Kings of the Hill

Laura and I took a day off work to have Julie show us around the orphanage where she has been living, and share with us what she has been experiencing in her weeks here.

In addition to housing some 350 orphaned children, the staff at the Iris Ministries centre in Zimpeto conduct several outreach programs, ministering to teenagers living on the street, ministering to patients in the depressing Central Hospital, and ministering to the people of all ages who -- believe it or not -- spend their days rummaging through burning and rotting piles of garbage at the city dump.

Laura and I rode with Julie, in typical Mozambique style, on the back of a flatbed truck to the dump. Once there, we encountered dozens of grown men, women and children on the top of the acres of smelly, smoking mess. Many walked bare-footed, seemingly oblivious to the shards of broken glass and smouldering wires protruding out of the heap.

Some industrious people were making piles of metal to sell to a recycling plant on the edge of town. I'm told that each worker has his or her own territory on the dump; his or her own corner of hell to sift through.

One man we stopped to talk to carried a small plastic bag. Scrap ends of bread collected from the dump were visible through the bag's translucent plastic.

I really don't understand how people can find things of value here. The garbage that is trucked onto the site comes from the dumpsters that have already been picked through while sitting on the city streets. These people find their daily bread by picking through whatever trash remains after what I had thought to be the poorest of the poor have taken their fill.

So prolific are the people making their living atop the garbage dump that certain social infrastructure has sprung up to support them. Some enterprising individuals have set up a small market selling food and cold drinks as if it were the cafeteria of a standard workplace. One person operates a cellular-based pay telephone booth under a faded orange umbrella.

Life on the garbage dump is decidedly normal for these people. They don't know anything outside of this harsh daily routine that leaves the children looking younger than their age and the wrinkle-scarred adults looking older than theirs.

The outreach program is intended to share the gospel and a small meal with those experiencing physical or spiritual hunger pangs. These people live spiritual lives, if not squarely Christian lives. Nobody would reject the offer of prayer, and nobody failed to show up for the offer of bread.

One man had initially indicated that he couldn't come to the little hillside church for bread because he couldn't leave his things in the dump for others to steal. He later reappeared, his belongings stuffed into a small flower-patterned duffel bag that had surely been discarded by at least one previous owner.

Another person, a time-worn woman who had taken time out of her scavenging to speak with us, wanted to pray for us instead. More than half of the people who we spoke with professed that they attend a nearby church, pointing in directions just over this hill here or that one there.

Julie, who had come to Mozambique with a heart for children, was taken by some small boys at work on the dump. One of these boys was Fernando, who was spending his morning collecting a few items before heading off to school. Julie watched in amazement when Fernando saw the man carrying the translucent sack of bread scraps whom we had spoken to earlier: though just a small boy wandering a garbage dump, his heart was soft enough to pull a bun from inside his shirt and offer it to the hungry man.

Bruno, a small boy not befitting of his strong name, was less talkative. Where we met him on top of the dump, he barely opened his mouth except to gently squeeze out his name as if floating on a whisper. I asked him if he knew about the small caniço church at the bottom of the hill, and invited him to return with us for some singing and some bread. I didn't expect him to come.

I had mistaken his shyness for reluctance. He braved a smile when we saw each other in front of the church later that morning. I asked him if he had ever been to this church before. "Yes," he replied simply. He offered few other words.

I told him that I had never been there before, which makes it his church, and makes me his guest. He grabbed my hand and pulled me in the front door, and we sat together on a caniço mat laid out on the church's hard floor.

He said only one other word to me the entire time. Pointing to the other side of the church, he said, "Julie." A friendly face that he had remembered from on top of the dump. Julie was over there, sitting with Fernando. Like Bruno, he had decided to come to church as well.

Laura sat in a third corner of the church, weighted down by what seemed like half a dozen young girls sitting or leaning on her lap. One of them wore Laura's sunglasses upside down on her face. All of them wore the smiles of children being loved.

The rise of international child trafficking prevents the orphanage from taking children off the garbage dump and giving them decent shelter, food and education, but God's compassion -- and that of people like Julie who travel around the world to love forgotten children -- mean that the children of the dump are valued as the children of God. That, after all, is their true identity, albeit too often hidden underneath the sooty garments of reality.