A VISIT TO THE LOCAL LANDFILL – THE GARBAGE DUMP!

It’s a picture perfect spring day. Not a cascading cloud in the sky. The warm rays of the early sun are beckoning you to sit and bask a while and take in all of God’s beauty. The streaking sunbeams were hitting perfectly and magnificently on the new young leaves growing and contrasting on the old knotty trees who gave them life. This sunlight produced a breathtaking transparency of thalo yellow green to the foliage generating an aura of an idyllic world made up of peace and harmony.

So why were we not taking full advantage of this exquisiteness while sipping mugs of piping hot instant coffee mixed with condensed milk? People everywhere are paying top dollar to be vacationing in such beauty; especially if the country was called France, Italy or the romantic get-away island of Gozo, just off the coast of Malta. If you remember, Malta was where the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked nearly two thousand years ago.

Instead, there is no peace, but a sick gut feeling of loss. Noline and I are up and out of the house early today on a mission to the village landfill. Here we were on this faultless morning, scratching through the tons of garbage bags and it’s not even 6:45am. So what in the world were we doing there and why have we donned clinical rubber gloves and gotten down on bended knees sifting through the trash? The reason is simple. We are heading off to New York City in a couple of days.

You could be asking, “Is there a correlation here?” Actually, no! “Well,” you may be saying, “you are waxing extremely poetic and you have used more adjectives, in these few sentences, than a novice writer would have done. You are either working really hard to try to impress us to  keep reading your blog, or you are going to make a point out of  this. But for right now you are not making any sense at all.” You would probably be right on both accounts. I love to keep you reading, and yes I will make a point of my Rhodetrek (pun intented) to keep us all real.

Here’s the scoop. Having trained as a hygienist, I have spent hours cleaning the teeth of men, women and children as part of our mission mandate. Noline also requested a polishing before heading to the ‘Big Apple,’ hence the immediate problem. After the last patient, I, being 58 years old, tossed out the head of my new 2011, state of the art, prophy handheld polisher. This was a catastrophe. Without it, the polisher is useless. We had to leave instantly before they bulldozered that small stainless steel gadget into the ground forever.

So there we were, with the regular crew of dumpster dogs eyeing us out suspiciously, as if we were the intruders into their kitchen of tossed out scraps. After all we were on their turf looking for that piece of metal no bigger than a small person's thumb.

Under our breath was the distinct sound of prayer to a God who knows all things and whose all seeing eye knew exactly where this precious object was. Miraculously, after a half hour of digging, my beautiful wife, who radiated a conqueror's triumphant smile over her defeated foe said, “Is this it?” There it was, lifted up high in her hand like the torch of Lady Liberty for all the world to see. My prophy head, glistening in the rich ultra violet rays of the glorious sun, as if to say, "you found me!" Oh, I could have kissed her right there and then, but with our canine audience still warily watching our every move I opted for the Christianize, “thank you Jesus!” Don’t get me wrong, I am not ashamed to kiss my wife anywhere. But this was answered prayer for sure. He did show us, and it was my wife He used to dig it up and not me. I love it. I love it when God chooses the weaker vessel to show His glory.

Please don’t malign me or to use the popular verbage, marginalize me, for what may look like a spiritual capitalizing of this not so typical human experience. But are you willing to allow the Lord to sift through the mountain of learned Christian behavior and language to reach your heart, so you can obey His voice. We have an extravaganza of preached sermons on how to hear the voice of God. It makes for a great preach and an even greater altar call; but in the long run very few take time in His presence. They don’t sit long enough for God to work in and through them. Lastly, I committed today, no matter how insignificant they are, to go to the refuse of society, to find those who are considered nothing, but who are really treasures in the hand of God.

Have a really great day.