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Global Urban Trek 2008
Redeeming GarbageJune 26, 2008
We have been pleasantly surprised by the warmth the Coptic Christians show us all. When we walk through the streets, many Egyptians call out “Hello!” and “Welcome to Egypt!” the two English phrases that almost everyone knows. People walk up smiling with a mouthful of fast Arabic. We smile back.
But we are not completely dumb. Our Arabic skills have improved immensely even within this short time. However, it is an issue that is frustrating to tackle when trying to connect with the Copts.
And we do want to connect with these people. Over the last twenty centuries, the Copts have experienced intense persecutions and seen their numbers shrink. These tribulations persist to this day. But we live and work with the remnant God has preserved. They are the means by which God is redeeming Cairo.
The garbage collectors, known as zabaleen, go out into the city every morning and collect a third of the garbage of Cairo, a city with over 15 million residents. They recycle eighty percent of it, which makes them some of the most efficient garbage managers in the world. The Copts take garbage and turn it into beautiful quilts and rugs and other things that they sell out of their shop. It is a wonderful picture of the grace of God. They sort the rest and sell it back to the companies who reuse them. Organic garbage gets fed to the pigs that the Copts raise for food.
But this work takes place in and around the homes of the Zebaleen. Just walking down the street in Mokattam—it is very difficult to describe. Garbage is everywhere: piled high on trucks, stacked inside buildings, mashed into the ground we walk on in between animal corpses covered with flies. We want to watch where we step, and we don’t want to watch where we step. The smell is everything you’d expect, and it’s hard to take. We have just begun to scratch the surface of the deep poverty that pervades this place.
We have been challenged very much already, and many of us are physically exhausted. The ministries we have been working with are exciting but taxing. I don’t think any of us comprehended the depth of work this trip would require.
But God is so good to us, and we are blessed with help from good leadership and bilingual teammates. Pray for our spiritual growth during the painful process of our dive into a foreign culture. Pray for our physical strength to press on working through the heat and the sweat. Pray for our spirits that they may not be weighed down by frustrations over language and fatigue, but uplifted by the power of the Holy Ghost.
We are being tested, but we will consider it pure joy and together we will be filled with the knowledge the incarnation of the Lord of Hosts.
- Tim
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