Every year during Vankleek Hill’s annual Trash N’ Treasure yard sale day, Vankleek Hill Baptist Church participates with a yard sale outside the church building at the corner of Main and Bertha streets. This year, during Trash N’ Treasure on Saturday, June 7, the Baptist church yard sale will be raising money to help Christians in Pakistan facing extreme hardship.
In Pakistan, millions of people work as indentured servants in brick kilns or farms for oppressive landlords due to unpaid debts accumulated over generations. Many of these debts are for amounts of money that most people in the western world could easily pay, but for already impoverished Pakistanis, it is impossible. The situation is basically slavery.
Vankleek Hill Baptist Church has arranged with partners to raise funds to help a man named Yusuf and his family pay their debt and be finally emancipated from working in the brick kilns after more than 50 years.
According to information supplied by congregation member Leola Meagher, Yusuf’s parents worked in the kilns before him. He and his siblings were born and raised there. The debt was initially a small amount incurred by his father, but then, due to a decision Yusuf made, the amount increased significantly.
“When I was younger, my father got sick. His kidneys failed him, so I gave him my kidney. This (transplant surgery) increased his debt, which then transferred to me when he died.”
Yusuf now has a son of his own, and neither of them has known life outside the brick kilns.
For Christian families trapped working in Pakistan’s brick kilns, an unpaid debt is passed from one generation to the next, and due to the unreasonable financial conditions, it is often impossible to repay the debt.
For example, Yusuf owes $790, but his wages are barely enough to cover the interest. This means that the debt will increase, and eventually be inherited by his son.
The yard sale at Vankleek Hill Baptist Church during Trash N’ Treasure on Saturday, June 7, begins at 9 am.
