Monday, November 11, 2019

Treasure from Trash


Image result for favio chavez


When the prophet Elisha heard about the financial straits of a widow, he asked her a pointed question, “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” (2 Kings 4:2). In other words, the prophet intended to meet the need of the widow with what she had on hand. As she obeyed the word of the Lord, she witnessed a miraculous multiplication.

While mulling over this passage, I saw an incredible news clip on 60 Minutes about a music teacher in Paraguay named Favio Chavez. He grew up in one of Paraguay’s most impoverished cities—Cateura, which is home to a slum that’s literally built on a landfill. More than 1,500 tons of trash gets dumped into the landfill every day. About 1,000 residents make their living by picking through the trash with long hooks called ganchos (hence the garbage pickers are called gancheros). These incredibly poor scavengers look for things they can sell—metal, plastic, glass, etc.
           
Chavez was burdened about the children who grew up in these slums. He knew that most of them would never escape poverty and many would resort to drugs or gangs or become gancheros. So Chavez had an epiphany, he would start a free music school for slum children where he would teach them how to play an instrument.
           
He started by giving away the five instruments in his possession to students. Before long Chavez was inundated by eager and willing children who wanted to learn, but had no way of buying an instrument. Instead of getting discouraged or turning the kids away, Chavez started looking around and what he had to work with—which was trash.

He was friends with a ganchero, Nicholas Gomez, who could find almost anything in the mountains of garbage. Chavez told his friend, “I want you to look for a special kind of trash—anything that we could use to recycle and build into an instrument.” So, Mr. Gomez started farming the landfill and crafting the trash into instruments—he made a cello from an oil can, a flute from old pipes, a violin from a beat-up aluminum bowl, drums made from old x-ray skins.

Once the kids became proficient enough to play classical pieces, like Beethoven and Mozart, Chavez started uploading videos on YouTube that went viral. Chavez’s music school is called “Landfill Harmonic” and not only has he taught hundreds of students how to play with instruments made from garbage, but they have received invitations from around the world for their orchestra to come and play to packed audiences.[1]

While other people saw nothing but trash and poverty, Chavez saw hope and potential. Imagine if we had eyes to see the potential around us by beginning with what God has already given us?
A half full jar or oil wasn’t much, but it was more than enough for God to work with.  As the old song says, “Little is much when God is in it.” Instead of limiting what God can do by focusing only on what we don’t have, why not take what you have and fully surrender it to the Lord. -DM




[1] “Young Musicians Are Living Their Dreams, Thanks to a Recycled Orchestra,” CBS, 27 September 2016
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/landfill-harmonic-documentary-paraguay-young-musicians-music-instruments-made-of-trash/> 

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