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.

Meet Alfredo

As is typical of many large cities, Maputo has a certain magnetism that attracts homeless people in search of the too-often-empty promise of a better future. Thousands of children, orphaned or abandoned, find that they are not exempt from this cruelty. Laura's friend Sarah, an American missionary living here with her husband and young family, share the following story:

Last night, on our way home from a local art fair, we were confronted by one of the many sobering realities of life here in Maputo. A young street boy approached us and asked for money, so we gave him $0.25 and suggested that he use it to buy himself some bread.

Before long, he had returned and was asking for more money. We noticed that he had bought some chewing gum from a street vendor. A little confused, but thinking perhaps that he was going to sell the gum for a small profit, we asked him why he had bought gum instead of bread.

We continued talking to this young boy. His name is Alfredo, and lives out here on the street. We asked him where his mom and dad were. "They're both dead." He has sisters in Panda, about 7 hours north of Maputo, but no family here. His step-mother had brought him to the city, but had later abandoned him.

This 11-year old boy, smaller than my son Kaleb, was hungry, desperate, dirty, smelly and wearing oversized, ripped clothes that exposed to the world his lack of underwear. After five minutes of listening to Alfredo's story, our kids piped up from the backseat, reminding us of our family verse: Matthew 25:31-46. Kaleb said, “Dad, I just keep hearing in my head, 'Whatever you have done to the least of these brothers of mine you have done it unto me.'”

We decided to do something unconventional. We took this boy home with us and gave him soap and shampoo so that he could take a shower. Kaleb, who is 9, picked out some new clothes for him. He would wear a Twins baseball jersey and shorts, white socks and some tennis shoes.

Fifteen minutes later, the difference in this boy was amazing. His dirty, sullen face was replaced with a bright, smiling one. His slacking posture was now more upright. The clean clothes and some soap and water washed away a bit of the depressing street life and shame that he is so accustomed to wearing. He and Kaleb played basketball in the front of the house, just like regular boys. No black. No white. No rich. No poor. Just kids smiling and having fun.

We decided to go out for a chicken dinner together. The restaurant we chose is a prime target for begging in Maputo, and chances are very good that our young Alfredo has been shooed away many times by the same staff that would now be serving him dinner. You should have seen this kid. He sat at the end of the table with wide eyes and watched closely what our kids did. He tentatively ordered a grape Fanta and chicken with French fries. He tried hard to use his fork and knife to eat, then gave in to the peer pressure and used his hands like everyone else. The kids all took turns writing their names and playing tic-tac-toe on scrap paper.

On our way to the restaurant, as we were sitting at a stop-light, an elderly woman came to our car window begging for money. Young Alfredo reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his coins that we had given him earlier. Reaching his hand out, he said, “Here, I have one. Let’s give it to her.” Can you even stand it?

Sarah and her family were touched by their encounter with this young boy who could easily have remained anonymous and quickly forgotten. Instead, they have a new friend to watch for as they drive down the streets, and to pray for with their children as they put them to bed.

The seed of an idea is germinating in their minds about starting a Saturday morning ministry for the abandoned and orphaned children of Maputo, taking them out of the city to land where they can run and play, where they would prepare food for them and let them shower and get clean clothes, and where they could be reassured that they are loved beyond measure.

Others have already made reality out of similar dreams. Mozambique has several homes for these malnourished, forgotten orphans. Not enough, perhaps, but homes nonetheless.

Our friend from Canada, Julie Collins, came to Mozambique for a couple of weeks in March to spend time loving some of these fortunate few who live in an orphanage in Zimpeto, just outside of Maputo. Julie loves to share story after story about the children that she has met. She talks about their bracelets and other handicrafts, their toy cars with aluminum can wheels, and their car tire acrobatics. She tells stories of proud children who relish hearing their names spoken to them, many of them knowing their name as the only possession that is uniquely theirs.

Each of these children was, at one time, like Alfredo. And one day, Alfredo may be like one of these orphans who have found a home.