By Ella* (Klik disini untuk baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia)
Last year, in 2021, my friend and I did a two-month internship with the Servants team (read my reflections here). I clearly remember the first time that I was invited to help clean recycling bottles with a mom from the neighborhood.
To tell the truth, I felt a little bit disgusted by the whole thing—it was dirty, smelly, nasty work—there were lots of rats wandering by, cockroaches skittering at our feet, and maggots inside the bottles we were cleaning. The first day that I helped with the recycling, my emotions were conflicted. I felt a bit happy, a bit scared, and a mixture of other emotions.
The stench was incredible, maybe because there were lots of food scraps mixed in with the bottles, and also liquids that had been sitting for days and smelled like rotten trash. I attempted to hide my feelings of disgust, however, because I did not want to offend the mom that we were working with. As I was attempting to do this, I prayed in my heart, “Lord, help me so that I do not feel disgust as I work at cleaning these bottles. I want to learn. I want to be a blessing to the mom we are helping. Help me so that I can meet you and learn from you today, Lord. Lord, help me.”
As I was silently praying, suddenly I felt a voice saying: “You are like this bottle. Imagine that this bottle used to be important—standing in a store for people to look at and buy. Someone bought it because they were thirsty, but when they were done drinking, they threw it out. When the water was gone, the bottle became trash, without a purpose. But actually, this bottle still has worth to the pemulung (scavenger). For the pemulung, bottles are valuable- it is how they make their livelihood; these bottles can be collected and turned into money for them. Pemulung find the bottles, take them out of the trash, clean off the dirt, and save the bottles in a special place. The bottles that were considered worthless actually are valuable! They have worth and meaning for the pemulung. You are like this bottle.”
This image made me teary-eyed. The Lord was saying that humans are like the bottles, discarded and thrown-out, without purpose, without value, considered worthless, ready to be burned—but there is One that comes to seek and to save. The Lord Jesus is like the Great Pemulung. He takes us out of the trash heap and cleans us of our sins, and he says we are valuable. We are all very valuable to Jesus. After we have been cleaned of our sins, we can be a blessing to those around us—with meaning and purpose.
This is the image that has stayed with me ever since that first day of helping recycle bottles. The Lord used these bottles to speak to me—to bring tears to my eyes and cause me to stop and reflect. I am so grateful that the feeling of disgust was replaced by joy, as I worked beside my new friends. We cleaned three big bags of recycling that morning, and I even offered to come back the next day to do more.
2 Timothy 2:21 NRSV “All who cleanse themselves of the things I have mentioned, will become special utensils, dedicated and useful to the owner of the house, ready for every good work.”
*Not her real name
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