Back in May when we were in Egypt we toured some old churches started by the coptic christians up in the mountain sides. The churches are built right into the cave and are so beautifully structured with bible verses and pictures carved into the walls. The largest church holds 10,000 people, the other 2,000 and then a smaller one holding 200. On thursday nights they have prayer and healing nights where miraculous healing have taken place, blind seeing and people standing up and walking out of their wheelchairs. According to stories, back in the day the mountain surrounding the churches moved after the prayer of a very faith filled man Simon the tanner. The people could see the light shine through as the mountain lifted. You can read more about the story of the miracle here. These beautiful cave churches are surrounded by what is called garbage city. The city is made up of walls and walls of trash, a giant slum it looks like from the outside but a business none the less from the inside. All of Cairo's trash gets brought and dumped here and people work all day long sorting through the trash in the bottom of run down buildings. They sort through things that can be recycled and reused. We were told that above in the tops of these buildings the business owners live in luxury. The city is mostly christians and muslims do not work here because of the many pigs roaming around. Many people are born into the life of a garbage collector and few are able to have the money and chance to get out of this lifestyle. We were only able to drive through but I would have loved to meet some people, the city was packed full of trash as well as numerous people out and about, lots of men sitting around smoking hookah as well, a common pastime here. The priests of the churches up on the hill have helped out Garbage city in many ways with building hospitals and school and teaching sanitation.
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