as well.
So here we are in Diriamba, Nicaragua working with a missionary couple who have started a church near the barrios. On our first day out we went into the barrios that surround and are in the town dump. We started out with the intention of just walking through and going to the dump…just kindof getting a feel for the area that we will be in. Like pretty much everything that has happened on this trip, we started with a plan knowing that the Lord would most likely wreck them. We can make as many plans as we want to but the Lord has his own agenda.
As we continued on, the Lord lead several people to various houses and we were able to spend some time praying with these families and encouraging the members of the church to keep coming or to come back. Then Glenn and Manual, the pastors, took us into the actual trash dump. We walked past the cemetary to get there. Apparently the whole area was once covered in trash and that trash eventually was moved closer and closer to the ravine b ecause of the cemetary and closer and closer to the homes of the people there. There was a thick covering of smoke over the entire area and there were layers upon layers of trash. Everything from shoes to plastic bottles to strips of material to left over food covered the ground. People were rifling through the trash that was there looking for whatever could be used. Like many of my teamates have said ” One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. I am finding that here that is true. Some of these people live off of what they find in the dump. Yet they have a joy through it all.
