Off to the Bocaria...

Me with the kids at Bocaria!

So Wednesday I spent a few hours at the Bocaria. It is the city garbage dump where thousands of people live without running water, a food source, or adequate housing. There is a church built within this community and every Wednesday missionaries and visitors go to teach a Bible lesson to the children there. I have wanted to go since I got here...but have had something going on or been sick each week. This week I made it my Wednesday priority. So Chris, Vella (two other missionaries), and I headed off. It was another trip in the back of a truck...this time a military type truck with benches on each side and covered with a green fabric top. Yep that's right...I felt like a soldier...a soldier for Christ I guess would be accurate! Anyway, Chris and Vella run this weekly trip and had decided we would teach on hearing the voice of God. It was awesome to play games, love on, and teach the kids about the Lord!

This is Chris and our translator teaching about the voice of God!This is one of the adorable little ones!

So reactions...I had a difficult time leaving and watching all the little ones standing on heaps of garbage waving goodbye to us. They have NOTHING and yet they have uncircumstantial joy...something that comes only from a relationship with our Lord. I would really like to go on a Friday as well. On Fridays our teams go up on the dump and to the shanty houses to pray with people, do some health relief, and other mercy ministry. For now I work on Fridays so I can't leave the base...but I'm trusting sooner or later I'll get to go! I definitely have a heart for especially the children who live there.
Ok I'll leave you with this picture...as we drove into the dump to our right there was trash piled about 3 stories high. There were plastic bags picked up in the wind flying around like balloons. There were children running after our truck just to see if we had anything they could sell on the streets. To our left were shanty houses...a whole community of people who live, work, grow up in the dump. How different is this life than ours and yet joy was still on EVERY face?