Reflections on El basurero

Greetings! This is Shelly Hendricks writing. :) Yesterday our group visited el basurero - the garbage dump - and these are a few things I wrote down yesterday as I reflected on my personal experience there.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My heart is so full right now. I feel helpless and unable to respond properly to the experiences I had today as our group visited the garbage dump.

The garbage dump is located on the far end of the national cemetery in Guatemala City. When we arrived at the look-out, Joel VanDyk challenged us to take 15 minutes of silence to take in the sights and sounds around us and to try to understand them with our hearts. At that time, I walked down to an edge that overlooks the dump and, with the sun beating down on me, witnessed hundreds of ugly black vultures eerily circling the vast area of garbage, swatted at the little bugs and flies swarming around and landing on my arms and clothing, and watched as dump trucks and bulldozers skimmed the tops of the ever-growing mound of trash to deliver and move the layers of garbage for hundreds of people to sort through to make a living finding scraps of plastic and metal to sell.

Earlier today, we spent time playing with many of the kids whose parents work day after day rummaging through garbage that has already been rummaged through by the truck drivers. It is difficult to connect the two experiences together: the joy on childrens’ faces as they sang the Spanish version of “Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia – Praise ye the Lord!” and their parents’ smelly, dirty workplace filled with death and despair.

After our 15 minutes of silent reflection, we gathered in a shady area to overlook the workers below as Joel proceeded to read Judges 19 – a story rarely/never preached on in the church because it is a passage that many Christians don’t know what to do with. It’s the story about a concubine who is treated in the most atrocious ways and then is cut up by her husband/master into 12 pieces and sent to all the tribes of Israel. At the end of the chapter it says that happened in order that the people would consider and reflect on how he had treated her when he had intended to go and speak tenderly to her. There is nowhere in the Bible where this concubine is named. We known nothing about her other than the fact that she is from Bethlehem (can you think of anyone else who was from Bethlehem? Yup, Jesus.).

This story, I believe, is in the Bible because there are many people in the world – like those in el basurero – who can relate to her story: the nameless, mistreated and abused – the least, the last, and the lost of places like Guatemala City and Grand Rapids and Lynden – the people who are cut out of society and forgotten.

How does one from Grand Rapids, MI or Lynden, WA or from any other well-to-do area of North America respond to this? How does one take these experiences – these sights and sounds – from Guatemala to their home? How can I, not having ever experienced anything like what I saw today, even attempt to understand what they are going through? How can I return to my house, my car, my job and my everyday life with the image of the garbage dump burned in my mind? How am I to live? How can I incorporate the experiences of the people here in Guatemala with my job as a Spanish teacher? How can I, in my own small way, help others who have never experienced this try to understand the more common experiences of people around the world in a non-“I’m-happy-I’m-not-them” or a “wow-that-sucks-to-be-them” kind of way?

One of the things we discussed in our evening devotions tonight was lament and how many Christians don’t have a language for lament or any idea how brokenness and pain fit into the Christian story (other than the Bible-school answer of “we sinned so crappy things have to happen”) because we preach a message of hope and of peace. And, although it is true that God is sovereign and is in control of the situation and can see the bigger picture of why things happen and how he will use them for good in our lives, I think we can too quickly gloss over the reality of brokenness and the need to be able to say, “Yes, this sucks – I am hurting and nothing you can say right now will make me feel better because this is not the way God created the world to be.”

There are times when I love my life on earth and I am not eager for Christ to return because I truly love living my life; however, there are times like today when I pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come!” because this world is so messed up and broken and we are in desperate need of redemption.

As I looked over the dump and the constant movement of machinery, people and vultures, these lyrics from the chorus of “Multiply Your Love” – a song that our group has sort of taken as our theme song – kept playing over and over in my mind:

Let us see your kingdom come
to the poor and broken ones.
Let us see a mighty flood
of justice and mercy, O Jesus.
Let love be multiplied.

I’m not sure where to go from here. I have a lot of questions and no answers. As Joel challenged us, I am going to do my best to contemplate and to ponder the images I saw today so that it sinks into my heart and changes me from the inside-out – then, maybe a few more people who are the least, the last and the lost in this world will again have names.