Trash to Treasure

I look at my garbage so differently these days.  This spring Heritage CDC purchased a compost bin to go with the newly planted Learning Garden.  It only makes sense.  If we were going to provide an opportunity for children to learn to grow vegetables to help other people we also needed to provide an opportunity for children to learn different ways to take care of the earth God has created.  The compost bin is one of those ways.  I have to smile each time a child proudly shows me the banana peel and coffee grounds they’ve brought to school for the compost.  The children may not understand all of the details of what a banana peel and coffee grounds do for the compost.  How it breaks down and becomes a fertilizer for the soil and how it saves space in a land fill but they do know that they are doing something good for the garden and that the vegetables are given to the Forest Park Ministry Center.

Last month I traveled to Managua, Nicaragua with 14 other people from Heritage Baptist Church to partner with the Open Hearts Ministry in the La Chureca community.  La Chureca is Mangua’s garbage dump.  There is a community of about 1200 people who live and work in the dump.  Our mission was to show the love of Jesus through a medical clinic in the neighborhood surrounding La Chureca and to spend time with children that attend school at the Colegio Cristiano La Esperanza (Hope Christian School) which is located in the center of the dump.  Each day we would enter La Chureca and be amazed at the size of the dump, the smell of the dump and the sights of the dump.  Huge black vultures sat on mountain sized garbage dunes and waited for death and decay to make a meal for them.  Men and women scrambled to the trucks that entered the dump so they could get the best “pick” of garbage from the truck.  Children sat in the middle of garbage waiting for their parents to finish picking through the trash to see if something could be recycled for money.  I can’t begin to describe the acrid smells that wafted in each afternoon.  In Matthew 25 Jesus talks about “the least of these” being the people we should be helping.  I realized that I was seeing the least of the least of these. 

I look at my garbage differently these days because I see the faces of so many sweet children and wonder if they are going to look through someone’s trash today as a means of survival.  I also see the sweet faces of the children at Heritage CDC and am reminded that we are doing a good thing by giving them an opportunity to help others with a garden…and garbage.

It's a Pumpkin!

Check list for the garden.  Great spot that receives morning sunlight, check.  Prime location that the children can see the plants grow every day, check.  Convenient access to water faucet and hose, check. 100 hands to help till up the soil, check.
Our garden began as most gardens begin, with careful planning and design.  I drew out where we were going to place the pots.  I spent countless minutes picking out stepping stones and then agonized where to put them in the garden so the children could have places to stand when watering.  It had to be perfect. We arranged and organized and then rearranged and re-organized to make this the best looking garden ever in the history of preschool gardens. And then it happened.
The plants began to grow.  The cucumbers started vining out and so did this one big thing in the middle of the garden.  I knew the cucumbers were going to have vines running every which way but what was that big thing with those big leaves in the middle of the garden where there wasn't supposed to be anything?  One guess was a squash.  A second guess was a zucchini.  The best guess of all was a pumpkin.  How did that happen?
Remember the 100 hands that helped to till up the soil?  One of them accidentally planted a pumpkin seed in the middle of the well planned and designed to be pretty garden.  Have you ever seen a pumpkin vine out?  It takes over the entire space.
As I lamented the demise of my well planned and designed to be pretty garden to a friend she pointed out that "sometimes the things that are accidents turn out to be the best things that happen to us."  I was reminded of two things that day.  One, I have friends who are very wise and two, life is like a garden.  We can plan and design everything to be perfect but sometimes God plants a pumpkin to give you something better.