The Word Among Us

April/May 2010 Issue

Turning a Mountain of Garbage into a Monument of Hope

What does a busy New York priest have to do with a slum in the Philippines?

By: Patricia Mitchell

Turning a Mountain of Garbage into a Monument of Hope: What does a busy New York priest have to do with a slum in the Philippines? by Patricia Mitchell

Ten years ago, Fr. Jim Hewes read a newspaper article that changed his life. It was about poor people in the Philippines, outside Manila, who existed by scavenging through garbage on a seven-story-high municipal dump.

The story of their extreme poverty could have made the news by itself, but there was more: The mountain of trash had been loosened by...

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