nitty gritty

Trash seems to be a global issue.  Al Gore would have a field day in Guatemala City. Air pollution, garbage, sewage… this place a cornucopia of issues for the tree huggin’ earth day green movement.  Have you ever noticed what we consider garbage?

We throw away so many different things.  Banana peels, shoes, clothing, kitchen trash, friendships, dreams, milk cartons, dull saw blades, hopes, light fixtures, respect, forgivenness… oops, I am sorry, I was just looking around at the rubbish hear in the dump in Guatemala City that our G10 Team was serving in last night.

At the end of Jonah, the Lord reminds him that even though Nineveh seems like a lost cause, there were over 120,000 people living in darkness… the dump has 200+ families living in it and the government is going to relocate 300+ more families into the dump.  What a deal, rent free, just pick through the garbage for recyclables and we’ll even pay about ¢2 a day!  Rubbish!  Enter Iglesia Cristo es el Camino (Christ is the Way Church). Twice a week this little church (members include residents of the dump, homeless people and very poor, hardworking people) has a vision to love the dump families. They feed them twice a week.  And at the very moment that I type this they are giving showers for the homeless men (some needing help being undressed and bathed).  NOT RUBBISH

Yesterday, Devin & I had the chance to sit and talk with 5 gang members that Tita and Shorty call the Caballeros.  Neither Devin or myself could decide what to talk with them about.  Tita & Shorty had great expectations.  Lately I have been reading in Leviticus… hmmm I don’t know if the regulations for a peace offering are going to speak to these guys.  Moments before we were to go and spend 2 hours with them, Devin said, “Acts 9.”  Okay, Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus it would be.  Little did we know that all of our previous knowledge was useless… RUBBISH.  THe Holy Spirit had a plan and it was amazing.  For the next 2 hour we talked about conversion, leaving their gang to join a NEW GANG, it was beautiful.

Meanwhile, our team was upstairs on the 2nd & 3rd floors of the school being greeted by children from the ghetto, “Rachel!  Como estas?”  ”Cory, Chaupin” (which means you’re one of us).  Joy having a great discussion realizing that the Lord could use her as a missionary psycologist.  Sally understanding just how far from the right priorities she had wandered.  Jake seeing how God wants to make him more humble.  Can you see the rubbish being refined into gold?  BEAUTIFUL RUBBISH.

Paul said, “4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! …I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. ⁸Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ ⁹ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, ¹¹ so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Philippians 3.4-11)

So, if I want to know Him I am gonna have to get dirty & uncomfortable.  I am going to have to go to the dump in my heart, the trash heap of relationships, the doubt sewer of lost dreams and fear.  Phew this just got messy didn’t it?

Oh, by the way, yesterday was the best day of the trip!