Why shoes are a big deal.

I’m late, I know. I’m sorry!

This week I have been procrastinating about writing the blog, mainly because what I wanted to write about was weighing quite heavily on me and I didn’t know how best to approach the subject. I still don’t, but I have fought through the procrastination, little by little, with the help of coffee, coke and mango – it isn’t a stream of consciousness, more like little puddles of thoughts. Thank you for continuing to read along with me!

One of the ministries of Voz Na Rua, which is now a ministry for the church, is that every fortnight a group from the church to visit both the male and female Funase. This Sunday I went over to the Funase for boys for the second time. Funase is the juvenile detention centre, which holds boys between the ages of 13 and 17 for a myriad of crimes, and a part of the work of the church is to go along, hold a small service, take some snacks, and just visit with the boys. (All of which is also true for the girl’s detention centre, which hopefully I will be able to visit next time – I have been warned that the girls situation is a lot more difficult than that of the boys, which worries me, since the boy’s situation is no day at the fair either).

The first time I went along to the Funase, was when I was visiting Brazil several years ago, January 2014. We drove through the city and into the suburbs, up some pretty steep hills (I heard a story about how some more substantial members of the team have had to step out of the cars just so that the cars can get to the top of the hills) into the community where the detention centre is situated. That time, several years ago, we drove in through the gates of the detention centre and we were confronted by much yelling, slamming of objects against bars, noises really, of a revolt. I have to confess that I didn’t feel particularly safe and secure and couldn’t imagine how week after week this team (and in honesty, particularly the women) could feel safe to enter into such a situation. As it was, the situation that day was particularly bad, and we were asked to leave without seeing the boys, who had been put on lock down. As information started to come in, we understood that there had been a revolt in the adult prison and a guard had lost his life, and somehow the news had spread to the boys who were in some way affected by this news, I don’t know if the emotions then were that they were encouraged, or afraid, or excited by the news but in any case, this was not the opportunity for us to visit with them. That feeling of uncomfortableness bordering on fight or flight kind of fear stayed with me for a good three years when I thought about the work at Funase. I must admit, that, although I truly believe that this ministry is one that is very worthwhile, I have been putting off going for a couple of weeks now because of residual anxiety.

This week I overcame it. Or more correctly, I just got on with it. I didn’t really allow myself to dwell on my nerves, and I was glad that I did.  There were about 17 of us, which is quite a big team, and generally someone prepares a talk and we do a small service in the Ecumenical space of the detention centre. Usually we are allowed to be at the centre from about 2pm until 4pm. Well, I think that ‘usual’ is never the case ultimately here. This time the guards told us we should go as a team from house to house and speak to the boys in their bunks (I think it Is actually because the guard had lost the key to the ecumenical space), and said that we could stay a little longer if that’s the time it took.

What followed was three and a half hours of quite an emotional but enriching time for us all, we were able to visit with the boys, chat with them, hear some of their prayer requests. We sang with them, which seemed to be one of the things that they most enjoyed. There were quite a lot of tears both from the team, and from the boys. Paul had prepared a message but, doing it 6 times over would have been a little too much so in many of the houses a member of the team would share some of their story, often more than one person, as people were moved to share with the boys. After the afternoon, we had run out of snacks by the fourth house, and all of us were absolutely drained of energy and many were quite emotional and moved by seeing one of the boys that we worked with in the community, in one of the cells.

I was also left with a sadness about the situation of the prisons. Coming from Finland, our prisons are very comfortable with many amenities – these boys are living in houses of, on average, about 10 boys. Each has a bed of concrete with a very thin mattress on it, I didn’t see any pillows, they have a change of clothes (If they have families who have provided such), there was one table fan per house that was situated in the communal space – which consisted of this fan, and a concrete bench. Other than these items, there was a shower head, iron bars and locks, and that was it. Nothing else. Not even water outside of meal times. The church had sent some artists in in the past couple of months to graffiti some of the walls with murals, and these were the only dashes of colour in the uniform houses. For children, because that is who we are talking about here.

Many of the boys at Funase didn’t look like hardened criminals, in fact hardly any did, they looked more like young boys who were sad and scared. Hardly any of them looked their age, and it very much made me consider their situation and how many of them would have gotten to the point that they are at. Without knowing the finer details of the specific stories of the boys, but with an understanding of the situation of the communities that are served by this detention centre we can suppose that many of these boys are not in this situation because of consequences of direct poor decisions that they have made, but because of the pressures of their community.  I remember boys in our community in Tejipio who were handed a gun and told to go sort their own dinner out at the age of 8, by their own fathers. These are not easy communities to break through in, nor are these easy times in this city, where gangs are rife and poverty abounds. This is not excusing the behaviour of these boys, nor does it mean that I particularly think that they should not be removed from society for a time, especially since I have personally been mugged four times, and by boys within this age bracket, but my heart breaks a little for choices that were made under duress.

Leaving Funase made me feel like there was so much more that I wish that we could do, if we could work alongside the correctional officers to help rehabilitate and train the boys, but this is a bit of a dream, although not complete fantasy, definitely not a part of the next 5 months of my time here. Regardless of this, God has given us an opportunity to help some of the boys who have recently left Funase. One young man, on his exit from the detention centre has joined the fellowship at the church, and has been with us several Sundays now, which means we are able to help find him new training opportunities and show him kindness and friendship. We recently received a message from another one of the boys who has recently left the detention centre, asking to come along to church, but also for help for clothing, shoes in particular, so that he is able to get a job and feel comfortable coming along to church. Myself and the ministry leader are visiting Henrique tomorrow, and we are praying to find other ways that we could help him, the shoes were donated by members of the church as soon as the need was made known, but we hope to be able to extend more assistance as well as friendship.

(As an interesting side note, shoes have been a sign of social class here in Brazil ever since the abolition of slavery. I don’t have the time, the research or the space in this weeks blog to go into great detail, but I always remember one of the professors of Afro-Brazilian History telling us how the first thing that a freed slave would buy with his pay check, was a pair of shoes. Slaves were not allowed shoes , for numerous reasons, but mainly so they would not run away, so when a freed slave wore a pair of new shoes, this showed their newly attained social status. I believe that some of this has continued into the culture to this day. Many would feel awkward going to church in a pair of sandals (which would be what many wear most commonly), as this would be considered a sign of disrespect or an outward sign of poverty).

This week be praying for:

-       Henrique and building more relationships with the boys within Funase.

-       For the continued ministries in these detention centres

-       For my sleep, I have unfortunately not been sleeping well due to mosquitos and fights in my street.