On Thursday morning, a number of conference participants had already left to attend another conference in the city.Our host church, IES Jakarta, planned a field trip out to an area of the city called ‘Trash Mountain’ to view a compassion work in which the church is involved.
The following notes are by Larry Henderson, pastor of Vienna Christian Center in Vienna, Austria and co-director of the Fellowship of European International Church network.
There were approximately 15 of us that went to the trash dump. Upon arriving, we stopped to visit the kindergarten that is run by the NGO “Partners in Mission” but supported by the church IES. We played games with the kids and they sang special songs to us.
Afterwards we walked up to the top of the trash dump and just prayed over the area. It was a very moving day … both to see the children and to learn how the church partners with NGOs in compassion ministry.
We learned how people from the community come to dig through the trash to recycle anything of value like cardboard or plastic. We saw piles of rice that the people have pulled from the trash in order to let it dry out in the sun for the purpose of reselling it.