Rejoice! Rejoice!

Happy Tuesday all!

Firstly, I would like to say that Samuel has recovered almost fully from his illness. He has come out of it almost a new little boy, learning new words daily – although people are telling me that the new words that he was learning have a  Finnish twinge to them! Thank you for your thoughts, messages and prayers.

Our week has mainly been getting ready for our big move that happened this Sunday! Many of the people in the church dedicated man hours, clothes, and enthusiasm. We ran a Bazar on Saturday, which was a really fun experience and we raised about £6000, which here, is a huge amount of money, although not really even close to what the final refurb cost will be for the new church, but it was our first step forward, and now that we have working lights, running water, and some extra chairs we are able to run our first service in the new building (side hall – sound familiar?) this Sunday!

On the first Sunday that I walked into Igreja Rio I was confronted with some of my Brazilian past, in a way which has proved to be a beautiful encouragement for the beginning of my time here. I bumped into a young man named Renan. Renan, now in his early twenties, was one of the very first teenagers that Hannah and I worked with in Tejipio. I remember clearly first meeting him, which is surprising, because we had many children at many different times, and although I have many memories of our youth, I wouldn’t be able to access the memories of first meeting them, but the day I first met Renan was my first ever day at project ZOE. Hannah and I had set up the tables outside, I remember it being quite a sunny day and I had really fallen for the old seminary courtyard with the mango and graviola trees, and the rooster that roamed the area like he owned it (I would later discover that I had over-romanticised the rooster, he was one mean beast that I had to fight off with the lid of the garbage bin many a time, and that he did indeed own the place). I was helping  with the keychain making course and there were about 6 children there. That was the beginning of my ministry. What I first remember about Renan was that he was kind and was trying to help me with my language skills, trying to understand everything that I was saying, which from that day forth, was mainly “Stop!”, ‘Don’t do that!”, “Get down from that tree”, “Put that child down” and “Is that the way that we speak to our elders?”.

The community that Renan is from, where the seminary was, and where I lived, was a poor area. Where many of the children were left to roam the streets for a big part of the day as the schools took the children in turns, for four hours a day and that was on the days that there wasn’t a teachers strike, an electricity cut or the community hadn’t run out of water (which was quite common, as water only arrives to fill the tanks every 3 days, and again, that wasn’t always the case either), or the reverse when the rains came and flooded the community. I think that during an average week, children were in school for about 18 hours and then left without supervision in a dangerous community. Drugs were, and continue to be a big problem in this area, and from what I see the issue is getting worse and more and more dangerous in the area. The main culprits are crack cocaine and glue sniffing, both linked to poverty that has grown out of a corrupt and unjust government, not just the most recent infamous Lava Jato affair, but as a consequence of an every widening gap between the rich and the poor dating back to the founding of the country.

Many of the youth had families that were involved with crime, drugs or prostitution with many of the children also working in these areas to help their families make ends meet. There are many stories that we could tell of the lives of the children that we worked with, but this is not the time for it, I just wanted to give you a small overview of the kind of community that we lived and worked in. We tried our best, alongside several other organisations, to build relationships with the children and their families to help them discover opportunities for themselves that they might not have thought were available to them. None of our children showed any interest in going to school, or further education – or perhaps –many did not think that it was even a possibility for them.  And after we left we heard some sad stories of young people who had gone into a life of crime to be able to support their families, or young girls who had gone on to start families of their own. Many, who had loved the community of the church and been very involved, stopped attending any church when our project in Tejipio shut down.

So, this is why when I saw Renan, the first of these young people that I met in the community, at Igreja Rio, it made me cry a little. He had gotten to know the Voz na Rua community at one of the camps that I had taken him too before I left and had enjoyed it. But over the next 3 or 4 years, he had slowly drifted away from the projects and the church, and had resolved to give up on the church. Then he heard that Voz na Rua was planting a church  and he went along, and ever since that day, this teenager, has grown into a young man, has become a strong, reliable and godly member of Rio. He joined the worship band, and found an amazing talent for singing, with the help of his new community he applied and got into a very sought after conservatory in Recife.

In the last week we have been moving the church, running Bazars and cleaning construction yards, and Renan has been there for all of it, worshiping and serving always with a smile on his face. I tell you this story (having to leave out many details, as otherwise we would be here forever) just to orient you to the situation in the poorer communities, but more to express my absolute joy that this one young person has found his feet, his liberty and his faith. When the Bible says that there is great rejoicing in heaven over one soul that has been saved, I believe this to be true for our community here as well. Renan’s story Is not the only one from our Tejipio community, but it is the one that has encouraged me the most as he is involved in the Igreja Rio community. We thank God greatly for the beautiful gift of encouragement, and for the life of this young man and all he has in front of him!

Be praying for us this week:

-       As Tomas, Marcal, Rubems, and Alberto (most of our leadership) has travelled to a conference in Sao Paulo, leaving Carol and I to head up the work here, and to check on the building progress.

-       My new apartment will be free for me to move into this week! Give thanks!

-       We have a camp for the  transgender sex workers this weekend. Please pray that this would go off without a hitch and be a blessing for all involved!