Re-cycle Me

JV was one of our first boys to arrive at House of Joshua; from a broken home. A disrupted life with hurt, disappointment, anger, and resentment. He was resistant to change, reluctant to trust and after just 3 weeks with us he unsuprisingly ran away.

Our staff spent several weeks looking for him on the streets in the evening hangouts where displaced kids loiter but he was nowhere to be found. We checked under bridges, road crossings, squatter areas but there was no sign of him anywhere.

Almost half a year later he was rescued by a visiting international mission team who were working daily at the city garbage dump. There he was, just 15 minutes walk away, sleeping each night out under a tree, surviving alone, dirty, skinny and ragged again. He was collecting plastic bottles and used cans from the 'smoky mountain' garbage heap to sell at a junk shop.

We pass the garbage dump area frequently It is a community living and working from salvaging and sorting through the city's waste.

Dirty work.

Small profits.

Perhaps we have a similar job? Sifting through the rubbish of broken families to rescue and salvage young discarded lives. Kids surviving on the extreme edge; in depths far below the poverty line.

Dirty, messy work.

Small rewards.

But as my husband says 'If we don't - who will?'.....

I still struggle with this question:

Who will really get their hearts and hands dirty?

It is easier and more convenient to leave the garbage sorting as someone else's job or rely on a recycling system.

We do not think about what we throw away; once tossed it is forgotten.

RECYCLE - is a description of rejuvenating action. It is more than just converting waste into something reusable. It is an invested process of change; to be made ready for something else.

Re - means to do it again; anew.

Cycle - means to repeat a process from the beginning, to undergo reuse or renew for further use.

Isn't this what we need in this generation? For God to renew us again? To rediscover life anew; to be transormed and reused fully by Him?

This is what HE does.

Those who upcycle or renovate discarded items look for potential beyond the raw material and see possibilities.

Recycling lives is not just a holy repurposing project but an overhaul renovation renewal-where hearts come alive and realign to true purpose. The action of engaging in the process; seeing 'what can be'.

It is more than dreaming or redesigning.

It is responding with a YES and allowing God to activate change.

This is HIS 'Kingdom Business' for everyone!

Dirty work sometimes, but the profits are eternal.

I don't want to miss it.

Please recycle me Lord!

"Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."

1 John 2:6

For more information about our ministry work: Lifenet Children's Foundation Inc.