During the last Christmas season, staff from our Word Made Flesh (WMF) children’s home in Chennai, India, found a brother and sister living and working on a trash heap. Referred to as rag-pickers—a derogatory term that over-identifies the children with what they do rather than who they are—the small children were digging through garbage looking for anything they could eat.
When they were very young, their father had abandoned them. Their young mother began scavenging through dumps and trash heaps looking for things that could be salvaged and recycled. She would sell the scraps that she found, but it wasn’t enough to provide for her family.
Around the world—in every country—some version of this dehumanizing way of survival mars the dignity of women and men, girls and boys, all who bear the divine imprint of God in their humanity.
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