Esther Havens Photography

On the outskirts of Cairo lies a small trash city called “Helwen”. I spent some time there when I was in Cairo, documenting the life of several people who take their wagons to the nearby city daily and collect the trash, they take it back to their living and filter through it to find things to sell and recycle. They can sometimes make a decent living in certain trash cities. On one particular day, I found myself in the living area of a cute little family that sat me down and made me a delicious cup of tea. I asked them questions about their life and they asked me questions about mine. I asked if I could take a photo of their family and told them I would get the photographs back to them through a friend. Little did I know how much they would mean later on. I got word last week that the Father died in an accident on the dump site and they had no living photograph of him. My friend in Cairo quickly printed off the images I had and brought them to the family. She wrote this, “Giving them the pictures was really hard.. His family was devastated.. they couldn’t believe they had pictures of him, it was very emotional”.
I, myself, said goodbye to my Dad a few years ago as he went on to be with Jesus. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through. I am still hurting from it daily and I can’t imagine what i’d do if i didn’t have photographs to bring me back to beautiful memories. I am so thankful for them. Please keep their family in your prayers this week.

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