God is amazing. He continues to surprise us. Yesterday, we went to one of the most impoverished sections of the city, a trash dump or “crematoria” where people spend their lives sorting through trash to make a living. The poverty is overwhelming. The group is building houses there, and just when things looked hopeless, God showed up.
We met one of the families for whom the group had built a house and she took us on a tour. She and some other parents have worked to get a school started specifically for the kids who are called “basuras” or trash children and we got to tour the school. I was so blessed and humbled to see how God had gone before us to prepare a place where they can receive a Christian education, right beside one of the most needy areas one can imagine.
There are about 180 kids who all grow up in what is known as trash mountain. They call it that because the people in the neighborhood literally comb through the dump site all day to kind something they can sell to survive. The poverty is generations deep, but the parents and a local school are working to build a way out for their kids.
You see the mission of the school above (Rohl means Good Shepherd) and we met the teachers, face to face, who love God and are trying to educate the youth out of the cycle of poverty. Our plan is to return this week and present the Christian textbooks in Spanish that were provided for our trip.
Finding such a partnership was written on my prayer list for this trip, and God answered it today in ways I didn’t think possible. Thank you for praying for this ongoing work. We will be going back throughout the week with the goal to provide some lasting training for these precious teachers. More on that later!
The Joseph Factor 