ex + ploit + ed

...........to make use of selfishly or unethically.

Last Thursday I saw the most glaring example of this I have ever seen in my life. I took the mission team to the Quito dump. When my wife visited there in 2005 the dump "workers" were living there with their children. They would sort through the garbage with babies on their back.

In 2008 they are no longer allowed to live at the dump. But the government is still happy to "employ" them. Okay so what's with "workers" and "employ" being in parenthesis?

Here is their story.

There are 300 workers at the dump. The day shift is from 7:00am to 6:00pm; the night shift goes from 7:00pm to 6:00am. A long work day by any standards. They sort through the garbage for recyclables like plastics and aluminum. And when I say "sort" I don't mean they stand by a conveyor belt plucking off the material. They literally stand in the garbage.......up to their knees or higher.........all the while watching they are not run over by the front end loader or the next truckload coming in. Oh and for those of you who have never been to Ecuador? You can't flush toilet paper there. It goes in the garbage.

No doubt a long, difficult, dangerous daily task. Disease and feces all around. So a rough day but why the "exploited" title? After all, it is a job. A way to feed their families, right? Well, sort of.

These workers are required to show up day in and day out and do the work, just like any other job. If not they are fired. But they have no salary or hourly rate. They get no pay. They work and sort eleven hours a day just for the right to sort, collect and take recyclables. Most of the workers are family units that hand the days' take over to the family head who cashes in and splits up the money.

What a racket this government has going here. Free labor and they can claim to the international community they are recycling!

The team and I stood briefly on a platform about a hundred feet above the activity. It looked like ants scurrying below. I am ashamed to even say it that way. I was embarrassed to view them. I felt like I was invading a sacred space of God.

I felt like I was exploiting them by my presence.


"He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump. He sets
them among princes, placing them in the seats of honor. For all the earth is the Lord's, and he has set the world in order." (1 Samuel 2:8 NLT)

Really? Sorry Lord but the world didn't look in order at that garbage dump. It looked to me like the cycle of poverty is alive and well.

Home!

The team and I got home about 8:45 last night safe, healthy and only one hour late with all our luggage. Not bad.

Anyone interested in an inexpensive place to live? May I suggest Quito, Ecuador?

You would have to put up with viewing snow capped volcanoes and the sun rising above the mountains everyday. Your friends and work associates would expect more than a passing "hello, how are ya?" each day too. You would most likely hug, touch. And the cost of living?

Chinese dinner for 11 including beverages and tip: $45.00

Ten minute taxi ride for 4 people: $1.00

A gallon of gas: $1.48 (no kidding!)

Meeting the warm and wonderful people of Ecuador: priceless

The father Of Lies

The bible says Satan is the father of lies. And he is using poverty to tell children on the margins they don't matter to God. That's really the first thing poverty works on: killing the heart. Many children on the margins here in Ecuador are getting a moderate amout of food and are surviving, but they're not thriving. And poverty is telling them that they don't dare dream. That they are nothing and can be nothing and can do nothing.

I spent the day with Karen and Richard yesterday, the kids my wife and I sponsor through
Compassion International. It was a great day and lots of love was shared. Great conversation and fun and food. A blast saying hello and a bummer saying good-bye. Karen wanted to recite a bible verse and she repeated John 3:16 to me. I told her I have Jesus in my heart and asked her if she did too. She said YES!

The highlight of the day for me but a couple of other great moments too.

Karen and Richard have dreams. Karen wants to be a police officer, Richard a telecommunications engineer. Sounds to me like the lies have been exposed to The Light.

Right before we left my new friend becoming Anne prayed for the group. Lots of tears. Then we had all the compassion children and siblings sing "Jesus Loves Me" in Spanish. We gringos followed that up with our version in English. Then we all sang together. And I am convinced there was silence in heaven, cause we experienced it here on earth.

Hope Lives!

Relationship

Yesterday was to be an all work day at Nuevos Amigos School after walking the La Comuna neighborhood. The team worked on tile and painting and then broke for lunch. We invited our bus driver Luis and his ten year old daughter Sophia to join us and were glad they accepted. Nancy had made twelve sandwiches in the morning and with Ricardo and Eric joining us also we had exactly enough.

I teach mission teams in the pre-trip meetings to be flexible and expect surprises. Today there were some:

1) We went to Ricardo's house for a tour. It is a very nice house that he and his wife Maria are proud of and rightly so. He has been working on it for 14 years. Then they invited us all to sit for a drink and we gladly drank Naranjilla juice. Tan delicioso!

2) After we got back from touring Ricardo's home the teachers from La Guardaria day care approached me and asked if the team would like to ride the trolley cars up the mountain. Okay that sentence took me one minute to write but this discussion took probably fifteen minutes with my limited Spanish. At first I thought they were asking if we were taking our compassion kids there with us. Then I realized they wanted us all to go "ahora mismo" (at this moment). My first thought was "no" becasue we had work to get done. And I'm afraid of heights. Duh! That thinking is the very opposite to what I taught this team: to be flexible and expect schedule changes and this trip is about RELATIONSHIPS , not tasks. I almost blew it. Thank you God for leading me.

We agreed to go and had a great time. Six teachers from the school, our team of eight, Ricardo and his wife Maria and son Zacharias, seventeen in all. It was good relationship building as I had a chance to chat with Rosio, director of La Guardaria. I explained the union of ChildReach Ministries and Nuevos Amigos. She said she and her son could go back to the states and I could stay in Ecuador. I said that would work for me if my wife were here (no kidding Chris).

It was a day of relationships.

Oh and we walked the path after we got up the mountain and I realized I can't run fast or far at 13,451 feet above sea level.........in a t-shirt............at about 45 degrees! Brrrrrr.

The UNsponsored

Dear readers and especially friends of RiverTree Christian Church,

I spent the day at Compassion project EC124 in the south of Quito, Ecuador. My team experienced a lot today about which we have written and will continue to write about at http://www.childreachministries.org/08ec0718/.

I left the project with a very unusual request from the project director and the Compassion staff. I have a list of 23 children from this project still needing sponsors. Not all that unusual in that there are about 49,200 children in the country in the program, 10,000 of which are unsponsored. This request is a bit unusual as Compassion does not usually work like this. But on this list there are children that have been waiting for 3, 6, even 8 years for sponsors! The pastor and director are simply desperate for the wait to end for these children. God is too.

Is he waiting for you/me to take one of these kids? Can we, as a church, step up and solve this? Will 23 of you be willing to be the answer to this prayer?

Ecuador day 2

What a day! Great worship service at San Pablo in La Comuna, Quito, Ecuador. It was the first cross cultural worship service for many in the group. They loved it. Anne said she never experienced God like she did today.

The highlight for me was a pick up soccer game with my team and a group of street kids. These kids are sent out by their families to work the streets selling goods, washing car windows, shining shoes. Today Brian and Giermo put down their shoe shine boxes and got to be 9 year olds for awhile. Kicking a ball, laughing, running, free.

Una bonita dia ( a beautiful day)

Standing in the Gap

Ezekiel 22:30 "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none."

God was looking for his people to stand up and be an advocate for the nation of Israel so he would not have to send them into exile.

God is looking for his people today to stand in the gap for people in poverty; for children on the margins of society.

This morning my new friends becoming Steph, Gary, Anne, Jen, Jane, Nancy, Rob and I will begin a nearly 20 hour journey to Quito, Ecuador with ChildReach Ministries (www.childreachministies.org) to do just that. We do have some construction tasks to do. But our main focus will be to see what God is up to there. We will meet some incredible people. We will spend the day with the children we sponsor through Compassion International (www.compassion.com) showing them just by our willingness to be there that they matter deeply to God.

It is a privilege to be obedient.

My Critical Spirit

So I'm sitting on the patio at Panera the other day with a spinach and bacon souffle and a steaming hot cup of coffee, with smooth jazz playing in the background............reading a book about poverty. That's a contrast I can't seem to get over.

Anyway, I'm sitting there and I watch this guy walk in the door with an empty "to go" coffee cup (there's free re-fills at Panera). No way he was outside drinking his first cup and going back in for more cause the place just opened. Besides, I'm sitting near the front door and I know who's been here and who hasn't!

So you can probably see where this is going. I'm already assuming this guy is bringing back an empty cup from a previous days purchase to get free coffee today ( the java is self serve). I've accused him of stealing coffee. There's really no other scenario that fits, right? So I walk up and ask him!

No not really.

And then a "what if" came to mind: what if he's into recycling (the cup was Styrofoam) and he went to the counter to pay? Ouch.

So I'm either highly judgemental..........or into making excuses for thieves!

The Shack

The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity by William P. Young is one of the best novels I have read in awhile. Simply unputdownable. It may shatter your image of what God looks and acts like; of what he/she/they really are.

Even though a novel by nature is untrue they are often woven with truths. Here's a few:

• we must learn to live loved
• God speaking in the book: "...just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn't mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don't ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors."
• if anything matters then everything matters

Love God? You'll love this book.

Don't love/mad at God? You'll love this book.

www.theshackbook.com