Imagine your day's work starts long before dawn. Imagine wrestling your stubborn, hungry, bad-tempered donkey into harness and cart. Imagine joining a caravan of motley vehicles - skeletal horses, rusted pick-ups, warped bicycles and weaving your weary way into the streets of Cairo, Egypt. You ache from yesterday - it was backbreaking. You're hungry. You're always hungry. The streets are stinking and the sun hasn't even come up yet.

You nod silently to a friend as he gets to work doing the same thing as you - bundling up the teetering piles of garbage into bales and heaving them aboard the disgruntled donkey. The donkey would stamp if he had the energy. You could really do with a day off. You haven't had a real day off in 4 years. Once the donkey looks in danger of either total mutiny or immediate collapse you make your way back through the streets, as the city starts to wake up. You and your mate meet up and share a cigarette as you cajole your laden beasts back through the stench of the city and the air turns bitter with dust as Cairo comes to life.

You're on your way back to Ezbet el Nakhel. It's home, and always has been. Here the very buildings appear to be made of garbage. It towers 3 stories high, it rots and reeks. It's your worst enemy and your best friend. Garbage is your life and your living. You are one of the 'Zabaleen' or 'Garbage People' of Ezbet el Nakhel, Egypt. You collect the refuse of the city of Cairo for free. You make your living sorting through it & re-processing it. So does your wife and your three children. Your wife is separating orange peel from coke cans, your son is picking through glass bottles. Your mother hangs laundry in the shade of an 8 foot mountain of rubbish. Your donkey is eating rubbish - it fills his belly but doesn't improve his temper. Flies are everywhere.

It's all rubbish.

BUT YOU ARE NOT RUBBISH

Father Samaan is a Christian Koptic priest. He lives with and works with the Zabaleen. He heard God's call to drag these people out of the mud and mire and set them on firm ground. Just as God does with all of us. He heard God telling him that he needed to impart to these people that they are not rubbish. That they're beautiful and valuable and loved. He started this ministry by rolling up his trousers and literally pulling people from the pig sty (that's where they ran to hide if they didn't want to accept his message!). He actually got up to his knees in pig poo and hoiked them out. And if they didn't accept his message then, he got down on his knees.

Fr Samaan emanates the Father's love. He practically beams it out! He has faithfully worked with and prayed for this seemingly hopeless community of garbage collectors. His wife paces her balcony covering the city in prayer every day. Now 98% of the residents of Ezbet El Nakhel are Christian. The community is being shaped into a God thing. There are schools, a HUGE church, hospitals. There is HOPE All because someone thought to tell these guys that they are not rubbish. God loves these people, they're priests, prophets and kings because he created them, loved them and called them.

And you. even if you feel like rubbish

x


(PS. See the amazing documentary of Fr Samaan's ministry in a 2 part film available on You Tube.)

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=e01d4OlTi_k&mode=related&search=

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=VpQc7OS_DNs&mode=related&search