Nova Aliança Rehab Center – Murillo’s Story

Murillo asked to be locked in the church. Thirty days. A desperate crack addict, he knew he needed help and his mother’s priest said nothing could be done. But Pastor Solomon agreed to try.

“He said, ‘I know nothing about drugs, but I’ll help you. I can lock you up, and I’ll try to find out everything I can to help you,’” Murillo says, remembering. Knowing it was his best chance of getting clean, Murillo agreed. One month later, he was ready to leave, ready to pursue a new dream of opening a rehab center for men just as broken and bound by addictions.

20121112_rehabportraits_0010

 

During his stay at the church he heard God’s call on his life. “I was resistant to the Word at first. In the middle of treatment someone was preaching and it was love that they showed me. I felt this love and I felt like I had a bigger family by my side that was always worried about me. I thank God for the brothers and sisters who were there.”

He realized his testimony could be used to help others battling the same problems. “I was sweating and shaking and I started dreaming. I started to dream and write down my dreams and you’re sitting in my dream now,” he says, pointing at the walls of his office at the Nova Aliança Rehab Center.

20121107_novaalianca_0051-Edit

Murillo’s new rehab center is down the road from his original location. He built up a beautiful facility on rented land, but when the man who owned the property decided he wanted Murillo off, the guys packed up what they could and started over in a new place.

The new spot is beautiful, an old farm with a sprawling view of green fields and cattle grazing behind what now serves as the main office building. “I looked for a place that would be comfortable and pleasant because you have to have something that replaces the drug,” Murillo says. Before opening his own, he visited different rehab centers, taking notes of things he saw, what worked, what he wanted to recreate. “I went to bible study, took Christian life courses and as many bible study courses as I could. This, what we have here,” he says speaking of Nova Alianca, “it’s a missionary project.”

In the eight years since he’s been running the rehab, over 4,000 men have come. Of those 4,000, one to two hundred are clean at max. “Only the ones that truly submit to the process succeed. The ones that last are the ones that truly got to know God.” Currently, there are about 70 guys in the program. They eat, sleep, work, and study the Word of God. They wake up at 5:45 and have devotional time until 6:30. From eight to eleven they do whatever work they have been assigned, taking care of animals, cooking, cleaning, laundry. They rest at eleven, followed by lunch at noon. After a midday nap, the 1:45 wake-up horn sounds and they have bible study from two to three or four.

“Many of the guys here are from Christian families,” Murillo says. “They grow up and are curious and they think they want to experience something…like the prodigal son. I remember him when I see these kids. They are at the point of eating pig’s food and they want to come back. Thank God He goes after them.” Murillo used drugs for fifteen years. He started with drinking and soon experimented with inhalants. “I had sniffed Lolo (a strong inhalant) and the next step was easy, so I tried it. I never thought it would trap me.” That thinking traps so many of these guys that find themselves at Nova Aliança. They cannot fix themselves. “I’m the proof of that,” Murillo says, “I had tried before.” Only 200 hundred of 4,000 are clean today. Murillo has seen them fall. “I suffered so much when I saw these guys go back. But I understand that what I’m called to do is to go and preach the gospel. Sometimes they confess, but God is the one who saves. We suffer because we believe in certain people but then it’s wasted, the world suffocates the Word. The bible says who is born of God overcomes the world.”

Murillo gives a tour of the center, points out the work being done on the kitchen, the fields they’ve rented to people who want to graze cattle, the new rubber floor mats that were donated for the outdoor gym. He talks about his plans to clean up the pond down the hill to raise fish to help feed the guys. They’re working on a place upstairs in the office building for a doctor. All of these projects, all of these drug addicts needing support, and yet Murillo knows he isn’t doing this alone. “God meets our needs. I never feel like I need to turn anyone away because of funds. Sometimes they arrive with only the clothes on their body. The just will live by faith. Without faith it’s impossible to please God, so we have to rest in Him. It makes Him happy.” The work here is never done. “It’s a constant battle with the enemy, Murillo says, we need spiritual courage. Pray that He saves and brings light and strength. The prayer of a righteous man availeth much, how much more will the prayer of many. I have no doubt that I’m on my feet here because of so many people praying for this work.”

Outside the office the guys gather for bible study, taking their places on the donated blue airport benches. It’s warm and sunny, but they rub away grog from their naps and open their bibles. Murillo is off to run another errand, his phone ringing again as he waves goodbye. Nova Aliança, this rehab center Murillo dreamed and started, it’s a refuge. “It’s by grace,” Murillo says, “It doesn’t come from me. I don’t want to glory in it.” It’s a place for street kids, men broken and bound, it’s a place where God can come in to break the chains of their addictions and break the chains that bind them in sin. For by grace. One of the best ways to keep their mind off addictions is to keep these guys busy. That’s easy enough considering Murillo just moved to this new location and there’s plenty of work to do. One of the guys, Luciano, is an alcoholic. But before that he was a mason. Now, one of his primary jobs at the rehab is to renovate the kitchen. One half of it, the food prep area, is pretty well finished. In accordance with the Board of Health regulations, white ceramic tiles cover the floors and six feet up the walls. It’s spotless, washed clean after every meal. On the other side of the wall, the unfinished half of the kitchen still needs work. The floor, crushed up pieces of cement and broken tile, will need to be leveled, cement poured, and then tiled. By our next visit, less than a week later, the floor is already level and cemented.

Unlike most places in this part of Brazil, Murillo doesn’t waste time getting things accomplished. Things are organized, scheduled, and when something needs doing, it gets done. Outside the kitchen area, the guys show us their soap-making room. Bottles of green, purple, and white disinfectant soaps are stacked in neat rows, filling plastic crates ready for sale. They recycle two-liter soda bottles, scrubbing and washing them outside and then organizing them to be filled inside. There are two cement washing sinks filled with bottles caps ready for use. The guys are eager to show us their finished product. They smell fresh, clean, lavender, citrus. Ricardo is one of the guys who takes the soaps to sell in the city. The two-liter bottles sell for five reais (about $2.50). They go door to door in the mornings, and then sell at the street lights in the afternoons. The guys responsible for producing and selling the soap, like Ricardo, get a cut of the profits to save for when they are ready to leave the rehab. Jobs like these give them a sense of purpose. Saving money helps them prepare for the future. And as they work together to provide for the rehab, and to work to make it more functional, they take pride in their responsibilities.

Without Strength

I hate crack. I hate what it does to lives. I hate the power it has to strip a soul of everything but the desperate, pathetic craving for more and more of its poison. I ache with the longing to annihilate every trace of it from every street and alley and favela. The smell of it makes me sick and the sight of a hand cupped around a match, head lowered to smoke it, makes my stomach drop right to my feet with despair.

Yesterday, Manoel wanted to go to the rehab. He said he would go, so we went to pick him up. He is sick, beyond thin, and weak. He has no money, no food, and he has sold everything but the shorts he was wearing.

Manoel is the brother of our sister in Christ, Inaçia. He was living on the street in Brasilia, and desperately needed help, so in December we bought him a bus ticket and brought him here. He lived with us through February, professed to be saved, and was doing great. He got a job at a hotel in the city, went to live in the city, and was working full time. But he says that crack has never stopped calling to him. He says that he is saved, but he is afraid that he won’t be able to resist this despicable drug. He sat in the office at the rehab and cried. I felt helpless and very tired and weak.

I know that the God I serve is greater than the enemy. But today I’m feeling the enormous burden of the fight. And I’m asking God why the victories are so few. I can’t stop thinking of Manoel crying at the rehab. I’m praying that he doesn’t leave. I’m praying that God takes over and gives Manoel His peace, His love and His victorious power over sin.

I don’t like feeling broken and helpless in this huge battle. But I am asking God to keep breaking my heart for His service. In this place of brokenness I am better aligned with His heart and better suited to His work. And in my helplessness He comes in and takes charge.

 

He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. (Isaiah 40:29 NKJV)

St. John’s Festival

St. John’s festival, or Festa de São João, is celebrated with bonfires, corn on the cob, quadrilha, and costumes right out of the Beverly Hillbillies. It’s a primarily Catholic holiday here that officially falls on the 24th of June, but ends up being celebrated all month. I call it St. Elmo’s Fire because just about every house has a huge, smoke-producing bonfire in front of it, at night, all month long.This is the third year that Mark and I will be joining in the festivities in Aningas.

The first year that we started having get-togethers on Sunday nights in Aningas, we were approached by a few young people, who asked if we would come to the festa de São João. “Certainly!” we answered. “São João was very dear to The Lord Jesus; of course we will come! We’ll even bring Gospels of John, so people can read what São João says about Jesus.” And so we shocked the community of Aningas by setting up a barraca and staying until the last bus drove away.

We were shocked, too, by the huge, gorgeous buses that rolled down the dirt road into the tiny community of Aningas. Nine enormous buses pulled in one at a time, competed in the quadrilha, and left. The quadrilha is kind of like square dancing crossed with the Sicilian tarantella, set to polka music, which blares at 10,000 decibels and deafens us all.

But it’s the crowds of people I love. Mark fashions a kind of “tent” out of PVC pipe and canvas. I make cachorro quente, a hot dog/sloppy Joe mixture that the girls help us serve on hot dog rolls. Mark works the crowd, handing out Gospels of John and tracts. And the crowd goes wild! They love getting the scripture and they tell us that the cachorro quente is delicious, but the Word is the best! What could be better than this?

So, tomorrow night, pray for us, giving out the best news about the heart of God, smack dab in the heart of this much-loved community.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  (John 1:29 NKJV)

The Public Hospital

I pass the public hospital almost every day, on my way to anywhere, just about. This building is a constant reminder of all the need that it represents.

The first time I brought someone there, I cried and cried, trying to hide it, of course, but basically failing. I had plenty of time, even that first day, to observe things that I hadn’t even imagined, in my past life. People lined the corridors, sitting on the floor. Little family groups huddled together, cradling a sick family member in their arms. Amputees, elderly, children, and people quietly crying were all sensory overloads to my horrified self.

It was one of those times when I prayed without words. The prayer was a groan and a deep sense of longing for God to put things right. I spent five hours there, my first day, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I sat on the cement floor with everybody else and entered into the misery of waiting, with no power to change the outcome. I felt like I was reliving the scene in John 5, at the Pool of Bethesda, except where was The Lord? At one point I even looked down the corridor and imagined what it would be like to see Him walk around the corner and come to the rescue. I longed for that rescue.

Hospital Onofre Lopes-Edit-Edit

I’ve been to that hospital so many times now, I’ve lost count. Each time I bring someone there, I’m reminded of that man at the pool. “Sir, I have no man,” he told The Lord. I look at all the people there and I wonder at God’s grace to the person I’m with. I’m reminded to tell them that God Himself has stepped in, has singled them out, and is showing them how much He loves them.

I’m heading to Aningas to take someone to that hospital today. It will be a long, mostly tedious day, and there is very little chance that anything will be resolved. Each case takes many months of visits. For me, this is a nightmare, and I really have to beg God to take over because I never go there with the right attitude. For God, every hour spent is an hour filled with opportunity to quietly and patiently live Christ and show Him to a dying world. I have a hard time with quietly and patiently, and I usually fail. And when I fail and give up my will and wants, He takes over and makes everything easy. It becomes easy to love, easy to wait and easier to spend the time talking about the Great Physician. When The Lord takes over, every single person waiting in those corridors has the chance to see Him and the opportunity to be rescued by His strong arm of Salvation. I’m hoping that I fail today and He succeeds. Please pray for this.
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 AMP)

Driven to Love

I have this little daily calendar thingy, sitting on its plastic holder/easel, next to the sink. It has a verse on each page. There are many mornings when I read the verse and close my eyes–quite briefly so I don’t fall back asleep!–and revel in the assurance and comfort that God is giving me. Those are the good mornings.

Every day, though, I do this little inner bracing, before I read the verse, because I’m going to receive either divine comfort or a Scripture stabbing, and I really don’t want the stabbing.

This particular morning, I leaned over to read and saw:
Let all that you do be done in love.
(1 Corinthians 16:14 ESV)

The blade was quick and powerful, parried with a sleight of hand that was breathtaking. “Ugh,” I thought, “This is a grim missionary moment.” But, I’ve learned to take the hit and face it, because otherwise I’ll just keep being stabbed by the Word until I let God deal with the issue. So, I faced the incident that had occurred the day before…

Driving here is just horrendous. When Mark and I got our Brazilian driver’s licenses, the Motor Vehicle instructor asked me what I thought of the five quite rigorous written tests we had to take. I told her how I was amazed that all the people on the road had gone through such a demanding process. She laughed and answered that some 70% of drivers on the road do not have their license.

So, on this particular day, I left the Kilometer 6 favela, where I had brought medicine and ointment to a little girl and others, going door to door with hugs and much love and the Word. Then, I hit the road, like Sybil, with a personality change that happens every time I drive here. I stew in my aggravation and live off of my imaginary lectures to all the nearby drivers, getting more annoyed, and more unloving by the second. Apparently, I have compartmentalized this missionary life into, on and off duty moments.

Thus the verse.

I took the little 2″x3″ paper verse and folded the daisy out of sight. Then I put that verse right on my rear view mirror, all symbolism duly noted. If I don’t allow God’s love to commandeer me in the car, my days on the streets and in the favelas become cheapened somehow.

I’m a long way off from handling the chaotic driving here with love, but I want to do all things with love. I really do. Pray for this!

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating…exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.
(Hebrews 4:12 AMP)

Inside the Box

This is one of many abandoned children living on the streets. His mom told him never to come back home. She found a new husband and he doesn’t want the “old kids.” He’s 10 years old, selling himself, and addicted to crack. Living inside a box on the side of a street.

 

20110403_cambuim_0007-Edit

Today

Today we went to pick up two street kids and take them to the rehab. One of them was nowhere to be found. The other, Gutenberg, didn’t want to look at us, as we drove up. “Not today,” he said.

There was a group of about 15-20 kids standing around the car. Each of them was recommending another, who needed the rehab the most.

“Look how bad João is; he’s not even washing his face.” To which João replied, “Yes, but I’m not as thin as you. You need to go more than I do.”

They all desperately want out, but they can’t; the pull of crack is just too strong, and they are no match for its power. Today I feel the struggle, and I realize how few there are that respond to God calling them.

I’m learning that I need to rely on God to prepare the heart. The Bible calls it “good soil.” I pray for that good soil and I pray for God to go ahead of us and lead us right to a soul. Just one soul. I long for a soul to be rescued. I’ve seen Him rescue and transform a life and I want to see more of that amazing, saving power of His.

Today wasn’t the day. We fed them sandwiches and cold Coke, and we prayed with them. Without Him we can do nothing.

 

“Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” (Luke 8:8 NASB)

 

 

Rehab Visit

The girls from Aningas–Nadine, Natalia, Layane and Rita–have been missing the weekly trips with us to the favelas and on the streets. We haven’t taken them since all the street killings started.  So, we spent a day visiting the rehab and the Lar Bom Jesus. I love driving along with these girls. It’s non-stop chatter and giggles and singing at the top of their (our!) lungs. Then, when there’s a lull in all that, they start asking God-questions and questions about their walk with Him. This is the good stuff. I love, love, love these girls!

 

girls

 

That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God [with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition]. (Colossians 1:10 AMP)

Pictures of Lar Bom Jesus

photo-Edit

 

Here’s the first completed building at the Lar Bom Jesus, a children’s home we’ve been helping in, since 2007. There are three houses being built. This one is for the girls; there’s also one for the boys, and the third is for the kitchen and dining room. Right now, there are 33 children ready to move in and so excited!

 

image-1-Edit

This is the front door, with louvered side panels, to the girls’ home. We bought this door a few months ago, when we learned that the current landlord wanted Cleide and the kids out of their rental property. Cleide was praying for doors when we showed up with fellowship that we had received. We have had the joy, so many times, of arriving with food or goods, just when Cleide is in her room, on her knees, telling God about her need. It leaves us speechless, with the thrill of His care for these children, and His care for us. He’s real!

image-Edit

Inside the girls’ home, this is the the main living area. We purchased the inside doors for the home.

 

You

I’ve been thinking about you all week. It started when I wrote about one of my daily frustrations, here in the Third World. I wrote to make you laugh, and really, I wrote to make me laugh.

Most days, I create these little comedies, in my head, out of the very things that frustrate me. For example, I often envision extra angels being dispatched from heaven, to keep me from making some very anti-missionary move. I have this whole scenario created in my mind and I start to laugh; then the moment when I was feeling so frustrated or whiny, or downright nasty, passes, replaced by humor. And it is so good to laugh.

I shared one of these moments with you, and you wrote me back. I felt awkward at first because you were supposed to laugh, not feel bad for me. But you had entered into the whole saga and you felt–for and with me!–all the things I felt before the humor kicked in. You encouraged me. You comforted me. And you made such a huge difference in the way I feel here. I don’t feel so far away from you.

I want you to pray for us. I want you to be able to pray for specific things here because you know what’s going on. I want you to know our frustrations and struggles, along with the joys of serving God. But, apart from your prayer, this week I discovered that I also covet the contact from you. Just seeing your name in the inbox or a “like” or comment on Facebook makes me smile. It buoys me. I found myself whispering a little “Thanks,” to God for you and blowing a kiss to God and you. It’s downright New Testament-like, this thinking of you and thanking God for every reminder of you.

 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace. (Philippians 1:7 ESV)