One Mans Trash... Is a Poor Mans Treasure

                                           We live in a world centered around - US.
We litterally get everything handed to us. We get the privalage of being able to take a quick run to the grocery store where everything is already packaged, already cleaned, and sometimes already prepared for us. And you know what happens to alot of that food? It gets thrown out. We don't eat it and it either rots, gets old or the left overs get thrown away.

But do you realize.... that right now, there are children digging through garbage looking for something... TO EAT? There are families looking for their daily meal.... AT A DUMP. And most of those people... LIVE THERE.

When I was walking through the Diepsloot squatter camp of South Africa I saw things like this all the time. Children just eating trash and even playing with toys that they made out of random garbage that they found. There were parents that I talked to who would tell me all the time that the job they worked at for hours a day was hardly enough to feed their families one meal and they didn't even know when their next meal would come. Their water supply... was hooked up to the bathroom... And it was less than sanitary.

Some people from our team saw this boy eating trash.

Today a girl that I am going on my Africa trip with posted a video. The video was about the people of a village called Korah in Ethiopia. This place was not just a village... It was litterally a dump. In the video was real footage of the villagers flocking around piles of trash looking for anything they could find to eat... to stay alive.

These situations aren't just things we see in pictures or videos... they are real life. The people in those images are real people. And they are hurting. They are struggling.

These people are important to God. They are not forgotten. They are not throw-away people. I don't want anyone who reads this to just have a good cry or say "How aweful!" and then just go to bed, sleep fine and not feel like they can't or don't have to do anything!

Friends, God really has blessed us with so much. But with privalage comes responsability.

God has called each and every one of us to reach out and bless others like He has blessed us.

Proverbs 19:17 says "When you give to the poor you lend to God, and He will repay you."

Can you even image lending to God? Doing God a favor? And having Him repay you for it! He doesn't owe us anything! He already gave us the most precious gift anyone could ever give... ETERNAL LIFE.

But still God blesses us with even more if we would just step out and give to His children who are in need! But what we need to do is to give with a glad heart. We need to base our actions with love and have a Christ-like attitude!

We also need to remember to thank God for what He has given us. Never take any blessing forgranted.

Today I really learned a lesson about that from one of my translators named Thato.

Thato lives in the Diepsloot squatter camp, the very one we ministered in, and he was one of our translators.

Today Thato got on facebook and posted that last night a flood came through his area of Diepsloot. Almost everything was ruined. His shack and some of his possessions. The only thing he had left was his bible, school cloths and his bed.

But you know what Thato said? He said that he was still thankful towards God and that even though people see him as poor... He is rich because God is his most prized possesssion! He wasn't whining about how his home got flooded... He was thanking God for keeping him safe and for protecting what he had left!

To us, we see Thato as not having very much. But to Thato... God is the most important thing and any and everything he has is his treasure. Thato takes no blessing forgranted.

I don't know about you, but if that had been me I don't think I could keep hold of a mindset of worship. But Thato understands what life is about. It's not about what we have lost, it's about the love God has given us and about what we have left.

So what if...

Instead of complaining about what we don't have or even if we don't get exactly what we want, we took a look at what we do have.... And decided to be thankful for it?

And instead of just letting our hearts be moved.... we acutally did something about it!? We as God's people need to step out and change that world around us. God gives us the vision but we have to take the action and he will guide our steps along the way.

So I challenge anyone reading this...

If you feel God putting a burden on your heart for these people,

Pray! Do something! Please don't feel like you are unable to do anything! God hasn't called all of us to the mission field to directly make an impact... But He has called us to pray, give our money, our time... our faith!  And if He asks of you- GO! Please do not ever forget that prayer is one of the most powerful tools God has given us along with His word.

Walking in a new perspective,

Olivia (Thabisa) Cartwright

Side note:

Here is the video of the village of Korah.