Cambuim

The people in Cambuim built a bridge to cross the river.

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Old MacDonald’s farm, come to life in Cambuim with donkeys, horses, pigs, chickens, cats and dogs.

 

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A little boy plays in the afternoon sun; Cambuim is his sand box.

 

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Serving with a Smile

One of the boys was serving his friends juice: “You want more? Ok, hold on.” And off he scurried to fill their cups.

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Smile!

 

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At Work

Many hands make light work! 300 sandwiches packaged and ready for the favelas today.

 

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When in Aningas, if you don’t have a car, no problem – grab a donkey and hitch a ride!

 

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After a day of hard work, the girls head for the beach.

 

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Visiting the Streets

The girls pose for a photo with Inacia before we head onto the streets.

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Cleaning out the coolers, getting ready for a day on the streets.

 

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Inha, 9 months pregnant, enjoys her sandwich and juice with some friends. She asks us for diapers for the soon-to-arrive child, and some medicine for her two-year old child.

 

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Layane carries juice and some sandwiches across the street. One of the men at this stop died this morning, from alcohol intoxication. Pray that God frees these men and women from the chains of sin, that they may go free and walk in newness of life.

 

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Meeting Sandra

Meeting Sandra in her new house. She moved out of the favela, because she can’t stand living in the house, where all the violence took place. She doesn’t have the means to rent there much longer.

 

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Sandra’s Story

Favela life is cruel; it’s made up of filth and violence, drugs and gangs, shootings and abuse of every kind. Sandra lost her husband to all of the above, a couple weeks ago.

Paulinho was a decent guy. Sandra says he didn’t use drugs. He worked very hard to support her and the five kids. When the 10 year old came home from school with crack in his backpack, Paulinho went to Alexandre, a local trafficker, and told him to leave his son alone. Alexandre replied, “I’ll get you for that.”

imageSo, on a Sunday night Alexandre and two other kids broke into their shack and fired 2 shots into Paulinho’s head. The three year old, Gustavo, tried to catch his dad, as he fell. Biel, the 10 year old, ran to help Gustavo. Alexandre fired again and hit Paulinho’s hand. The children were covered in blood.

Friday, we were there, in Monte Celeste, with sandwiches and juice, and the Word. When Sandra told us her story, we listened and hugged her and prayed with her. She questions God. She is both angry and lost. She has no means to provide for the five children.

We don’t have answers, but God does. Like so many other times here, we can only do the practical. We use our hands and our feet to show His love. So, yesterday Andrew and Stephanie, Mark and I brought her groceries and stayed a while. We can listen. We can hug those children. We can pray with them. Please pray with us for Sandra, left alone with five children: Biel, Clara Eliane, Raíssa, Valesca, and Gustavo.

Pray that Gustavo and Sandra will be able to sleep at night. Pray that Biel will stop feeling guilty that he caused his dad’s death. Pray that they will be safe, with Alexandre still living nearby. Pray that Sandra will be able to find work and move the children to another school.

Come and See

Stephanie and Andrew arrived yesterday, and all the reasons why I crave visitors came flooding back to my visitor-deprived self, like oxygen rushes into your system after you’ve been underwater a few seconds too long.
It’s not that the joy of God’s Work here doesn’t buoy us up. Or that your emails and comments don’t fill us with love and strengthen us. They do. It’s just that the day-to-day here keeps us hunkered down and closely focused on each moment. It’s like our life is a sample laid out on a glass slide, under a microscope, and we zoomed the focus in, almost on top of each moment.

When you come to visit, we stop, pull back from the “burn” range, and review all the things that God has done, and is doing. It gives us a fresh vision of how amazing God is. It makes us see a bigger Hand, a bigger Heart than ours. And it gives us the greatest joy to share it with you face to face, place by place.

I anticipate bringing you to all the places we visit by rote, and seeing it fresh through your eyes. I feel for you, because the sights are shocking and the anguish and despair that you will feel are overwhelming. But it’s this very depth of emotion that brings the Savior near. So near. And then His love takes over and you don’t even see the surroundings, you’re back in the “burn zone” of His service, where you’re being used, but He’s doing all the work. That’s where true joy fills you.

I love to show you and watch God slay you with His purpose and His plan. It’s so much more effective than my words. I can try so hard to express something in writing, and it may, or may not, come out right, but five seconds when God’s at work, and you are living and feeling everything I so wish I could put into words. Wish you were here.

Come and see what God has done: He is awesome in His deeds toward the children of man. (Psalm 66:5 ESV)

 

Let Freedom Ring and Reign!

Last year on the Fourth of July, we picked up Renato on the street corner and took him to the rehab. He was the biggest mess you ever saw, with an eye swollen shut and open sores on his face. Someone had smashed his face with a cement block, as he was sleeping on the sidewalk. He was wearing a pair of raggedy shorts. That’s all.

Renato had two surgeries, for broken bones in his face and eye. Slowly he cleaned up and cheered up. He professed to be saved. He asked if he could call us Mom and Dad, because he doesn’t remember his parents and he’s never had anyone just for him.

Two months ago, the doctor that visits and helps at the rehab, hired him to work in his family’s pet store. Renato leaves the rehab at 5:00 a.m. and bicycles to work, about 5 miles away. He gets back to the rehab at 7:00 p.m.

 

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Monday we stayed at the rehab till he got back from work. After hugs he asked us, “Do you know what this Thursday is?”

“Yes, filho, we know,” we said.

“It’s my one year anniversary! he said.

Renato is the reason why we are here. For one more soul like this, we pray every day. And go after them all like there is no such thing as failure.

I’m so thankful today for the absolute freedom found in Jesus Christ. Let freedom reign in our hearts and in our souls.

Here I Am

God whispered in my ear.Three times actually. No, I’m not hearing voices, but His Word kept coming to my mind, and the whole experience turned out to be the best heaven-hug I ever got.

It started yesterday morning on the street. Adriano came running as soon as he saw us and said that he really needed the rehab.

“Come tomorrow,” he said, “and Jefferson wants to go, too.”

So I said to God, “Lord, I was crying this week, and asking You where the victories were, and here You are, sending me two of my favorite kids to go to the rehab. I love You, Lord.”

He whispered, “Here I am.”

So, today we arrived to pick up the two boys, but three boys were there!

“Ah, Lord,” I said. “Beyond what I ask or think, right?”

He whispered, “Here I am.”

We got to the rehab and the boys got signed in and told about the rules. After that, Mark and I signed for each of them, accepting the responsibility for their care, health and needs during their stay. Then, we gave Goiás the money for food that we always give when we bring kids to the rehab.

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Goiás said to me and Mark, “Come here, I want to show you something.”
He took us to the kitchen and opened the freezers and the pantry and a food storage cabinet. They had been promised a food donation, but it didn’t arrive. So, they prayed. And we arrived.

We stood in that kitchen and bowed our heads and told God that we love it when He’s so near that our hearts feel like they’re bursting with the joy of it. We love when He proves His love to us and lets us know that we’re not alone.

I blew Him a kiss and He whispered in my ear again. You know what He said.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, “Here I am.”
And if you pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like the noonday.
(Isaiah 58:9,10 AMP)

The Long Journey

One of our favorite things about visiting the rehab is seeing the guys we’ve brought that are doing well. Ricardo and Mario are already here, and on our way to visit, we pick up two more guys who have asked to come. We stop by the police check point near Mosquito to pick up Rafael. He promised to meet us here at 10:00 am and we see him, waiting, ready to go. He gets in the car with nothing, no bags, no clothes, nothing. Just the clothes he’s wearing, dirty and worn. He’s twenty-four years old.

He’s asked to come before, but never followed through. “It was in my mind a long time,” he tells us, “I gave up. My heart is filled with the desire to change. I know God has something different, something better. If God frees me from this maybe I can help other people.” He’s quiet unless we ask questions, staring out the window as we drive down the road, headed to where Francisco is waiting to be picked up. We ask him how long, when he first tried drugs. “I was seventeen-years-old the first time I tried crack,” he says. “I started with cigarettes, then marijuana with friends. I was living with an aunt who took care of me for a while. My mother died and I never met my father.” The air outside is hot. The air conditioning is cranked in the Tracker, a cool and bumpy ride to meet Francisco.

Rafael keeps talking, telling us his story. “I tried it once. Then two or three years later I became really hooked on it. I started going out with friends after being in the army for a year. I was also drinking with my friends and the drugs make you want to drink to slow you down a bit.” Rafael looks out the window, still thinking but not saying anything. His fears. What scares him about rehab? “I have no one. I have no one there for me. My biggest fear is that I’ll go and there will be no one there to visit me, no one on my side. I want to get back to a normal life. It’s been fifteen days since I’ve used. I was already thinking, thinking thinking, and praying. I was praying when you came to Mosquito [with the sandwiches and juice] that day. I was there by coincidence. I don’t live there. I’d been living down by the river.” He thinks about “coincidence” and God’s timing and Clessio.

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He was good friends with Clessio. Clessio who got off the streets, was saved and radically changed for God. Clessio who got out of rehab, dug deep into the Word and shared the gospel with his street friends. Clessio who found a job, kept preaching and sharing Christ with his family until he was shot and killed by desperate addicts in search of drugs. Rafael thinks about Clessio. We pick Francisco up near Ponta Negra. He’s twenty-six and this is his fourth time going to rehab. Why is this time different? “I have a five-year-old son,” he tells us, “and my mom is getting older now. This time I need to think more about the future and really search for God. I need to be there for my mom and my son. I want to be a seen as a dignified person. So much time has gone by.” Francisco is chattier. He’s done this before. It’s a tough transition from the streets to the rehab center. “You have a lot of freedom on the street,” he says. “That’s why nobody can count on us. You can’t trust us because we’re too busy with what we’re doing.

When we go to the rehab we really do want to be there, but then we start to feel boxed in.” He’s been doing drugs since he was twelve. “I started using crack when I was fourteen. I was smoking marijuana for two years before that, but then my uncle gave me crack.” We’re on our way to the rehab now. We’ll make one more stop for some supplies for the guys. We’re still asking Francisco questions. When did he realize he was an addict? “You only realize it at the end. You feel like you’re the one who can control it and stop. You think, ‘whenever I want, I can stop. This is not in control of me. I smoke when I want.’ I was thinking I’m in charge of myself and they [my friends that left me] just let it take over them.” During a prison sentence that Francisco served for robbery, he cleaned up a bit and was doing alright. He never stopped smoking marijuana, but he was able to stop using crack for two months. “So many kids really, really, honestly want to stop, but they can’t. Friends and family and everyone stays away from you and you still can’t.”

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We pull up at a mercandino (little market) near the rehab center. We grab a few baskets to fill with stuff the guys will need: soap, deodorant, cookies, bags of sugar, toothbrushes, toothpaste, bars of laundry soap, crackers, shampoo, shaving supplies, and chips. Lots of munchies and sweets to help curb their cravings. Rafael stands watching while we sort the items into seven separate bags: Rafael, Francisco, Mario, Ricardo, Luciano, and two extra just in case. He’s standing in the middle of the store, a bit lost, hand on his mouth, smiling when we catch his eye. He fidgets, smiles, shifts his feet. No one there for me. No one to visit. This is his family, right here, in the store, buying supplies to hold him over for the first two weeks until they can next visit. This is the family that tells him, “If you don’t fix your eyes on Jesus Christ and stay at the foot of the cross you don’t have a chance. Seek Him with all the force of your will and don’t let Him go. Fix your eyes on the future. The road is narrow.”