Out of all of the ministries we have done at the Mission, garbage ministry–also known as community outreach–is my favorite. It’s actually my favorite thing we do at Rancho. Legit, this is one of the reasons why I decided to come back to the Mission after my mission trip. Let me tell you a little more about it.
As a group, we choose a place to go to (whether it’s somewhere like Villas, Antorcha, etc.), and then we split up into teams of three to five people. In our groups, we each go down different streets. As a team, we move from house-to-house to connect with people and tell them one thing “We’re taking away garbage for free.”
In Mexico, it costs a lot for getting your trash taken away, so people end up having a lot of it in their yards. Not to mention it’s also all over the streets, and the stray dogs are around and eat it plenty. So when we let people know we are talking garbage away for free, it catches their attention.
However, picking up trash is not the main goal of the ministry, surprisingly. It’s actually connecting with the people. While a few people are picking up the trash, the others are having a conversation with the people. We ask them how their day or week is going, how we can pray for them… honestly, just getting to know the person and loving them.
And they get to feel that love. We’ve also been able to share prophetic words and pray for the sick and see them healed. In fact, in February, my friends and I were praying for people–a whole family that was sick. Almost all of them felt better after we prayed. Also, the mom of that family had a foot injury. That was healed, too.
Another week, we were doing this thing called a treasure hunt. At the Mission, a treasure hunt is when you ask Holy Spirit to give you a picture or a name or something, and then a prophetic word to go with it. Maybe you get a name like Mario, or other times you could get a picture of a turtle. This time, I got a picture of a birthday cake.
My team and I got to the first house along the street, and the couple that lived there didn’t seem like they wanted to talk, so we were taking their trash instead. However, as I was setting some of the trash into garbage bags, I noticed that in the trash can was a box for a cake!
And so I got to talk to the couple about my word of knowledge, asking them if someone in their family had a birthday in the recent week. It turns out, their son had just turned two years-old! Holy Spirit gave me a prophetic word for their child, and that was just one moment where I got an opportunity to bless people and encourage them about the future.
Most times, garbage ministry is just like that, because the thing we want to represent in this ministry is God’s love. And the way to do that is through action and ahavah and agape–love in action.
JULIA MCKENNA MYERS 