The Garbage Dump...

Let me warn you, this will not be an easy post to read...

So I think the place that was the hardest for me was the day we went to the garbage dump...  I knew it would be hard, but I really had no idea...

It's funny, but as I think of the drive to the dump, it strikes me how naive I was on the way there...  I don't mean for this to be overly dramatic, but I somehow wonder if maybe some part of my life will be defined as 'before and after' the dump...

It's hard for me to look at any thing and not think about what I saw there...  My home...my neighborhood...the food on our table...the food we throw away... the bed I sleep in...

I was worried about our trip to the dump...  I had asked Scott to pray for me because I was so worried about how I would respond...  Sights and smells often combine to have a negative impact on my stomach and the last thing I wanted to do was feel 'grossed out' by what I was seeing...  This is home for many of them and I wanted to see them, and respect them in their home...  I didn't want them to feel any shame or humiliation because of how I might respond...  And God was faithful...  I hardly noticed the smell...  I didn't give a second thought to where I walked...  I didn't notice the flies...  But I will never forget their faces...

When we first arrived, Janine asked us to leave our cameras behind so that we could build a little relationship with them, and then we could go back and get our cameras...  But we had only taken a few steps towards the dump, when she looked back at me and said, "go get your camera..."  I did, but she still asked that I keep it down for a few minutes until they could get comfortable with us...  But something changed...  All of a sudden she looked at me and said, "Take pictures...document it all...take a 1000 pictures..."  And so I did the hardest thing I've ever done... I started to take their pictures...

We watched a mother feed her 3 year old daughter a rotten banana she had found...  Her name is Esther...

We met a 70 year old grandmother who has lost all of her children to AIDS and comes to the dump to get food for her grandchildren...

A man wearing plastic bags for shoes, gave me permission to take his picture...  He even squatted down for me so I could get all of him in the picture...

We met a young man who lives at the dump with his brother...  their parents have died...  they fear the dark because the local men get drunk and come to the dump to harass them...

We gave them a bag of oranges for being so open with us...

This is where these other young men live...

They try to find meat, that doesn't have worms in it, and then they cook it...

They collect cigarette butts, pull out the little bit of left over tobacco and then smoke it...

They wait for the garbage truck to arrive...

And then, like a kid at Christmas, they start sifting through it's 'treasures'...

I don't know all of their stories, I wish I did...  I wish I knew their names...  but I want to show you their faces...  They deserve to have their faces known...  They deserve to have someone's heart break over them...

And in the midst of it all...the darkness...the injustice...the pain...we found children who, when given a soccer ball...can still be children...but don't miss the little boy who wouldn't put down his loaf of bread...

At the garbage dump, we found a glimpse of the peace of God, in the face of a child as one of our dear ladies, on our trip, prayed for her...

And a little boy who had clearly been prayed for before...

Jesus in the most unexpected places...

It was a hard day...perhaps one of the hardest ever...  When we got into the car to leave, I cried...  Taking photos of these beautiful people, made in the image of God, broke my heart.  I love photography...  But on that day I hated it...  Somehow I felt like I was stripping them of their last bit of dignity...  But their story needs to be told...  They need to be remembered... They deserve to be seen...  The image of God should never be found in a garbage dump...  I pray that somehow I have honored them by capturing them with respect and love...  By telling their story well...

As our time at the dump came to an end, a young man told us that they have hope in God when the white man comes...  It's not because we came with a lot of stuff...just a few bags of oranges...  He told us that he feels hope because he is seen, that he doesn't feel seen by the people of his own country...

But before we judge his fellow countrymen too harshly, we must stop and ask ourselves the question...  Are there people in our own communities who have no hope, because they don't feel seen?

Pastors in Swaziland told us they don't visit the dump because it is too dangerous...  But are there places that we are unwilling to go in our own communities, because it is too dangerous?

We dare not judge the people of Swaziland, because we have to ask the question, are we really all that different?

I can't speak for you, but the answer for me breaks my heart...
I am really not that different...

I pray, with all of my heart, that God is changing that...
I want my heart...my life...to look like His Son's...
And that means I need to see the brokeness around me... to learn to walk where most won't go... and to love the ones who most won't love... 

How about you?