And back to the dump

At lunch time we made a pot of soup and picked up some fresh breads and took a trip to the dump. Here is an account of that from Sam's email

Hello folks...
Just a brief update from Central Asia as we are in Moscow Airport awaiting our plane to Kiev. I want to tell you a tale of a "dump" visitation.
On Wednesday, Vee and I, Scott and Wendy Couper and Kevin and Wendy Pauls went with John and Julie Wright to a garbage dump outside of a village in Central Asia. We had some soup made and had bread with us.

John Making soup

When we arrived at the dump with our portable lunch kitchen there was about 25 people rummaging through the garbage. making a living in the dump

We started dishing out the soup and the bread and they started gathering for the food we brought them. They were all standing around our van eating the soup and bread when a garbage truck pulled in with "new treasures". Hello? They put their soup down and ran to the truck as it unloaded as to not miss the "treasures" that might come off the truck.
Yup....I almost lost it. Then a lady (through our translator) told me that there has been no "fresh" activity at the dump the last two weeks as the wind was blowing towards the city and that Wednesday was teh first day in two weeks.

A view from the bottom

She then said that it was a "celebration" lunch that we had provided as it had been two weeks since they had been able to dig in fresh garbage. (listen...this is the truth my friends) Of all the days we could have arrived...it was on the exact day that the first new grabage had shown up in two weeks. Soup and bread...total cost to provide this "Celebration Lunch"....was $15. Are you still with me?
While in Central Asia we(Scott Couper and myself) just agreed to have PI support a woman by the name of Larissa who spends her life engaging the hurting , helpless and hopeless in the town. She knew 80% of the people at the dump Wednesday. I wish each one of you could watch her interact with the downtrodden and distraught.

Larissa in action

We are thrilled to support Larissa with $100/month.
You might not think that is much....but she wept when we told her we wanted to help her, help others. Yes....you read it right.....$100/month.

Explaining the situation to Sam

One more "dump story" before I sign off....one of the folks at the dump digging through garbage was a young girl(I think she was 15 years old) that was collecting "treasures" to sell so she could pay to go to a good school for a year.

Where do your kids call home ?

Kevin Pauls got wind of that and together we gave the money to Larissa (Our new PI Field Agent) to pay for her schooling and uniform.

Kevin taking a moment to vew the world around him

The cost of one year of school and uniform.....$80. Yup...you read that right also.
Way to go Kevin! We told that lovely young lady she could go home now...and get ready for an education.
Having a blast on this Possibilities Tour!

Sammy out!

I just want to take a moment to share how blessed we are with our driver. He has such a caring heart. You can see him listening to the story of one old man at the dump.

We asked if there was any one or any organization that helps them other then Larrisa...... they told us that the red cross comes once a year and brings them each 1 kg of rice. I found it perticularly hard this trip to the dump. There were some new families there. One of them I knew already. They were a family that helped us out when we worked on Laura's house..... this is not the way it is supposed to work..... we want to empty the dump not watch it fill up. We have raised money to purchase some homes for people here, but the housing market has gone so high that there is not much we can do.