This week has felt like it is in the top 5 longest weeks of my life. Little sleep and other things going on - I reached this morning and wanted to stay in bed. But as I sit and type here I am extremely glad I didn’t. Just now as I write this there is an all night prayer meeting going on in the church…. Here all night means ALL NIGHT. Music, preaching, music, dancing, preaching, dancing, music, music, praying, music. Maybe I forgot to mention LOUD music….
So feeling that sleep is not imminently round the corner I think this gives me the time needed to gather my thoughts and emotions from this morning.
I got to go the Bocaria on a Friday morning - I have been teaching every other one. With today being Good Friday I thought there would be more people around, not sure that really was the case. Anyway. this is the first time since coming here long term that I have walked over the top of the dump and, like all the times before, it leaves me ruined in a good way and I come away having seen God on the top of the dump. I still can not get used to kids fighting for bread and having to stop them robbing it off each other.
This morning there was something really unpleasant burning all over the dump creating a lot of smoke and a smell that stuck in the back of my throat.We did have rain this week so there were parts where the pools of rancid water were just sitting swarming with flies. The glass is still bad, and the ground beneath my feet less than secure.
Today I had the chance to pray with a few people, but for a long time I was just able to observe from not very far away the carnage and bedlam that ensues when a dump truck arrives, and also what happens when it gets stuck in the trash on the top. There is also a digger which comes to try and push the rubbish flatter – when that happens there is a new area of “goods” released to be picked through. I spoke to some women who had found a massive box of scrap food probably thrown out by a hotel and were picking thought it and eating what was ok – anything that was good was being saved to take home later but the flies swarming round were awful.
I stood for what felt like ages watching all this going on. Then caught a glimpse of what I must look like to them – a white person observing them work and so I began to feel very uncomfortable just standing there watching. As I turned to walk away seeing one guy stopped me dead in my tracks.
He had collected what he wanted, and was heading off somewhere. What ever he had got he had put over his shoulder to carry away. But what stopped me was that what he was carrying was in the shape of a cross. It was flung over his shoulder just as I imagine Jesus would have had to carry his today.
To see the sight of this cross being carried over one man’s shoulder at the Bocaria today, in the stench and the filth and the mess that is there, made me see why all that Jesus did on Good Friday was so important. He did it for the least of these, he did it for the widow, the orphan, the lost, the broken, the hungry, the rejected, the robbers, the junkies, the drunks. He did it for me. I found myself thinking of U2’s words “Carried the cross of my shame….but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
This image today will never leave me. This is what Easter is all about.
So feeling that sleep is not imminently round the corner I think this gives me the time needed to gather my thoughts and emotions from this morning.
I got to go the Bocaria on a Friday morning - I have been teaching every other one. With today being Good Friday I thought there would be more people around, not sure that really was the case. Anyway. this is the first time since coming here long term that I have walked over the top of the dump and, like all the times before, it leaves me ruined in a good way and I come away having seen God on the top of the dump. I still can not get used to kids fighting for bread and having to stop them robbing it off each other.
This morning there was something really unpleasant burning all over the dump creating a lot of smoke and a smell that stuck in the back of my throat.We did have rain this week so there were parts where the pools of rancid water were just sitting swarming with flies. The glass is still bad, and the ground beneath my feet less than secure.
Today I had the chance to pray with a few people, but for a long time I was just able to observe from not very far away the carnage and bedlam that ensues when a dump truck arrives, and also what happens when it gets stuck in the trash on the top. There is also a digger which comes to try and push the rubbish flatter – when that happens there is a new area of “goods” released to be picked through. I spoke to some women who had found a massive box of scrap food probably thrown out by a hotel and were picking thought it and eating what was ok – anything that was good was being saved to take home later but the flies swarming round were awful.
I stood for what felt like ages watching all this going on. Then caught a glimpse of what I must look like to them – a white person observing them work and so I began to feel very uncomfortable just standing there watching. As I turned to walk away seeing one guy stopped me dead in my tracks.
He had collected what he wanted, and was heading off somewhere. What ever he had got he had put over his shoulder to carry away. But what stopped me was that what he was carrying was in the shape of a cross. It was flung over his shoulder just as I imagine Jesus would have had to carry his today.
To see the sight of this cross being carried over one man’s shoulder at the Bocaria today, in the stench and the filth and the mess that is there, made me see why all that Jesus did on Good Friday was so important. He did it for the least of these, he did it for the widow, the orphan, the lost, the broken, the hungry, the rejected, the robbers, the junkies, the drunks. He did it for me. I found myself thinking of U2’s words “Carried the cross of my shame….but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
This image today will never leave me. This is what Easter is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment