One Man's Trash; Another Man's Treasure

I'm now living in São Paulo as a missionary. I have no salary, and my job is to help raise a group of children, teaching them love, discipline and hope.

Given this lifestyle, of course, means that I now rely on the good hearts of people that have had the honor of being brought up in a loving family, and have learnt how to love others, too. This has been made very real to me recently after having moved into a new apartment kindly loaned to me by the ABBA organization I volunteer for. My new room was literally a square with a bed and nothing else. No cupboard, no desk, no chair or anything other than a bed...with a mattress on it. I have since acquired something of a cupboard. It keeps my clothes out of sight, at least.

I was speaking to one of the social workers about my dilemma, and he suggested we sit down and pray together. He told me how, when the office for the organization had opened, that very week they had been donated all the office furniture they needed, without even asking anyone for help. It is a new concept to me, that I should pray that God will find people who are throwing away the very things I need and put it in their hearts to donate them to our organization. I am now living on the charity of people. My blanket is the trash of a Cuban family that lived in São Paulo for ten years, and decided to get rid of their linen when they moved back to Cuba. My pillow has a similar story, as does my 'cupboard' and even my bed.

I realized that other people's trash has become my treasure.

While I was browsing the internet I stumbled across a beautiful story about a group of people in Paraguay who live on a landfill. One day, they found a violin case, and it gave them the idea to start making instruments out of the trash in the landfill. They now have an orchestra called the Recycled Orchestra, or the Landfill Harmonica. Their clever little titles make me laugh. Their endeavour to turn worthless trash into personally priceless treasure is truly inspiring. I got really excited about this, and it made me think of my situation in my room... I am definitely considering carpentry.

So what does this have to do with our ministry?

Well it's exactly the same, sad concept. All of it. Our organization has found a group of boys that the world had thrown away and indifferently decided to have nothing to do with, and have set out to put so much value and worth on their lives to show them how incredibly priceless their life is. We are treasuring the world's trash in one of the saddest situations I know. The affects of being thrown away rears it's head time after time, but our endurance to treasure them continues.

I just think back to how many times I stood in a room filled with people, knowing that there was someone there that was just written off by everyone else. Someone different, or weird, that I didn't understand, and how many times I avoided them. I was a part of all the issues being piled up in that persons life that worked to chip away at their self worth. I was a part of making them feel like the trash of the world. I'm slowly learning that every person really is a treasure, even the ones that I can't get anything from!

If we could treasure the trashed, one soul at a time, would love not become a part of everyone's lifestyle?