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 and long.”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.